Big news! WeChat suddenly released the "WeChat Index" last night: a must-read for operators, advertisers laughed, Baidu cried again...

Just last night, something happened that had far-reaching significance for all media, marketing, public relations and other professionals.

WeChat official account " WeChat Pie", which always likes to make big news, pushed an article announcing: WeChat officially launched the " WeChat Index "

According to official statements, the WeChat Index is a mobile index provided by WeChat officials based on WeChat big data analysis .

As is WeChat’s usual style, if users want to check the WeChat index, the entrance is still hidden very deeply. You need to manually search for "WeChat Index", select "Search", and click the icon to see it.

What can WeChat Index be used for? WeChat Pie pointed out three major application scenarios in the article, including:

1. Capture hot words and understand trends;

2. Monitor public opinion trends and form research results;

3. Gain insights into user interests and help with precision marketing

If you observe these three scenes carefully, they are basically the content that the self-media ecosystem needs to pay attention to every day. No wonder the famous self-media "Gossip" immediately pushed an article last night saying:

For WeChat public account operators , brands, marketing, and public relations personnel, this is a tool that will be used every day in the future.

However, we believe that the impact of the WeChat Index is far more than just this.

We immediately interviewed Xu Danei, the founder and CEO of New List , the largest content entrepreneurship service platform in China, which just completed a round B financing of 180 million yuan, led by Chinese Culture. (It was already 11 o'clock in the evening, and it was really the first time. It just so happened that Xu had just finished watching the Chinese national football team and was still excited...)

Xu Danai shared his views on the WeChat Index from three aspects: its practical application value , potential energy , and the similarities and differences with Xinbang’s services .

A new way to evaluate the effectiveness of large-scale advertising

What everyone is most concerned about is what impact the "WeChat Index" has on themselves?

Xu Danai said that based on the current public information, the WeChat Index mainly reflects the volume of a certain keyword in the WeChat environment, which may be obtained by integrating a series of user data such as WeChat public accounts , WeChat searches, and Moments .

In other words, its practical significance lies in knowing the real popularity of a certain keyword in the current WeChat ecosystem . This leads to two effects:

1. Advertisers can better monitor the effects of their advertising campaigns;

2. Self-media can evaluate whether a hot topic is popular on WeChat.

Let’s talk about effect monitoring first. Xu Danai believes that the WeChat Index must be very useful in monitoring results.

For example, if a certain brand is used as a keyword, and the WeChat index does not change before and after the advertisement is launched, it means that this advertisement has no impact at all in the WeChat ecosystem. Use this solid evidence to question Party B.

On the other hand, at this point, no matter how much Party B tries to deceive you by saying “Actually, I think it’s useful…”, it’s meaningless.

After all, self-media advertising is so expensive nowadays, and the WeChat Index can become a powerful tool for sponsors to monitor the effectiveness. Of course, this is especially true for wealthy players who bought WeChat Moments ads .

Let’s talk about determining hot spots.

Let’s take another example. If an operations editor wants to know whether to follow Mi Meng or the hot topic of iPhone 7 in China today. In the past, he could only rely on his professional sensitivity to make judgments, but in the future he can use the WeChat Index to search.

Obviously, "China Red" is more popular now and is at a historical high; on the other hand, Mi Meng, who earns 50,000 yuan a month as an assistant, is already a past hot topic...

However, we also found that the WeChat Index is still incomplete.

Last night, the Chinese team's victory over South Korea in the finals for the first time in 7 years was all over the WeChat Moments. We searched for Yu Dabao, the striker who scored the only goal for China, as a keyword and found that the WeChat index did not change significantly. This shows that the WeChat Index has a certain lag.

Therefore, for poor media colleagues like us who have their wages deducted by their bosses if they follow hot topics one day late , the WeChat Index is of no use in judging hot topics.

monologue

WeChat takes another step towards content distribution by defeating Baidu

During the interview, the most important point Xu Danai expressed was that the WeChat Index can reflect the changes in the flow of information and content from one aspect.

▲This cool avatar is Lao Xu himself

Obviously, this is in reference to Baidu Index and Baidu's ambitions for content distribution.

In the past, if there was any big news, Baidu Index could basically summarize the current hot spots and trends by crawling several core "news source" websites, such as Sina , Sohu, etc.

However, when users are more immersed in the closed WeChat information circle, such as watching Mi Meng for entertainment and serious gossip;

As one thing grows while another shrinks, the Baidu Index is often biased. On the contrary, the WeChat Index, which has more user behavior data, will replace the former and become the most credible trend indicator.

A few days ago, the news about Baidu canceling its news source database already reflected Baidu’s anxiety.

In the PC era, Baidu had an almost monopoly on traffic entrances. The rise of mobile information channels such as Weibo, WeChat, and Toutiao forced Baidu to continuously improve its content distribution mechanism. As for mobile news and information products, Baidu News is weaker than Weibo in delivering instant information, weaker than WeChat in terms of in-depth content and occupying user time, and weaker than Toutiao and others in recommending personalized algorithm content.

This time, Baidu redefined high-quality news sources and cleaned up the old media that were dominated by press releases and soft articles, reflecting Li Yanhong's determination at the beginning of the year to "let Baidu return to content distribution, let more content find people actively, and win back users who were "taken away by a large number of content packaged by independent apps (Weibo, WeChat, Zhihu, Toutiao, etc.)"

However, the launch of the WeChat Index is equivalent to giving Baidu a blow. Because Baidu only has information and content, while the WeChat ecosystem has not only content data but also user behavior data.

The WeChat Index is another biceps that Zhang Xiaolong shows off.

We believe that the WeChat Index and the ever-present “hot articles in Moments” are actually killing two birds with one stone.

The entrance is very deep, and the hot articles in the circle of friends that appear randomly attempt to establish a new entrance for content distribution within WeChat by monitoring various user behavior data, and to reduce chicken soup articles and marketing articles, so that the underlying content can be revived. (Obviously, Zhang Xiaolong is still very cautious about this matter)

The WeChat Index proves that WeChat can not only control various types of user data, but also use them to predict hot spots and trends, and will be able to guide personalized recommendations more accurately in the future.

In general, based on the content distribution capabilities of the current WeChat public account system, coupled with the user behavior analysis capabilities reflected by the WeChat Index, it can be inferred that WeChat will derive businesses such as trend forecasting, personalized recommendations, and marketing services in the future. These are enough to make Baidu and Toutiao shudder.

Macro sound volume cannot replace individual observation

In this case, doesn’t the WeChat Index become the most powerful king? What should Xinbang, which also provides new media data services, do?

The WeChat Index was born out of WeChat and has a good pedigree. I believe that with optimization and iteration, it will have the opportunity to become an extremely important indicator.

Xu Danai said that the biggest difference is that the New List Index mainly reflects the dissemination ability of a WeChat public account or a certain content. At the same time, Xinbang has built content value assessment standards for the entire mobile platform, including data from multiple platforms such as Weibo and Toutiao.

Taking the marketing service, which currently accounts for the largest share of Xinbang’s revenue, as an example, third-party data service providers can obviously provide advertisers with better pre-investment services.

Xu Danai told me that before launching an ad, advertisers need to know more about the communication capabilities and user profile of a public account, so as to use it as a reference for decision-making.

Therefore, advertisers need to see the dissemination data (readings, likes, growth curve), user portraits, and the past delivery records and even conversion data of a specific public account or KOL . For example, Xinbang can provide some assistance in this regard.

In short, what Xu Danei wanted to express was: As a professional "water seller", we still have a lot of business space.

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

This article was written by @创业邦杂志and published by (青瓜传媒). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting! Site Map