5 tips for content product operations

A few days ago, "Wolf Warrior 2" ushered in a box office of 3.4 billion yuan. This movie , which has been hotly discussed continuously, has appeared in various content products such as Weibo, WeChat , Zhihu, and even NetEase Cloud, reading software, etc. since its broadcast. From patriotism to war and other aspects, capturing hot spots and increasing clicks are what these content-based product platforms care most about.

It can be said that operating content-based products based on hot topics has become one of the indispensable skills in operations work. Including the announcement by Song Joong-ki and Song Hye-kyo in early July that they were about to get married, the number of clicks on "Descendants of the Sun" starring Song Joong-ki and Song Hye-kyo once again climbed.

The article "In Beijing, 20 million people are living bravely" that went viral not long ago has caused constant controversy among celebrities and users on various platforms; Durex also seized on the hot topic of "sex" to spread the word. Operational work is increasingly following hot topics. In addition to keeping up with hot topics, what else should the operational work of content products pay attention to? Let's listen to what the main speaker of this salon, Chen Hui, the Operations Director of Kingsoft Office, has to say:

1. Content-based products have become a red ocean

First, let’s take a look at a piece of data. This data comes from Cheetah Research Institute and is the ranking of all mobile apps in May 2017. I use this data to tell you that almost all the operations of top products involve content. For example, iQiyi , Kugou Music, and Toutiao are content-based products. For example, WeChat and QQ are content plus social interaction , App Store is application download + content, and Alipay is payment tool + content. Alipay’s Tiantian Youliao is also gradually shifting towards information flow and content. Therefore, Content+ has become a strategy for major leading applications to capture users.

What is a content-based product? Our main business revolves around products that provide users with content services such as text, comics, audio, and video. We define them as content-based products. For example, short videos and live broadcasts are also content-based products.

2. Classification of content-based products

1. Short videos

The top three are Kuaishou , Toutiao Video and Momo. Camera-type tools have shifted to short video production, such as B612 and Meipai ; new products such as Zuiyou are very popular among young users.

2. Live broadcast

Such as Yingke , Huajiao, Huya , Douyu and other platforms.

3. Video

Video products such as Tencent, iQiyi, Youku, Mango TV , BiliBili, AcFun, etc. are very popular among the two-dimensional community.

4. Music

Such as Kugou, QQ Music, Kuwo, NetEase Cloud Music and other products.

5. Audio FM and audiobook products

The top three are Himalaya , Lazy People Listening to Books, Dragonfly FM, and Maoer FM and other two-dimensional audio products.

6. Information

Information products that focus on personalized recommendations are represented by Toutiao, Tiantian Kuaibao , and Yidian Zixun , as well as traditional portals including Sohu, NetEase, Phoenix, and Sina .

7. Reading products

iReader and QQ Reader occupy the first and second place respectively, and Yisou Novels, Shuqi, and Zhuishu Shenqi all belong to online literature, mainly targeting young users.

To sum up, content-based products mainly provide text, image, audio and video services. The core of content-based products must be content. For example, Mango TV relies on the unique resources of Hunan Radio and Television. Many variety shows and TV dramas of Hunan Satellite TV cannot be watched anywhere else and can only be downloaded from Mango TV, so it can rank in the top five.

MC Tianyou jumped from Kuaishou to Huoshan Video. The reason why he has a sky-high price is that users will pay attention to the various content he produces, and the excessiveness of the anchor means the source of content and the growth of users. The same is true for video websites competing for exclusive broadcasting rights, which is more due to the content.

PGC /OGC+UGV=Content Source

OGC in English means professional content production, which can be understood as TV stations and film and television companies. UGC refers to the general public and individuals, without any background, just interests and hobbies. Then PGC can be understood as an upgrade of UGC. When ordinary people enjoy shooting short videos and find that it can make money, they form a small team of three or five people to specialize in this, which is called PGC.

Basically, when making content-based products, institutional copyright is the most important thing at the beginning. Never start with UGC, as UGC requires large traffic and time accumulation. Let’s take the video website as an example. To make a video website that allows users to feel that there are more videos, you cannot find one person to shoot it. You have to find some film and television companies or copyright companies to purchase a batch of resources in bulk. This is the starting stage. After it is done, it will be easier to build the UGC module by attracting enough users through resources and developing some features or more space.

3. 5 points to do a good job in content product operation

First of all, what is the purpose of content product operation? The purpose of operating content-based products is to get more people to watch the product, the more the better, and it would be best if more people paid to watch it.

1. Find highlights. The key words are hot spots, discovery, and mining.

For example, " Ode to Joy 2 ", if you are the operator of a content-based product, you must have good communication and cooperation with the copyright department to see if it is possible to find the copyright of this film or TV series and broadcast it on the platform. If it has been snatched away by iQiyi, you need to purchase similar video copyrights, TV series or movies starring the heroine or hero, or even more famous actors in the play, or find the book or work written by the screenwriter. Get hot topics and related information. If there is nothing, you can find similar topics to package it and recommend it as a sister article. The prerequisite is that the recommended content itself is good, otherwise there will be a lot of complaints from users later on.

Therefore, operators of content-based products must understand the content and submit content requests to the copyright department in a timely manner based on hot topics. If you have a need, buy the copyright. If not, you can explore and discover the existing ones. If there is nothing, you can recommend good content uploaded by users. There are several benefits to recommending content uploaded by users. First, it can enrich the product. Second, users may recognize the product because of the recommendation and have more support for the product. Third, if users think they may become stars or top users, it will stimulate more users to join the UGC content.

2. Content packaging, the key words are pain points, polishing, and star creation

Any content needs to be packaged, from the specific content to all content-related elements, such as comments, communities, user feedback, etc.; the live broadcast guild is responsible for packaging the anchors. In addition, title optimization is also helpful in improving content, but the content quality must be high.

3. Accurate recommendation, the key words are time, place, and people

Personalized recommendations are first based on characters, and secondly based on the continuous optimization of all recommendation algorithms. In terms of time concept, when is the highest traffic in the morning, afternoon and evening? At night, followed by morning, and relatively lower at noon.

If you are operating an information product, you have to combine this time with the others. In the morning, push valuable content with high information content. At noon, push short, concise and entertaining content. In the evening, push in-depth or long-form content, because users have more time to read at night.

Personalized recommendations can greatly reduce the workload of operators and recommend content that users like. However, personalized recommendations are machine-calculated after all, based on a large amount of data, and we hope that they can be continuously optimized in the future. But if all products use a personalized recommendation model, users’ vision will become narrower and narrower. So my suggestion is to have some modules for personalized recommendations and some modules for non-personalized recommendations.

4. Recommended method, the key words are dismantling, combining, and packaging

Here are a few recommended methods we often use to create content products:

(1) Activities

If it is free content, it is generally attracted by topics, discussions, etc. to attract users to click on the content. If it is paid content , the general activity would be promotion, but the value of content as a product actually varies from person to person. It has the same attributes as e-commerce , but is not exactly the same. Therefore, it is not recommended to frequently use discounts and promotions when making a paid content product. Users should be made aware of the value of the content product itself.

(2) Special Topics

When content production started, everyone used special topics. There are two types of topics. The first is created by the operator and is related to the content, and is presented to users with better page packaging; the second is albums. Many users of NetEase Cloud Music share their better songs and playlists, also in the form of topics.

(3) Column

For example, Baidu Knows and Zhihu Daily. In the past, iReader had a column called "How Much Bookworms Know". The column should be created after the product is stable and has a certain scale. Columns can increase user activity and product recognition, but they do not necessarily achieve the goal directly. Therefore, this column is not applicable to every product, but it is a direction that can be tried after the product has reached a certain stage of development. The columns will allow users to experience the depth and diversity of the products, and such columns are often more disseminable.

(4) Integration

For example, text products include video introductions, audio readings, and picture displays, and music products also contain a lot of music reviews, so the integration of various products is the direction of future content-based products.

There are also various operating methods such as packaging and tasks. The purpose of all these operating methods is to stimulate users to be more active or stimulate users to consume more.

5. Establish connections. The key words are users, interaction, and feelings.

The purpose of any content creator is, firstly, to have more people see the content and get user feedback, and secondly, to receive income. The purpose of content consumers is to gain value or to kill time after watching. The two can be connected through content-based products. Creators hope to get feedback after their content is seen, and consumers gain value after seeing the content.

There are two products here: one is Zhihu, which connects users through content; the second is NetEase News , whose slogan is "Everyone has their own attitude". It encourages users to express their opinions and attitudes in the product and hopes that users will post comments on the platform. Many information products are also imitating this , taking out users' classic comments and pushing them as columns to others.

In fact, user loyalty of content-based products is higher than that of other types of products. Because generally content-based products will push corresponding content based on user data. Therefore, all content-based products must have characteristics. Only with characteristics can they have emotions and retain users. Good content products connect users with each other, users with content, and users with products.

To sum up, there are 4 points to do a good job in content product operation:

• First, you need to understand the content and find the highlights. You need to discover content based on hot topics. When there is content, you need to do your best to explore it. When there is no content, you need to look for content.
• The second is content packaging. After finding good content, you must be good at packaging to create content stars for the product.
• The third is accurate recommendation, which requires making operational recommendations based on time, region and character characteristics, and not blindly believing in personalized recommendations.
• The fourth is the operation method. Various operation methods such as splitting, combination, and integration should be used to meet user needs. The last step is to establish connections between users, content and products, and have your own characteristics and feelings.

4. Some suggestions for operators

1. Products, users and company strategies are the key. As an operator, don’t think that understanding the product is the product’s business. You need to have a very good understanding of both the product and the users before you know how to make recommendations to them. Secondly, company strategy is very critical. Under different company strategy conditions, the operational work and direction will be different.

2. Be sure to customize your own operation plan. This includes plans within the plan and plans outside the plan.

3. Users and revenue are the inevitable fate of operations. You must first win the hearts of users before you can get their money.

4. Operations require constant creativity and experimentation, a constant flow of new ideas and the courage to try.

5. Find the bright spots in the data, test the effect standards and find the entrance to the problem

Finally, the prerequisite for good operations is to be a caring person. The second is to read more, think more, try more, and use data to verify the results.