How to operate with millions of users?

Whether it is a website or an APP, when the number of users accumulates to one million and grows steadily, attracting new users is no longer a problem. The key is how to operate the product effectively when the scale is big.

So what is the difference between operating with millions of users and operating with hundreds or thousands of users? What is the purpose of operating with millions of users? Let Xianghui help you find the answers one by one today!

Definition: Million-member operation means finding core active users among millions of users, and centering on core active users, formulating operation strategies targeting the needs of target users around the core value of its own products, controlling the implementation process and results, so as to achieve the expected product operation goals.

Purpose: To keep target users sticky to the product, keep them active and generate benefits.

How to play from a product perspective? Let’s take the following four steps to product operation:

• Identify target users and understand the product’s starting point from the source
• Ensure the consistency between target users and core users, so that product iterations or upgrades can meet user needs
• Create a complete demand scenario to enable effective communication between products and users and maintain stickiness
• Expand products around core services and create product inertia from point to surface

First of all, we need to be clear about what is the most important center of the million-user operation: users, core active users!

Therefore, the first step in product operation is to find out who the people you are actually serving among the millions of users?

The first step is to profile core users and find core active users

For millions of users, the user base is too large and the user behavior preferences are numerous. It is impossible for the product to provide comprehensive services to every user. It is necessary to shift the focus of service to core active users.

How to find core active users? Let’s use big data to draw a picture~

As shown in the figure below, let us label the service population based on user attributes, user behavior, user type and other information to find out the core users and commonalities. This ensures that every product upgrade and iteration we make is centered around serving our core users, rather than being done behind closed doors.

The second step is to determine whether the core active users are consistent with the target users.

Accumulating millions of users is not something that can be achieved overnight. It may take several months to several years. So after the number of users reaches one million, as the product gradually adjusts and evolves over time, in line with market positioning and industry development, do the target users match the core value of the product? Are the core users of existing product services consistent with the defined target users? It is the core of operating millions of users!

After we find the core active users through user portraits, the most critical decision to be made is, are your core active users your target users?

The difference between core active users and target users is that target users are the service population set by the product itself, while core users are the real users of your product. Finding core active users and serving them well with an experience that exceeds their expectations is the key to product management!

For example, the Bilibili website is a representative example of a website where core active users and target users are consistent.

The target user tags of the Bilibili website are: promoting barrage culture + interactive sharing + trendy fashion, and its core active users fully meet the target user settings.

In terms of geographical distribution, cities in the southeastern coastal provinces rank at the top. Large provinces and cities such as Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Beijing are the core distribution areas of Bilibili users, which is consistent with the geographical distribution of most apps and websites. Regions with highly developed material and infrastructure have a stronger ability to accept new things and consume products.

In terms of age distribution, users are concentrated in two age groups: 10-20 years old and 20-30 years old. Users in the age group of 20-30 are considered the early user group of Bilibili and are also the indigenous people of the Internet era. 10-20 years old are the new generation of primary school students on the Internet and are more active.

After determining that the target users are equal to the core active users, Bilibili carried out a series of regulations and guidance on the core function "bullet screen" in order to better serve the two core user groups and avoid the loss of core user groups due to cultural conflicts, so as to maintain the stickiness of core users and serve the core group beyond expectations.

Of course, there is another possibility, that is, the core active users and the target users are not consistent for the time being. So whether to change the target positioning of existing products to move closer to core active users, or to insist on guiding existing users with the target user group as the guide, is a question that needs to be considered. But no matter which direction you choose to adjust your product, the ultimate goal is to maintain consistency between core users and target users.

Step 3: Use communication to retain core active users

Millions of users are made up of millions of real individuals, and communication with people requires warmth. Products with millions of users must have completed the construction of interaction scenarios, demand scenarios, etc., and the product structure tends to be stable. On the basis of a mature product framework, providing warm service is the focus of product operation!
So are your product and communication channels smooth? Is there warmth in communication?

Communication between users

The activity between users is the core of improving user stickiness. Today's society is no longer an era where good wine needs no bush. No matter how good a platform is, the most important thing is whether there are active users.

For example, on Sina Weibo , you will see that when you use it for the first time, Sina will recommend you to follow big Vs by default. After you and your friends follow each other, it will remind you of the common objects you follow and push the objects that he is following. This is the principle behind it. Use circles to build a network of relationships between users and use media attributes to provide content.

For example, Huicong's WeChat public account product, when a buyer leaves a message on the PC to inquire about the seller, and the seller's PC is not online, the buyer's message will be pushed to the seller's WeChat through the WeChat public account , reminding the seller to check the inquiry, to prevent the communication between the buyer and the seller from being interrupted and increase the transaction opportunities between the buyer and the seller.

Communication between the platform and users

Manual customer service

Manual customer service is the most direct brand name card for websites or apps to communicate with users. Different from online communications such as instant messaging, manual customer service is a direct expression of the product’s warmth and is more targeted and humane. Therefore, the standardization and training of manual customer service language, service attitude and professional qualities are the top priorities of brand transmission.

Haidilao is a representative of customers who have taken customer service to the extreme of abnormality. They give safflower oil to customers who have sprained their ankles, give dolls to single people to eat with, and buy medicated oil to customers who have been bitten by mosquitoes, etc. This encourages users to consume products for the sake of such warm service.

Online Customer Service

With the popularization of the Internet, online communication has become the lowest-cost communication method. In the coldness of text communication, how to show warmth becomes increasingly important.

For example, JD ’s online communication tool JIMI has six words that appear by default in the input box: “With JIMI, no problem.” It is the most reassuring temperature for the consultant.

Product Interaction

Product interaction is also a form of communication, and its warmth is the output of brand memory.

The greeting when KuGou Music starts up: Hello, KuGou. It is both cute and playful. Whenever you are in a bad mood, you can turn on the music to relax. This warm greeting will always make you feel no longer alone.

Step 4: Extension based on core functions

Create snowball-like stickiness with extended products

Once we have cultivated core active users and they have become dependent on and identified with the core functions, extending the product around the core functions can further strengthen their dependence on the product.

Take Xiaomi for example. While its overwhelming mobile phone hunger marketing has firmly bound its users, Xiaomi has also launched products such as the Xiaomi bracelet and power bank based on its mobile phones, allowing it to further occupy the consumer market. Based on the trust formed in the Xiaomi brand after using these extended products, Xiaomi has attracted a group of potential customers who may purchase Xiaomi mobile phones.

Another example is Bilibili, which was mentioned above, after using barrage culture to improve user stickiness, it also extended its products and launched functions such as 0.5x playback and 1.5x playback, further strengthening the interactive barrage function.

Cultivate user product usage habits

We need to cultivate users' "subconscious" behavior based on the baby's instinct to suck on a pacifier unconsciously, the repeated stimulation of always wanting to take out the phone to check if there is any message, and the reflective behavior pattern of knowing the function when seeing the icon in the APP. Form user autonomous behavior stickiness.

For example, Taobao 's Taobao Coin function will give 5 Taobao Gold Coins for daily sign-in. After sign-in increases day by day, a maximum of 20-40 Taobao Gold Coins can be received according to the user's level. Users can use Taobao Gold Coins to make purchases with cash. If the reward is interrupted in the middle, it needs to start from the beginning, which will stimulate the user's subconscious behavior of repeatedly logging in to receive the reward.

For example, Beijing Mobile's daily sign-in feature that gives users free data traffic helps cultivate users' habit of logging in and signing in independently, and based on this behavior, it uses preferential policies such as phone recharge discounts to further retain users.

In a word, if you want to operate a product with millions of users well, it is like falling in love with your core users: you just need to find the right people and love them from the bottom of your heart.