While you are still struggling with channels and buying traffic, others have already "swept" users through social platforms

Perhaps in the near future, channels and buying traffic will no longer be the main ways to acquire users.

At the beginning of the year, the popularity of " Love and Producer " and " Travel Frog " on social platforms such as Weibo once again demonstrated the importance of game content marketing . A large amount of UGC such as comics, emoticons , jokes, etc. swept the entire social network , and hot products were born. In addition to games like "Travel Frog" that are in line with current popular culture and have triggered spontaneous spread among many players, game products cannot do without official support in creating popularity. Among them, the popularity of "Love and Producer" was due to a lot of official support.

In the "2017 China WeChat Top 500 Annual List" released by Xinbang on January 14, official public accounts of 9 games were shortlisted, including " League of Legends ", " Westward Journey Online 2", " Honor of Kings ", " Fantasy Westward Journey ", " Onmyoji ", "Shenwu 3", "Jian Wang 3", "Honkai Impact 3", and " A Chinese Ghost Story Mobile ". If you observe the official push content of these games, you will find that the number of readings, comments and likes is very considerable. The game’s official social media account has created a good atmosphere for fan interaction through content output, which is of great significance for stabilizing retention and attracting new users .

By comparison, it was found that the user stickiness of " NetEase Onmyoji Mobile Game", which ranked fifth in the overall ranking, was the highest. During the year, "NetEase Onmyoji Mobile Game" published the fewest articles, with 598 articles pushed out in 361 days, but its average reading volume was as high as 87,259 (Xinbang counted readings of 10w+ as 100,001), second only to "Honor of Kings". Judging from the total number of likes for the articles, the “NetEase Onmyoji Mobile Game” official account received more than 1.33 million likes, ranking first. In other words, the official content produced by "Onmyoji" has accurately identified the players' interests, and the activity of its fans ranks among the top in the game category.

If we look at it purely from the perspective of content operation , "Onmyoji" can be regarded as a model. In the early days of its launch, "Onmyoji" took advantage of the viral spread of Weibo and WeChat Moments . In addition to attracting core two-dimensional users, it also covered a large number of general users. The spread of content has brought more new users to the game, and the continuous gathering of users has ignited the creative enthusiasm of core content producers. User-generated content (UGC) can further ignite topics through official promotion. With the official support, a virtuous circle was formed between the game and the content, and "Onmyoji" became a phenomenal game in a short period of time. Its content operation model may provide some ideas for latecomers.

1. Create a trigger point: let players feel "involved"

Looking back at the development process of "Onmyoji", first of all, a series of words such as "SSR", "African", and "European Emperor" continued to ferment and explode on social platforms. In fact, "African" and "European Emperor" are not words created by "Onmyoji", but "Onmyoji" made them popular and attracted people who were not the target group of this type of game to join in. Card drawing is one of the core game systems in Onmyoji. The difficulty of drawing SSRs has always been a hot topic among players in the early days of the game, and the popularity of "European Emperors" and "Unlucky People" also comes from this. By proactively focusing on players' concerns and launching relevant content at the right time, you can spark discussions on social networks. "Using Onmyoji to test blood", "Europe and Africa are destined", "addicted to drawing cards and cannot extricate myself"... I believe many players still remember them vividly.

As the topic became increasingly popular, Ding Lei was invited to live broadcast the "Onmyoji European and African Competition" shortly after the game was launched at the end of September 2016 to promote the game, which attracted a lot of attention from users.

After 100 draws, Ding Lei still failed to get the SSR. Afterwards, the official Weibo account of "Onmyoji" created an emoticon package of Ding Lei to interact with players in a self-deprecating way. "The official certification shows that this game has no SSR", "The most conscientious mobile game, but the boss is discouraging players from playing it on live broadcast". From the comments of players, we can see that the official operation this time is undoubtedly successful. It not only reduces the dissatisfaction of players, but also turns card drawing into popular culture to a certain extent. The "SSR" label of "Onmyoji" has also become more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Scarcity makes things valuable. The low drop rate of SSR in "Onmyoji" eventually became a part of the official content marketing .

More importantly, the official "Onmyoji" has also added a "non-African" achievement system to the game to keep up with the current topics of the game. The "African" achievement is divided into five stages: elementary, intermediate, advanced, African Onmyoji and African Great Onmyoji. To reach the African Great Onmyoji achievement, you need to draw 600 consecutive blue talismans without producing SSR to unlock it, and you can also get generous rewards. Some Zhihu netizens believe that "the official of "Onmyoji" knows what players are talking about, and captures the hot topics without affecting the overall atmosphere of the game." Players of "Onmyoji" are very happy to share and process official content, and a large amount of UGC on social platforms comes from this.

In the tug-of-war over game popularity, PGC and UGC flow in both directions, deriving and influencing each other. If the official moderately amplifies topical tags in the game and then ferments them on social platforms, there is a high possibility that the game’s popularity will increase.

2. Personalized content operation to narrow the distance between the official and the players

Generally speaking, the basic function of an official account is to establish a communication channel between the official and the players. Weibo has a more comprehensive function in stranger social networking, so this platform has also become one of the important windows for "Onmyoji" players to feedback game issues. For login issues, server issues, gameplay suggestions, etc., you can send private messages to the official for communication. At the same time, the official can also use these feedbacks as a reference to continuously optimize the game. The official Weibo account of "Onmyoji" responds very quickly to player feedback. When major problems occur, it is often able to appear in the first place and calm players' emotions.

On the other hand, the official game account should play the role of providing players with all-round game information, including update dynamics, operational activities, etc. But how to better convey the game information to players requires special attention.

In the operation of Weibo and Weibo, Onmyoji chose the role of the little paper man "sweeper" holding a broom in the courtyard in the game to communicate with players. Players would "tease" the sweeper from time to time, and the sweeper's occasional "witty actions" had become one of the topics that players talked about with great relish. Providing game information through such an anthropomorphic character can form good interaction with players. Personalized content operations can obviously narrow the distance between the official and the players.

Recently, a pet dog MOMO of an "Onmyoji" player fell ill and received blessings from a sweeper. The official is also trying its best to contact the voice actor of Daitengu to pray for MOMO. The sweeper's warm-hearted behavior attracted many likes from players.

3. Effectively link games and content to allow good content to feed back into games!

Compared with 2016, the activity level of Onmyoji in 2017 still ranks among the top in the gaming field. In addition to the WeChat public account mentioned above, the official "Onmyoji" also maintains good interaction with players on Weibo. Currently, the reading volume of the topic #陰陽師手遊# exceeds 10 billion, and the number of fans of the official account has reached 1.46 million. In addition, according to Gamma Data statistics, the new reading volume of its Weibo topics in 2017 was 4.7 billion. Among the game brands on Sina Weibo in December last year, Onmyoji ranked second. With the help of WeChat and Weibo, Onmyoji has turned its official social media account into an important content outlet outside of the game.

The official content positioning of "Onmyoji" on the two different social platforms, Weibo and WeChat, is different. According to the observation of Mobile Game Matters , the content pushed by the "NetEase Onmyoji Mobile Game" WeChat official account mainly includes six fixed sections: "New Skin Information", "New Copy Information", "New Shikigami Information", "New Story Preview" and UGC content "Onmyoji Secret Book" and "Onmyoji Daily". Among them, "Onmyoji's Secret Book" is an official KOL strategy column, which includes shikigami analysis, soul matching, team combination, and dungeon strategy to help players play the game better. "Onmyoji Daily Life" mainly focuses on fan creations, including animated images, MMDs, fan comics, etc. created by players, to meet players' demand for derivative content outside the game.

It is worth mentioning that the “NetEase Onmyoji Mobile Game” WeChat official account only updates 1 to 2 articles every day, and the content is high-quality. Moreover, "NetEase Onmyoji Mobile Game" has enriched the form of content delivery. Through beautiful texts, fan comics, emoticons, etc., it helps players understand the game content as much as possible and triggers players' emotions towards game characters and game plots. For example, in "The Story of Inari Shrine", the official introduced the character setting of the new shikigami Onojin in the form of comics. This project was quite large and also reflected the official's intentions. By outputting high-quality content on social platforms, players can deepen their understanding and connection with the game, and convey the essence and features of the game to players.

4. "Interaction" is the highest level. Only with interaction can the game remain popular.

On the other hand, the deeper function of the official account is to maintain interaction with players, adjust the atmosphere outside the game environment, and create topics that players can discuss and spread. The official Weibo account of "Onmyoji" has created a UGC column - #寮办下午茶#. The content may seem simple, but it is actually quite thoughtful. The theme of each afternoon tea is closely following the new version of the game "Onmyoji" or the hot topics of players' discussions, which can resonate with players, increase fan activity, and cooperate with the dissemination of the new version of the game.

For example, when the new plot "Sacrificial Priestess·Part 2" was launched, the official "NetEase Onmyoji Mobile Game" initiated a discussion on the subsequent plot. The number of comments and likes under this Weibo post exceeded 2,000, and players expressed their own guesses about the plot in the comments. This method is full of fun and adds a lot to the communication effect of the new plot.

Player Comments

There are also topics that closely follow the players' hot topics, such as "Onmyoji Recruitment " and "Onmyoji Idiom Master". A large number of emoticons, fan comics and other player-created content have been generated in the comments, further enhancing the players' sense of belonging to the game.

On WeChat, the official form of interaction adopted by "Onmyoji" is different. There is a certain one-way nature in the interaction between the official and users on WeChat, and users are relatively passive. Therefore, the official "Onmyoji" WeChat content is known for its beautiful text, high-quality materials, and beautiful layout, and its high-quality tweets are deeply loved by players. It is worth mentioning that at the end of each push, there will be a fixed background picture. The base map is a Q-version picture drawn by fan players, accompanied by short and funny sentences, which often triggers discussions among players. Some players even said, "I look forward to the background picture of WeChat every time."

The design of the WeChat product itself is very suitable for in-depth content, and the official "Onmyoji" also fully utilizes the characteristics of this social platform. For example, during the anniversary celebration, the WeChat platform pushed an interview series with the Onmyoji production team members titled "Creating Beautiful Stories", allowing players to gain an in-depth understanding of the birth of the new SSR Shikigami Tamamonomae. On the one hand, this attracted the attention of players, and on the other hand, it also effectively preheated the promotion of the new characters in the game. According to the official account of "Onmyoji", the average reading volume of the "NetEase Onmyoji Mobile Game" WeChat public account reached nearly 400,000, and the average number of comments and reposts reached about 5,000. ”

5. After channels and traffic acquisition, content marketing may become the next mainstream way to acquire users

Spreading the game to more general users through spontaneous content dissemination by players has been a proven method, and content operation has gradually become an indispensable part of the game. From the perspective of long-term operations, how to keep players active and enhance user stickiness, in addition to gameplay, official content operations also play a key role. Social platforms have become a key battlefield for game marketing.

In addition to traditional advertising and buying traffic to acquire users, game content operations on social platforms have also become an important marketing method. First of all, in terms of user acquisition, it attracts users who have a certain interest in the game itself, which is reflected in the higher game retention rate . On the other hand, by disseminating content through social platforms, good content can even feed back into the game, achieving better dissemination effects. In the long-term operation process, the two-way flow between UGC and PGC has more advantages both in acquiring new users and activating old users.

In other words, in addition to maintaining existing channels and user acquisition methods such as buying traffic, content marketing has also become an effective means, and the traffic obtained through content is also more efficient and lasting.

The author of this article @手游那点事 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, advertising platform, Longyou Games