How to solve the user retention problem? These 3 dimensions can help you solve it

I heard that your APP has a large number of users. Congratulations. You have completed the first step of user operation - open source. But don’t be too happy too soon. Users have only given your APP a chance and come here to take a look. As for how to keep users here to play, this is the problem that operators need to solve next. The following is an analysis from three dimensions.

1. Keep product content updated

Before reading this part of the article, ask yourself what content your APP can provide to users and what needs it can solve.

The following is the operation process after a new user opens the APP:

1. The user opens your app, takes a few glances at it, finds it uninteresting, closes the app and uninstalls it, and the user is lost .

2. A user opens your app and finds it interesting. A few days later, he opens it again and sees the same content. He then closes the app and uninstalls it, and the user is lost.

3. The user opens your app and finds it interesting. When he opens it again the next day, he finds that the content has been updated and is more interesting. I opened it again on the third day and found new content.

I believe that after reading this, everyone already knows what I want to say. If your app wants to attract users and keep them using it, the first and foremost factor is that your app content must be kept updated.

The knowledge question-and-answer community Zhihu is a content-driven product. Zhihu's content is mainly a combination of PGC (expert content producers) and UGC (general content producers). Expert content producers will have more followers on the platform, and the content they write will be recognized by most people. Ordinary content producers will also answer questions on topics that interest them.

Zhihu's unique sorting method allows high-quality content to be seen by more people. If an ordinary content producer can write high-quality content, it will be seen and agreed by others. It is also possible that ordinary content producers receive higher number of likes than expert content producers. Zhihu’s content ranking encourages ordinary content producers to answer questions continuously on the platform.

Ding Xiang Doctor’s official Zhihu account answered the question “Does sweating really detoxify?” and received 15,000 approvals.

The answer by an ordinary content producer to the question "How hard do I have to work to become a great person" received 114K likes.

Users come to Zhihu and find answers to their questions. At the same time, other popular answers attract users to check out, and ordinary users on Zhihu can also get high approval. Coupled with Zhihu's invitation-to-answer mechanism, users are transformed from content consumers into content contributors, and the contributed content is consumed by other users, completing a closed loop of content circulation. This ensures that Zhihu's content is constantly updated, and users will be willing to stay and play.

2. The existence of social relationships

LinkedIn, a workplace social service, has increased its PV by 41% by providing users with colleagues they may know and helping them establish connections with other users. In addition, new users continue to bring in more users, and old users will come back from time to time. The social connections that exist within the site keep users coming back and starting to use the site.

The existence of social relationships will increase the probability of users using the product. Social relationships can be divided into social relationships with acquaintances and social relationships with strangers.

1. Social relationships with acquaintances

When you open many apps for the first time, you will be asked whether you allow viewing your phone address book to see which of your friends are also using the product. This is because the existence of social relationships increases the likelihood that users will use the product, and if someone in their circle of acquaintances is using the product, the user will be more willing to stay and play.

What needs to be done in this part of the operation is to guide your users to synchronize their address book friends and see who is using this APP. And if you are the first user in the circle of friends , it doesn’t matter. Xiami Music APP provides users with the function of creating QR codes. The user’s friends can become the user’s friends in Xiami APP by scanning the QR code.

2. Social relationships with strangers

After connecting to the address book, if users find that none of their friends are using the software, will they be lost? Not necessarily. The APP will help users form stranger relationship chains. One way is to add strangers as friends by checking nearby people. Another way is to recommend people with the same hobbies as the user based on the music the user has listened to.

In the song list recommendations on the homepage of Xiami APP, there are actually stranger social relationships. The song list recommendations on the homepage of Xiami will recommend similar playlists based on the playlists that the user has recently listened to. In the playlist details page, the two functions of like and comment can help users complete stranger social interaction.

1. User A creates a playlist. After user B listens to the playlist, he collects it. User A is notified that another user has collected your playlist, which prompts user A to continuously add new songs to the playlist.

2. User A creates a playlist. After listening to the playlist, user C comments on it. User A replies to user C’s comment, and the two complete an interaction between strangers.

Stranger social networking is the best starting point for user operations in social relationships. By clicking on favorites/likes, users will receive reminders. This behavior plays a positive role for users. In order to get more favorites/likes, users will continue to add new songs to the playlist, which increases the stickiness of the APP to users. When users interact through the comment function, it is already a stranger social behavior. After multiple interactions, two people become friends and become loyal users of the Xiami Music APP.

Social relationships among acquaintances can largely allow two people who already have a social relationship to stay in the APP together. However, if there are no APP users in the user’s circle of friends or the user is unwilling to introduce his or her social relationships into the APP, it is necessary to help build social relationships among strangers and keep users in the APP through interactions with strangers.

3. Cultivate user usage habits

The above two points are just to make users stay. Is there any way to make users not only stay, but also remember to come back often? This involves the issue of cultivating user habits. In cultivating user usage habits, operations personnel are needed to help users adapt to the rhythm of operations and have expectations for operational activities. Common methods for cultivating user habits include activities and user incentives.

1. Plan activities that users are interested in

Activities can not only achieve an operational goal in the shortest possible time, but also help cultivate user habits. Discount promotions in e-commerce apps, writing competitions in the Jianshu app, and limited-time interest rate coupons in the Tuandai app are all forms of activities. Before planning an event , you need to find your own positioning, what kind of activities your APP is suitable for, and what activities will attract users to participate.

By planning activities that users are interested in, you can attract users to participate. If the activities can help operators achieve their operational goals, you can consider turning the activities into periodic activities. Previously, Box Jun wrote an article titled "Essentials for User Operations: Four Rules to Cultivate Good User Habits". The article is from:

1. Improve operational cycle planning;

2. Make good use of key nodes and design long-term strategies;

3. Communicate well with product personnel and developers;

4. Pay attention to competitors and see what big moves they have made recently;

The four major aspects focus on how to cultivate user usage habits through activities. If you are interested, you can go and take a look.

2. User Incentives

The user incentive system mainly stimulates users in the long term to complete a certain behavior to obtain rewards, thereby increasing the cost of users leaving and cultivating user usage habits.

The most common sign-in is a form of user incentive. Users sign in, earn points, and then exchange the points for corresponding benefits. Medals are a display of user points/identity. Beautifully designed, limited-edition medals can also effectively stimulate users to complete behaviors specified by the system.

The picture above is the sign-in page of the Youmeng APP. After the user registers an account, the sign-in function will be triggered, and points can be obtained after completing the sign-in behavior.

The event operation tool Activity Box also provides operators with a sign-in activity template. Operators can create a sign-in activity in just a few minutes.

In the area of ​​user incentive system, Hezijun has previously written an article titled "How to provide user incentives and achieve user activity in educational tool apps". Although the article discusses user incentives for educational tool apps, it essentially talks about knowledge related to user incentives.

User usage habits can be cultivated. Interesting and periodic activities will make users look forward to the activities and come back to check them out from time to time. User incentives help users form a usage habit by stimulating them to complete specified behaviors over a long period of time. Both methods can effectively cultivate user usage habits.

Summary: The three dimensions introduced above analyze how to keep users from the perspective of products and operations. When your APP starts to attract users, you should pay attention to user retention . You should know that recalling users is much more difficult than attracting new users. Therefore, user operations still need to focus on user retention .