After one year online and six months of operation, what did Douyin do to defeat Kuaishou?

First of all, the most important point is: I am a person with a demonic spirit in my bones, and this magical thing, maybe something is destined to happen between me and it →_→

The most direct reason is: the team wants to hear an operational sharing, and I have to find a product that I am good at, right! ?

All in all, I like and am familiar with TikTok , and I admire the efforts made by the TikTok operation team very much. At the same time, it meets the requirements of the team's mission this time.

This opportunity to use working hours to pursue what you love is a good deal no matter how you look at it - hence the content of this sharing.

How did TikTok achieve its miraculous development?

Tik Tok operation strategy - lying dormant for the most powerful outbreak

It may be due to the environment and investors do not have much patience, or it may be that many product leaders are eager to verify their ideas. In short, I have some experience of what people often call the " internet's restlessness".

Oftentimes, those who hold the power to speak will closely watch changes in data, immersed in the excitement of data growth or the irritation of data decline, and find it difficult to concentrate on polishing the product - even though we say "product is the foundation" every day.

The following is a diagram of the function iteration of Douyin driven by operations. I have roughly screened the functions from the APP Store according to the operation drive (not including all):

Operation-driven product requirements run through the entire product development process.

In versions 1.1.0-1.5.0, each major version will have important operational requirements added, and the small versions in between will also continuously supplement and improve new operational requirements.

The entire iteration process can be roughly divided into two stages:

• The first stage is product-centric feature development;
• The second stage is operational planning centered around communication.

At different stages, work should be carried out around different goals.

Correspondingly, how has the number of users changed during this period?

It can be clearly seen that the two pictures above match up perfectly.

Before 1.3.3, the focus was on polishing the product. The number of users was small and the growth was steady and slow. The whole process lasted nearly half a year, accounting for half of the time since Douyin was launched - this dormant endurance is very admirable.

The focus of the second half is on dissemination. I have marked the operational events of each node on the graph; it can be clearly seen the impact of operational events on the number of users, as well as the explosive growth achieved through a series of operational actions.

There are two questions here, which I have marked in the picture:

• Mark 1: I guess there should be an operation event at this location, but I didn’t find it. If anyone knows, please leave a message to tell me~
• Mark 2: Given Lu Han ’s fame and influence, there may be some errors in the data here, but it has little impact on our analysis.

Looking at the entire development process, what kind of ideas guide Douyin's actions? What kind of operating strategy is adopted?

I summarized 3 points:

1. Rhythm

My understanding of rhythm is having a goal, which is the general direction of progress, and then there will be many small goals around the big goal; and at different stages there are different goals as the focus of work, and the overall things to be done are very clear and exciting.

For example, in the first half of its time, Tik Tok focused on product polishing - we all acknowledge that the number of users has always been crucial for Internet products.

At this stage, Douyin can temporarily put aside this obsession and concentrate on making products.

In the second stage, you can plan operations carefully to drive the explosion of products.

2. Have layers

In my opinion, having levels is like casting a long line to catch a big fish. First, do a small thing with your heart, and then by doing this small thing well, trigger a big thing to happen.

For example, on Douyin, they treat seed users very attentively. What you can see directly is that they will thank some users in the product update instructions, and there must be more heartwarming actions behind it.

By giving seed users an extraordinary experience, we guide them to create high-quality videos and gameplay, and then introduce large-scale users through these high-quality videos to achieve product dissemination.

3. Refinement

I once read a sentence a long time ago: Operations are done, and as long as they are done, there will be results.

Friends in operations know that many things seem insignificant but are very difficult to do. All kinds of small problems and big difficulties that you can't imagine emerge in an endless stream. The smooth execution of an operation event requires doing a lot of things, and ensuring success is even more difficult.

Looking at Douyin from this perspective, operational events are planned and successfully executed one after another. Without a detailed execution plan, it is basically impossible to achieve this, but Douyin has done a very good job. Therefore, careful planning + efficient execution is the basis.

Tik Tok’s operating methods

Under these operating strategies, what specific things did Douyin do?

Next, let’s take a closer look at Douyin’s operating methods:

Here I will look at it from two aspects: internal operations and external operations:

• The focus of internal operations is to increase activity and retention , so that users like to use the product and spread word of mouth.
• The focus of external operations is to achieve dissemination and conversion , mainly to acquire new users and build brands.

Internal Operations

Douyin's internal product operations mainly revolve around increasing user activity and retention, using a variety of means to improve user experience, increase user dependence on the product, and build product reputation.

Three main methods are listed here: user stratification, special activities, and original content.

1. User stratification

User stratification is a very important means in user operation . Douyin stratified its users during operation and provided different operation strategies for users of different levels:

01 Star

For celebrities, it is speculated that a many-to-one invitation system is adopted, mobilizing resources from all parties and spending a lot of money to invite them to settle in, use or public relations promotion. The specific details are probably only known by insiders.

02 Externally famous influencers

External influencers are mainly influencers and big Vs who originally settled in other platforms. It is speculated that they are mainly carried out in three ways:

1. Active attraction - relying on the fame and number of users of the platform to attract some Internet celebrities/big Vs to join actively. Douyin relies on this method to attract many small Internet celebrities who have difficulty in making progress on Kuaishou .
2. Invite - Find influencers on other platforms and invite them one-on-one, using support, good service, and generous rewards as bait;
3. Spend a lot of money to poach - Target very famous traffic influencers, rely on high cost to poach them, hire them with a lot of money, such as spending 20 million to poach Tianyou from Kuaishou.

03 Internal Potential Internet Celebrities

As the name suggests, this category is those discovered and cultivated by Douyin’s operations on the platform, and the main strategies adopted for this type of users are support and key maintenance.

For example, establishing special group maintenance, giving occasional gifts, helping with shooting, allocating resources, etc.

04 Ordinary User

For ordinary users of the product, the most important thing is to improve their user experience.

There are only a few common ones: maintaining a good user base, creating more interactive channels , following up on feedback in a timely manner, and updating quickly.

2. Special Events

In the Douyin App, in the community, operators often launch challenge activities. By shooting videos to launch challenges, the winners can get competition rewards and video exposure opportunities. At the same time, it can also enrich the content of the App:

3. Original content

High-quality videos are one of the key points that makes TikTok stand out from many players.

Tik Tok guides users to create in a variety of ways:

01 Video Template

The drawback of high-quality content lies in its continuous production and user fatigue with similar content. However, TikTok keeps updating its template library and provides interesting music and shooting examples, which largely prevents this from happening.

02 Tutorial Video

It was learned online that in the beginning, Douyin also launched a special App for video teaching. Now, the Douyin Assistant has been introduced in the Douyin App to guide teaching.

03 Community Challenge

Similar to Camera360, Douyin also organizes challenges in the community within the product, encouraging users to participate in activities, create videos, and recommend excellent videos to the homepage.

External Operations

Tik Tok uses various content formats when conducting external communications.

Many products tend to spread through the release of public relations articles + daily soft articles and hard advertisements, which have low costs, long cycles, and long-tail effects; Douyin is more focused on vertical channel communication in its own field, which has high costs, short-term nature, and explosive effects.

The main communication carriers are as follows:

1. Celebrity

The popularity of Tik Tok is closely related to celebrities and other high-traffic users:

On March 13, Yue Yunpeng reposted a video with the TikTok watermark on Weibo. TikTok entered the public eye for the first time and began to grow rapidly.

Around April 10, Hu Yanbin dropped his new single "No Choice" on Douyin.

On July 20, Lu Han’s new song "Zero Point" was released on Douyin.

Other stars invited include Christy Chung, Du Haitao, Li Xiaolu, Zhao Liying, Da Zhangwei, Bibi Zhou, Calvin Chen, etc.

2. Spread H5

I officially got to know TikTok through its H5 "World Famous Paintings Come to Life". The bold creativity, novel content and magical rhythm immediately attracted me, and I couldn't stop playing after downloading it.

Of course, being able to go viral on WeChat Moments is definitely not as simple as relying on luck alone.

Later, I specifically learned about the production background of this H5: the creativity came from top advertising creative companies such as Ogilvy, the production was done by well-known brand marketing service provider imad, and the release channels included Meipai , Weibo, and possible WeChat Moments ads (personal guess, not certain). The production cycle was 1 month, so the cost was visible.

On the same day as this H5 was released, the Douyin team also released another H5 titled "Looking for Idols", which was mainly disseminated on Weibo.

3. Advertising

The Douyin team also released a very magical brand advertisement, the entire content of which was pieced together from the video effects within Douyin.

In other words: if you are good at it, you might be able to copy an advertisement like this one .

This commercial was released in 210 cinemas in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in mid-to-late June this year, when students (TikTok's target group) were starting their summer vacation.

4. Activities

Activities are inevitable, but it’s a bit regrettable that Tik Tok’s activity creativity is not as good as the previous H5.

But it is the same as the previous methods: willing to spend money; more importantly: the team is very dedicated + strong execution ability. Make Douyin's activities colorful and widely spread.

There are mainly one long-term activity and one short-term activity listed here.

01 Tik Tok idou Night｜Long-term event

Douyin held its annual show in Beijing on September 2, 2017, inviting 300 Douyin influencers to provide the Douyin-loving influencers with a stage to battle with other big names in an offline setting.

Currently, this activity has developed into a daily activity and is held regularly.

02 Hip-Hop Music Bike Sharing ｜Short-term Event

On September 5, 2017, TikTok and Mobike jointly launched the first music-sharing bicycle. It is said that the disc installed on the bicycle has the function of playing music. Legend has it that the faster you ride, the more exciting the music will be.

What can we learn?

What lessons learned did you gain after reading the operational analysis of Douyin?

I summarized the following points:

1. Creativity — 1% inspiration + 99% perspiration , but the 1% inspiration is the most important. In the operation of Douyin, creativity plays a very direct role in dissemination.

2. Cost - You can’t catch a wolf without sacrificing the lamb. Whether it is online advertising, offline activities or H5 production, we are willing to spend money and produce it with excellence.

3. Execution - All great things in the world must be done with care and attention to detail. I am not an insider and do not know the specific details of what happened, but from the scope of the incident I can tell that the issues involved are many and difficult, and strong execution is the basis for successful progress.

4. Professionalism - It is more valuable to be specialized than to be professional. A little skill can bring you a thousand profits. For H5 events, if there is a lack of creativity, we will ask top advertising companies to improve the creativity. If there is a lack of production and dissemination channels, we will also ask professional marketing companies to complete it. For professional matters, please let professionals do it.

5. Plan - Don't let others know the secret, because it is worthless if they know it. In today's prosperous Internet era, we have been taught to be transparent about information and to learn to share, but we don't know how to share correctly. Will this lead to product homogeneity and routine operations? unknown. But from my experience with TikTok, I personally feel that we should share when it is time to share, and keep it secret when it is time to keep it secret.