Having experienced two booms in more than a year, what is the outstanding feature of Faceu in terms of operations?

In early 2016, under the guidance of celebrities and internet celebrities on Weibo and shared by a group of cute girls in the circle of friends , Faceu entered the eyes of young people like me who like socializing and new things. After experiencing it again and again, I also fell in love with the product created by this young team. It made selfies fun. Therefore, this time, I chose Faceu as the object of operational analysis.

1. Product Introduction

1.1 Product form and positioning

Faceu is a selfie photo-editing tool and video social tool mainly for young users (mainly women aged 15-35 years old). Its official description in the app store is “ Faceu —dynamic stickers, beauty selfies, video chat, and cuteness tool.” Obviously, Faceu is a non-consumer high-frequency-use product, and it is also a product that provides value to each other among users.

Faceu’s slogan is “The more intimate, the more fun.”

1.2 Target Users

Judging from the product's official promotion, market response, and my personal experience, Faceu's core users should be young users aged 15-35 who are active on various social platforms , among which female users who like taking selfies are the main group.

1.3 Core Values

The core value of Faceu is to solve the following two main needs of target users:

1. Production of high-quality social content : It provides dynamic stickers and beauty functions to help users easily create more interesting and attractive selfie pictures and videos, allowing users to gain more attention and interaction after sharing these contents, satisfying their vanity.
2. More interesting social interaction: Faceu has a built-in video social platform. Users can use dynamic stickers and beauty functions to assist video social interaction and make communication more interesting. The product also provides stranger social functions, through which users can expand their social circles, and dynamic stickers and beauty functions can also help improve the success rate of social interaction between strangers.

1.4 Main functional logic

The main functional logic of Faceu also revolves around how to realize its core value (as shown below).

Faceu main function logic

1.5 Monetization Model

Faceu’s current monetization model is:

1. Cooperative marketing : charging a certain cooperative fee, producing relevant animated stickers of cooperative enterprises and providing them to users, helping cooperative enterprises to display soft advertisements;
2. Function payment : stranger matching social function "Portal". If users want to use the "gender selection" function, they need to purchase the internal currency "Moe Beans".

2. Development stage

2.1 Current Operation Status

Faceu's products were officially launched in January 2016, and it has been nearly a year and a half now. In the first month, due to the uniqueness of its functions and the active spread of its popularity by users, Faceu was extremely popular and even topped the App Store rankings. However, the number of downloads then began to decline sharply. However, with the development of the product, in February 2017, the stranger social function "Portal" was launched and it finally topped the AppStore again.

(1) Download volume trends

During this year, the download trend curve of faceu showed an accelerating growth trend. Especially during the period around the Spring Festival this year, the increase in downloads accelerated significantly due to the impact of the festival and the opening of new functions.

Data source: Kuchuan

(2) Active scale

To analyze the active scale of Faceu, we chose the indicator of weekly active users (because more users use the product on weekends, the weekly active indicator can more truly reflect the actual user scale). From the data, we can see that Faceu’s current average weekly active user base exceeds 4 million, and is generally showing a steady upward trend.

Data source: Analysys Qianfan

Let's take a look at the comparison with its competitors. Currently, the weekly active user scale of faceu is second only to beauty camera (the gap is very large, which is related to the fact that beauty camera is a sub-product of Meitu XiuXiu ), and is much higher than direct competitors such as snow and B612, ranking top 2 in the market.

Data source: Analysys Qianfan

2.2 Life cycle analysis

Through the analysis of the current status of the product, it can be found that Faceu as a whole is still in a stage of rapid development. It is currently in the growth stage of the product life cycle , and it will still take a period of growth before entering the mature stage.

2.3 Core Issues and Breakthroughs

The two rounds of explosion of Faceu's products were due to the use of the gap in the market and the opening of the "portal" of stranger social mode. Faceu's product center also began to gradually transform from the initial view beautification application to a social platform. In this transformation process, there are bound to be some issues that should be focused on and solved:

• Build a complete social scene to promote the establishment of social relationships among paired users : The current "portal" model has the disadvantage that the social scene after pairing is not deep enough, and the social relationship formed between users is fragile. It is difficult to maintain an effective interaction, and it is easy to transfer ( TanTan also has similar problems). The best way to solve this problem is to improve the social scenarios after matching and provide more space for communication between users.
• Aim at the positioning and add appropriate content to the product to increase user stickiness : In fact, this point is somewhat similar to the first point. The accumulation of social relationships is also to increase user stickiness of the product. Currently, Faceu provides basically no content to users in its products, nor does it provide a channel for displaying content created by users themselves. Combined with its product positioning, Faceu can increase user stickiness by adding pictures, videos, and even live broadcasts within the product.
• Find a richer and more feasible monetization model before maturity : If Faceu does not want to be a 2VC or a sub-product of a larger product (like Instagram and Facebook), then, if the user dividend brought by the market gap cannot be maintained for a long time, the current weak profitability will become the most urgent part to be solved in the future development process. How to find a monetization model that is highly accepted by users and fits the product characteristics should be the focus of thinking in the next stage.
• Improve the team's operational capabilities : As mentioned before, Faceu has the ambition to transform into a social platform, but at this stage Faceu's operational capabilities are far from being able to realize this ambition. Currently, the product's operation team mainly uses Weibo as its operating platform, interacting with influencers and cooperating with merchants, mainly focusing on event operations . However, user operation and content operation are very weak. The content of the product’s official Weibo and official public account is relatively little, and there is also relatively little interaction with users on various channels.

3. Content Operation

3.1 Content type and format

As a content production tool, the content in Faceu is mainly created by users themselves, and the official content is mainly dynamic stickers.

Types and forms of Faceu product content

3.2 Content organization and presentation

Since there is no space inside the product to store and display content, there are not many parts involved in the organization and presentation of content, mainly the presentation of system animated stickers. The presentation of animated stickers is mainly in the form of classification, divided into commonly used, popular, latest and various thematic subcategories. The default display is the stickers that have been commonly used recently, and they are displayed in reverse order of use.

Outside the product, Faceu's content operations are mainly completed on its official Weibo. The content of Faceu’s official Weibo is mainly reposted content created by celebrities using Faceu.

Content organization and presentation of Faceu

3.3 Content Operation Measures and Effects

Faceu's content operations mainly consist of two parts: internal animated stickers and external Weibo promotions.

For some of the content of the cute animated stickers, the specific operational measures are as follows:

• Combining festivals and online hot spots to produce content has increased user interest;
• ② Launch dynamic stickers for soft promotion for cooperative enterprises. This form of promotion is highly accepted by users.

Faceu makes game -related animated stickers

The best thing Faceu's official Weibo did in terms of content operation was to promote the product through well-known cooperation with celebrities, influencers and internet celebrities - these celebrities used Faceu to complete selfies and short videos and posted them on Weibo. This kind of content operation is both interesting and topical, and has a high degree of user acceptance. The nationwide popularity in early 2016 was inseparable from the help of various internet celebrities to spread the product.

Facu's official Weibo account reposted a selfie taken by a celebrity using the product

4. Data Operations

4.1 Evaluation direction and purpose

Faceu’s current business mainly consists of two parts: one is to help users complete selfie animations, and the other is to provide social services based on videos. Considering that the product is in the development stage of its life cycle, when conducting data analysis and evaluation, we still need to pay attention to the growth of users and the usage of functions, and use the data to provide a reference for attracting new users and promoting activation of the product.

4.2 Analysis path and indicator selection

This time, the AARRR model is selected as the overall path for this analysis (as shown below).

Overall analysis framework and main data indicators

The key points to be analyzed are:

• User acquisition: The user growth path refers to the entire process of "exposure-download-registration-use", calculating the conversion rate of each link and the overall conversion rate. In addition, by distinguishing the source channels of each user, we can understand the "quality" of users in each channel and use this as a basis for adjustment and optimization.
• Function usage: Analyze the usage data of functions to evaluate the effectiveness of functions, mainly the quantity and frequency of content created by faceu users, the frequency of use of video social functions, and combine factors such as activities, dates, and time periods to analyze users' acceptance of functions and usage habits, providing data basis for the design and modification of functions.
• User retention : Focus on the loss of newly registered users and the frequency of users' return visits. Analyze the reasons such as function launch, activities, dates, etc. to find out the reasons that affect user loss and formulate targeted solutions.
• User payment status: In order to understand the user's willingness to pay and their level of acceptance, it is necessary to understand the user's recharge rate and the average consumption per recharge user.
• User re-dissemination: Since the function of the product is to help users create content that can be shared, the data analysis of this part is also included in the usage of the function. It mainly counts and analyzes the number of contents shared by users and the channel selection. The product team can make adjustments based on this.

5. User Operation

Before conducting a user operation analysis of faceu, let us first understand the user composition of faceu.

It can be seen from the data chart that faceu's users are young, mostly female, and mainly come from large and medium-sized cities. This group of users has behavioral characteristics such as loving novelty, beauty, selfies, and browsing Weibo. Faceu's user operation strategy is also formulated and implemented based on these characteristics of the user group.

Chart source: Analysys Qianfan

Chart source: Analysys Qianfan

Chart source: Analysys Qianfan

5.1 New Customer Attraction Strategy during the Growth Period

Faceu is a product that became popular in a short period of time. In addition to taking advantage of the market gap, its new customer acquisition strategy also contributed greatly.

Faceu's new customer acquisition strategies are mainly the following two:

(1) Joint KOL viral communication with target users

In the initial dissemination stage, faceu cooperated with internet celebrities and stars on Weibo. After they used faceu to share interesting selfies, with the help of their huge fan base and appeal, the product was quickly spread among the target user group (mainly young women). Find the KOL of target users

For example, in early 2016, when Faceu was first launched, it collaborated with Yu Menglong, one of the leading actors in the popular online drama “Go Princess Go” at the time, to promote it. It was forwarded over 10,000 times in one day, and it spread very quickly.

Until now, Faceu has been using celebrities and influencers to actively or passively (cooperate) share selfies to promote its products and maintain the popularity of its products.

(2) Create a hot topic and attract public participation

With the help of big Vs, Faceu created one topic after another, attracting more users to experience the product and spread the word actively.

In January 2016, the Weibo topic "Everyone Spits Rainbows" attracted many users to participate, creating a nationwide craze for using Faceu.

As of today, the topic has been read over 200 million times.

At the end of 2016, Faceu joined hands with Master Kong instant noodles to launch the topic of "The Awakening of the Black and White Alliance". This joint corporate publicity model achieved excellent results.

There are more than 214,000 original Weibo posts related to the topic of "Black and White Alliance Xinli Awakening".

5.2 Maintenance for old users

Faceu's old user maintenance methods are mainly divided into the following two forms, and these two forms are often used in combination:

• Continuously update interesting animated stickers: Due to the tool nature of the product, one of the core needs of users is to create interesting selfie animated stickers. Faceu's main method of maintaining old users is to continuously launch animated stickers that combine elements such as festivals, online hot spots, and cooperative activities to attract users to try again;
• Maintaining popularity on online social media : Consistent with the strategy of attracting new customers, Faceu uses target users such as celebrities and Internet celebrities, KOLs, to continuously spread the message on social platforms, led by Weibo, and expands its influence through activities and topics.

5.3 Lost Recall

Faceu's recall of lost users is mainly carried out through channels such as Push and Weibo, in the form of promoting new stickers, new features, and new activities. It is a relatively weak recall strategy, but based on the functional value of the product itself, such a recall can also have a good effect.

5.4 User Redissemination

Faceu's user re-propagation is divided into two parts:

• Re-dissemination brought about by the sharing function of the product itself: Since Faceu originally provided the function of sharing content, every user has completed a re-dissemination in the process of taking a selfie and sharing it, allowing more people to learn about the product. This form of re-dissemination is completed spontaneously by users during the process of using the product. Users basically have no resistance to it, so it can be said to be the best natural way of re-dissemination.
• Re-dissemination for publicity: When there are festivals, event topics, etc., in order to cooperate with product promotion, the faceu team will attract users to participate in the dissemination process through KOL guidance and rewarded participation guidance.

6. Conclusion

Faceu's products and operations are indeed remarkable, as it has experienced two outbreaks in more than a year and maintained sustained high growth and high activity, with its product functions constantly enriched and improved.

However, facing a major product transformation (I’m not responsible for making predictions, but it may become more and more like Snapchat ), can the ambition to challenge the social field be successfully realized? Everything depends on the development of Faceu in the next stage. As its loyal user, I sincerely hope that the product can get better and better, with more and more ways to play, and bring us more fun~

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

The author of this article @思达威琪 compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting! Site Map