The development of user operations from the perspective of the commercial evolution of Internet products

Any Internet product is inseparable from users. The life cycle of almost all Internet products is a process from gathering traffic to monetizing traffic, from gathering users to benefiting from user behavior. In this process, user operation often plays a big role.

Looking back at the development history of user operations , it has only been a short period of more than ten years since user operations truly entered the fast lane of development. During the past decade or so, user operations have gradually developed from extensive general operations to refined operations. Today, some companies have even entered the stage of one-to-one operations.

The rapid development of user operations is to a certain extent influenced by the company's pursuit of maximizing user value, and it accompanies the development of every product. Every product takes user needs into consideration at the beginning of its design. After the product is designed and developed, user operations have a great opportunity to help the new product quickly accumulate users. After users are introduced, product revisions and commercial realizations are driven by observing the behavioral data left by users in the product. When the product enters a decline period, previously accumulated user data is analyzed to explore new product opportunities and new markets.

For user operation practitioners, understanding the development history of user operation can help operation personnel identify issues in improving user operation efficiency in daily work so as to keep up with this rapidly iterating job. For enterprises, understanding the past of user operation and understanding the development history of user operation can help enterprises identify the development direction of user operation so as to make good plans in the field of user operation and improve the effectiveness of user operation.

Since its inception, user operation has roughly gone through three periods: from general operation to refined operation and then to one-to-one operation. Below I will explain the characteristic performances of user operation in different periods separately.

Before discussing the special features of user operations at this stage, let us first understand the monetization methods of early Internet products, because user operations are closely related to the interests of enterprises. Without any understanding of the monetization methods of Internet products, it is difficult to deeply understand the stage characteristics of user operations.

Back to the early days of the Internet at the end of the 20th century, the popularity of personal computers led to an explosive growth in Internet traffic. At that time, online media such as AOL and Yahoo! had just been established. They had already relied on information content to obtain a good scale of traffic. Investors hoped that these media could also bring them real money. To monetize online traffic, the most direct way was to treat the website's HTML page as a magazine page and insert advertising space into the page. After the monetization method was clear, in order to expand revenue, the website had to edit more content for user consumption so that the advertising space could get a greater degree of exposure. At this stage, the job of content operation emerged, which was similar to the daily work of content editors in traditional offline media, except for the difference between online and offline. Terms like community operation have also become popular since then.

The roles played by content operation and community operation at this stage are similar to user operation, and their purpose is to attract user attention to the greatest extent and then sell them in groups.

At this time, user operations were transformed into pan-operations, or full-scale operations. Due to the limitations of technology at the time, user behaviors recorded by the server background were relatively primitive and single, and the characterization of user behavior characteristics was not as detailed as it is today. Users were treated as a whole. Companies with slightly more advanced concepts would make slight distinctions between users, but most of them remained on the surface, and the user characteristics mined were mostly explicit characteristics.

The characteristics of user operations at this time are mainly reflected in two aspects: content and operation methods:

In terms of content : content and copywriting are unified, and the focus of operations staff is to expand the amount of information on the website and increase the speed of information acquisition and release. Users mostly obtain content passively based on the operations staff's operational purposes.

In terms of operational methods : the information push method is to push the same content in full, the push time depends on the demands of the website, and the user behavior detection points are relatively single.

This stage is a period of rapid traffic growth, with low traffic acquisition costs and a relatively simple way to monetize traffic. At this time, the role played by the website is similar to that of a traditional newspaper. The biggest difference is the amount of information and the speed of information release. Online media can earn huge returns by outputting content with advertising. The focus of operations is on commercial demands, with relatively less attention paid to users. Domestic representatives in this regard include Sohu, NetEase and other old PC-based information websites.

This stage begins the Internet traffic dividend period. The reason why it is called the traffic dividend period is that the value of traffic is magnified to the maximum extent. Compared with the previous stage, although the cost of acquiring traffic is increasing, the value generated by traffic is much higher than the previous stage because of the diversification of traffic monetization methods.

In addition to advertising, e-commerce and value-added services also began to play an increasingly important role in monetizing traffic during this period. In addition, website operators who traditionally relied on advertising as their main source of revenue began to explore user characteristics in order to exchange traffic for greater advertising value. The purpose was to segment traffic in order to increase the selling price of accurate traffic.

User operations at this stage have begun to transition from full-scale operations in the previous stage to refined operations, and their operational performance has the following three characteristics:

• Users : Pay more attention to user characteristics, label users, conduct user analysis (device, behavior, channel , etc.), and pay more attention to implicit characteristics besides explicit characteristics in user feature mining.
• Content : More emphasis is placed on placing the right content in the right place, accurately pushing content based on interest tags, and finding people through information. More attention is paid to the valuable use of traffic. Unlike the extensive approach in the past, it emphasizes precision, pays more attention to retention and conversion, and attaches more importance to leveraging the value of existing traffic.
• Data : Record user behavior data through key conversion path embedding points, mine user behavior data, pay more attention to the performance of key user behavior data, use more diverse data analysis methods and dimensions, and emphasize the effective use and full development of data value.

Simply put, at this stage, from the perspective of traffic, refined operations are to maximize the value of traffic, and from the perspective of users, it is to serve different dishes to different people. Representatives in this regard include Baidu in advertising, Tencent in value-added services, and Alibaba in e-commerce.

The emergence of one-to-one operations is largely due to the trend of traffic concentration in the post-traffic era. Traffic is mainly concentrated in the hands of Internet giants represented by BAT. Startups are facing the dual dilemma of high traffic costs and users' immunity to homogeneous products.

At this stage, retention is more important than new additions, and it is more worthwhile to invest in intensive operations than simply seeking product differences. The value of a single user is increasingly valued, and technology is fully capable of tracking the behavior of a single user within the app. One-to-one operations are put on the agenda in this context.

Although one-to-one operations appeared relatively late, they have been valued by more and more companies due to their outstanding effects. Many third-party data analysis products have appeared at this stage. With the help of third-party data products, it is possible to collect full data of a single user and record single user behavior data in real time without embedding points. The data analysis is more refined and can help managers, products, markets, analysts, etc. to improve conversions, optimize websites/APPs, and achieve rapid user growth and monetization.

From the company's perspective, the most prominent feature of one-to-one operations is real-time performance . The previous operating model often involved performing a series of operations through analysis of user historical data. Due to the delay in server data, the operating effect could not be maximized. One-to-one operations can analyze a single user's behavior in real time and provide an operating plan . Real-time automated operations can be achieved by setting user behavior conditions through third-party software. Operations place more emphasis on conversion effects. For example, in addition to emphasizing personalization of content push, information push also extends to push for different operational purposes, such as conversion behavior push, trigger behavior push, and so on.

From the user's perspective, the process of interaction between users and products is also the process of products leaving an impression on users . If a product is regarded as a person, each product leaves a different impression on users. One-on-one operation can be tailored to each user. In terms of user experience, it meets the dual demands of user information acquisition and personal value expression.

The emergence of one-to-one operations has enabled companies to maximize user value and business value. In the future, operations of the entire Internet industry will definitely develop in the direction of one-to-one operations.

Since the emergence of user operation, it has roughly gone through the above three stages. The user operation characteristics of each stage are inevitably linked to the business demands behind it. Research on user operation must also return to the business itself. After all, user operation that is not for the purpose of making money (attracting attention) can be regarded as hooliganism.

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The author of this article @同道Tongdao compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!