Analysis of the Unicorn NetEase Cloud Music’s Competitive Products with Over 300 Million Users!

Before NetEase Cloud Music launched its first version in 2013, there were already popular mobile online music products on the market such as Kugou, QQ Music, and Xiami Music, and each of them had a large number of users. In such an environment, NetEase Cloud Music has quickly grown to have more than 200 million users since its launch. Such rapid development is inevitable in chance and accidental in inevitability.

1. Background

1.1 Experience Environment

Device iPhone SE

Operating system iOS 10.1.1

Trial version 3.7.5

Experience time 2017.3.1

2. Product experience analysis

2.1 Strategic Level

2.1.1 Product Introduction

NetEase Cloud Music is a music product focused on discovery and sharing. Relying on professional musicians, DJs, friend recommendations and social functions, the online music service focuses on playlists, social networking, big-name recommendations and music fingerprints. With playlists, DJ programs, social networking and geographic location as core elements, it focuses on personalized recommendations and sharing. Users can organize music by themselves. 60% of users discover music through playlists. It is currently the hottest music social product.

2.1.2 Target Market

In the field of mobile Internet music, it has become China's largest mobile music community and open platform, forming a unique user-centered music ecosystem.

2.1.3 Target Users

High-quality young people who love music and have high demands for music: college students, white-collar workers, fashion people, IT practitioners, etc.

2.1.4 Product Positioning

1. Mobile music community 2. User-centered music ecosystem

2.1.5 Market Analysis

Judging from the statistics of iResearch Qianfan, the competition among mobile music apps is fierce. NetEase Cloud Music is in fourth place, which still has a lot of room for improvement compared with the first two. However, the user base of NetEase Cloud Music has been steadily increasing, so it can be predicted that its future development trend is still quite objective.

User characteristics

The absolute number of Android users is higher than that of iOS users, but iOS users are the most active, use higher-end devices, and have a strong tendency to consume digital products. In terms of operator selection, more than 50% of users chose China Mobile.

There are slightly more male users than female users , accounting for 53%.

The user group is very young, with users under the age of 35 accounting for 84%, making them the absolute mainstream users of NetEase Cloud Music. They are also more receptive to new things.

Users from eastern coastal cities occupy the top three positions, and this user group has a relatively high economic income level.

2.2 Scope Layer

Compared with other music platforms, NetEase Cloud Music has four unique functional contents at the scope layer: song reviews, social networking, flexibility in playlist creation, and blind listening (powerful intelligent recommendation algorithm). Through interviews with users around me, I found that what users are most impressed with are "comments", "blind listening" and "flexible playlist creation". Therefore, the scope layer does not analyze "socialization", but only focuses on "comments", "blind listening" and "flexible playlist creation".

2.2.1 Comments

Music is the common language of mankind. Although the languages ​​of many countries in the world are different, music is a way of expressing emotions that can be understood by all human beings. Different moods, different rhythms, and different perspectives will all lead to different feelings. Therefore, the commentary function can be said to be a highlight. The overall living standard of NetEase Cloud Music users is relatively high, and their pace of life is relatively fast. The fast-paced life makes it difficult for people to have free time to communicate. However, when users hear a song that resonates with their emotions, they will want to express themselves and look for like-minded people. The comment function strengthens and improves users' self-satisfaction, pleasure, usefulness, and enjoyment in terms of their sense of value.

2.2.2 Blind Listening

Private FM & Daily Song Recommendations

1. Users have a fast pace of life, but need to spend a lot of time to find their favorite music;

2. In a stable scenario, listening to music is only a fragmented task for users. That is, users may want to listen to music while writing code or drawing wireframes. These main tasks do not allow users to have too much energy to choose songs. Their only demand for them is "as long as they sound good."

Because of this, we see that NetEase Cloud Music’s “Private FM” and “Daily Song Recommendations” are very popular.

Song gene recommendation algorithm based on user behavior

This is somewhat similar to the Collaborative filtering (product recommendation algorithm) invented by Amazon. It is to divide users from massive user data (behavior records, etc.) and recommend music that other users like to users in the same group. This requires 1. classifying music and establishing rating criteria; 2. establishing a user model; 3. finding similar users. Song classification and matching based on user behavior data is the most core function in blind listening, so its importance to NetEase Cloud Music is self-evident.

2.2.3 Flexible playlist creation

The precise matching of songs and emotionally resonant comments on NetEase Cloud Music are sufficient to satisfy users' listening needs (but this satisfaction is fragmented and insufficient to exchange for user loyalty. Therefore, flexible playlist creation creates a good premise for users' independent collection and communication, so that users can have a good experience. This is the user's secondary experience, which is the beginning of user loyalty.

2.3 Structural Layer

Product structure flow chart

User flow chart

2.4 Framework Layer

From the first version in 2013 to the current version 3.7.5, NetEase Cloud Music has strengthened the blind listening factor through the integration and layout of elements, conforming to the needs of the scope layer. The 3.7.5 version of NetEase Cloud Music separated "Private FM" and "Daily Song Recommendations" and placed them in a visual prime position as separate module entrances to highlight the importance of " blind listening " to the product. Of course, music + comments is also the most intelligent combination, which can enhance the listening experience through high-quality comments and trigger users' emotional resonance.

The biggest emotional impact that NetEase Cloud Music brings to users is undoubtedly "comments". An ordinary song becomes very charming after being catalyzed by comments that are appropriate to the situation. We call this phenomenon "psychologically" colored eyes. Its comment mechanism is mainly based on popular comments liked by users. Comments are a natural progression for music, catering to the positive emotions of the music itself. Sorting people based on the number of likes ensures the quality or attractiveness of the comments (people have commonalities in terms of emotional arousal). One of the important reasons why Papi Jiang is so popular is that she chooses good topics and complains about the things we want to complain about. I remember a senior once mentioned the essence of social interaction, namely expression-identification-communication. The mechanism based on likes sorting utilizes people's emotions to evoke commonality, strengthens the identification of the content, and lays the foundation for the ultimate emotional resonance (communication).

We have already mentioned the recommendation algorithm of NetEase Cloud Music. It actually essentially meets the user's demand for personalization or individual needs. Traditional music presentation is nothing more than based on “new song release ”, “ranking”, “playlist” or jazz rock. In the case of blind listening, users' needs are to hear good songs, and NetEase Cloud Music transfers this difficulty of selection to the system. This is simply the most considerate, effective and labor-saving approach. It is precisely because of these "three mosts" that users become sticky to NetEase Cloud Music.

2.5 Presentation Layer

The official default skin is dark red, and red is the color that is most likely to arouse emotions. Gray is added to red to reduce the saturation of red, which harmonizes the intensity of emotional arousal (too strong an emotion can easily cause discomfort or even disgust). At the same time, low-saturation colors can easily arouse positive emotions such as quality and high-end. Therefore, dark red as the official default main color is very consistent with the target user group (young people).

Interface complexity

Compared with other mobile music apps, we will find that NetEase Cloud Music pays attention to the neatness of the interface. It achieves active white space by rearranging the content blocks, appropriately reducing the cover area of ​​the playlist, and achieving passive white space. This allows users to have a simple interface, which is also in line with the aesthetic characteristics of modern higher education people such as "simplicity" and "consistency of elements".

In summary, NetEase Cloud Music has indeed achieved a closed loop from the scope layer, structure layer, framework layer, and presentation layer to the strategic layer.

2.6 Operation and promotion strategy

Profit model :

1. Advertising

It is divided into APP startup page ads and home page carousel ads. Due to the user usage rate, these two methods are quite effective.

2. Membership

Membership is divided into deluxe membership and ordinary membership, which can only be activated for 1 month, 6 months or 12 months. Deluxe membership has additional privileges on the basis of ordinary membership, with the number of paid song downloads increased from 300 to 500. Secondly, there are three more privileges: member specials, exclusive personalized skin and deluxe membership logo.

3. Listen to music online without using data

To meet the needs of users under different network conditions, as long as you activate the monthly subscription, you can listen to songs, download, watch MVs, etc. unlimitedly. However, currently NetEase Cloud Music only provides free traffic packages for China Unicom users and China Telecom users.

4. Concert Tickets

When a user is listening to a song, a singer's concert is recommended. The user may not have had the desire to go to the concert before. Through this association, the user's desire to buy is greatly promoted.

5. Points Mall

The points mall is mainly divided into four categories of goods: cloud music peripherals, digital audio and video, digital albums, and points mall.

The self-operated peripheral products mainly include NetEase Cloud Music products, notebooks, pens, T-shirts, mobile phone cases, etc. Digital audio and video mainly includes well-known headphone and audio brands such as Wisonic, Sennheiser, and Pioneer, which meet the needs of users who have high requirements for music quality and have a certain purchasing power (which is exactly the mainstream user group of NetEase Cloud Music). Digital albums are mainly albums by well-known online singers and independent musicians. The points mall mainly features movie ticket raffles, Koala overseas shopping coupons, some daily small items, etc. Users can redeem them using points.

3. Summary

3.1 Advantages

1. Personalized recommendations

One of NetEase Cloud Music's core competitive advantages lies in its accurate daily recommendations. It recommends high-quality, similar songs to users based on their daily listening habits and the style preferences of the songs they try out. Although NetEase Cloud Music is not the first to offer personalized recommendations, it is currently the best product in terms of personalized recommendations. Personalized recommendations change with the user's listening style. It has to be said that NetEase Cloud Music's recommendation algorithm is extremely powerful. It brings a sense of satisfaction and surprise to users who experience this function, forming a good word-of-mouth cycle and enhancing user loyalty.

2. Comments

NetEase Cloud Music is a community about music. In many cases, people don’t listen to the songs, but the lyrics and the stories behind them. Ma Di, the author of Nanshan Nan, once said: "When you hear this song, it has nothing to do with me. The tears you shed are the story only you know." Many users listen to it with their own emotions. NetEase Cloud Music combines the characteristics of "music and emotion" and puts the comment function in the most prominent position, in order to allow users to better express their inner feelings or experiences, touch the inner thoughts of many users, and at the same time create spiritual resonance between people. There is even a phenomenon of "reading the comments before listening to the song", which is also the key reason why the comment function of NetEase Cloud Music is becoming more and more popular. Celebrity fans and independent musician fans use their influence to establish good connections with users and form a small user community group. It intensifies the community atmosphere and creates stickiness between users.

3. Playlist

NetEase Cloud Music is focused on development and sharing, and viewing other users’ tags is also key to allowing users to discover music. But if you think about it carefully, a song can be defined by users into multiple tags, and different people define different tags. Relatively speaking, the structure of tags is complex and highly divergent. Playlists have features that tags do not have: collection, comment, sharing, and downloading. If there are users who like the style of playlists, they can collect the playlists and they will be updated without having to collect them bit by bit by themselves. This is also in line with the characteristic of modern music users who are "getting lazier and lazier." Users can choose the playlist that suits them best according to their mood, scene, and time period, and everyone is the creator of the playlist. From the moment it was born, it symbolizes the author's creativity, from the selection of songs, to continuous accumulation, forming an emotional confession, which is more in line with the concept of UGC and maximizes the user's creativity.

3.2 Disadvantages

1. Copyright

If we type "Li Zongsheng, Tian Fuzhen, Mayday" and other popular musicians in the Chinese music scene in the search box, we can see that many of their well-known works cannot be listened to due to copyright reasons. This has forced many fans who love them to switch to other apps. The user experience is very bad and it is very easy to cause user loss.

2. Free data usage for online music listening

The author found that this function of NetEase Cloud Music is not integrated with China Mobile. However, in the previous chart, we can see that mobile users account for more than half of the users, which makes it difficult for users to experience this function well and will also cause revenue loss for NetEase Cloud Music.

3.3 Recommendations

Expanding the scale of the legitimate music library

measure:

1. Strengthen cooperation with other mobile music apps and reach music sub-licensing agreements ;

2. Purchase high-quality music copyrights (this requires strong financial support. You can first purchase a portion of high-quality resources, collect data through user questionnaires, interviews, etc., and continue to strengthen cooperation with original musicians . After accumulating a certain number of users and making profits, you can continue to purchase more resources, thus achieving a virtuous circle).

Implementing campus strategy

The student population of NetEase Cloud Music is much larger than that of other applications. By implementing a campus strategy, it can cultivate user loyalty and firmly grasp mainstream users.

Increase the richness of the music library

By signing contracts with some popular music programs, you can enrich your music library and increase product awareness. At the same time, users can directly search for songs from the program and listen to them, which improves the user's song search experience.

Enhance music social skills

Recommend friends based on the degree of matching : 1. A matching system can be formed through the user's favorite songs, favorite playlists, singers, DJ programs, etc., and friends can be recommended to users based on the degree of matching on the "Friends" page; 2. The match between users can be viewed on the playlist collector's page; 3. Based on location, the match can be displayed and recommendations can be made, so that when other users share music, it can promote communication between them, thereby achieving the purpose of promoting social interaction, that is, the establishment of a circle of music friends .

"Private FM" music style switching function

Users have diverse listening preferences, and their preferences may vary in different environments. Users who always listen to the same type of songs are prone to aesthetic fatigue. At this time, the injection of freshness can keep users' excitement about the product at a high level. Therefore, it is recommended to add a function for users to switch music styles independently.

Combination of "Song Identification" and "Search" functions

From the user's psychological model, song identification by listening is a way of song search, and the purpose is to help users find songs. Therefore, based on the user's psychological model, the design should keep the two functions close in space. Placing the song recognition function in a separate section is obviously not in line with the user's psychological model. Users need extra memory to find the song recognition function, which violates the accessibility principle of Nielsen's ten interaction principles.

Audio function

For example, you can refer to echo to add some dual-channel 3D surround sound effects to meet users' demand for product freshness.

Strengthen cooperation with sports brands

As society develops rapidly, there are more and more people suffering from sub-health and people are beginning to pay attention to physical exercise. Therefore, we can strengthen cooperation with sports brands to integrate sports and music into the palm of our hands, better promote Running FM and products, and establish a positive and healthy image of NetEase Cloud Music.

Rewards for user listening time

Inspired by the "Ant Forest" launched by Alipay , I personally think that we can launch rewards for users' listening time. Based on the daily usage time of users, a certain amount of energy rewards can be given, and users can collect their own and friends' energy the next day (users have a minimum amount of energy to collect to ensure that the user's energy will not be collected by friends). When the user's energy reaches a certain amount, the seedlings will slowly grow into flowers and bloom. At this time, the user can be rewarded with free membership or points for a certain period of time , which can encourage users to increase the number of friends, thereby increasing social functions and the number of times users open the product, and better promoting user use of the product, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone.

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising

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