Faced with the seven major gaps in social products, how can entrepreneurs explore them?

Let me ask you a question first. What do you think social networking is? Has anyone ever thought that for such a simple question, there will be different opinions and different understandings and answers from different perspectives?

Baidu Encyclopedia's answer is:

It refers to the communication between people in society. It is the social activities in which people use certain methods ( tools ) to transmit information and exchange ideas in order to achieve certain goals.

Here, I give the answer in my mind for your reference: Socializing is an action for everyone to solve inner loneliness and gain recognition. I think the answer to this question is open-ended. There is no right or wrong. The answer we give will determine the type of product we can produce.

Looking at the current social products, there are WeChat for socializing among acquaintances, Momo for socializing with strangers, Maimai for workplace socializing, Douban for literary and artistic youth, Zhihu, QQ, Tieba, etc. for serious question-and-answer socializing, these giants have already occupied a place in almost all fields, and it seems that we have no chance at all, especially WeChat. Now, on average, almost everyone spends 80% of their time on WeChat. It is a very scary software, and its magic cannot be described in words.

Opportunities for social products

Does that mean we can no longer move forward in the direction of social networking? Actually, this is not the case. WeChat is very powerful, but it is not invincible. After all, it has become so big. As the saying goes, "It is difficult to turn a big ship around", it is actually not without reason. The immense power of social software such as WeChat may have created opportunities for us to take advantage of. I think there are still the following opportunities for social networking:

1. Target users

Moving forward, we are targeting users born after 1995 and 2000. These users may have different thoughts and consumption habits from those born after 1980s, 1970s, and even some of those born after 1990s. They are very open-minded and have higher consumption levels. They may be the ones we can focus on next. They will seek a sense of innovation and excitement when using software, and will try every means to get away from their families and parents to pursue new things.

2. Vertical social networking

I believe many people have seen business opportunities in this regard. The user group is very concentrated, the user stickiness may be relatively high, and the monetization ability is also very high. There are also many successful cases now. Maimai, a workplace social networking platform, is like a duck to water in the vertical field of the workplace. Dongqiudi, a football social networking platform, gathers a considerable number of football fans to communicate in it, and it is also very successful. Jianshu, a pure land for writing and reading articles, started in third- and fourth-tier cities, but everyone must forget that this requires very strong content to support it, just like Maimai, which requires very strong offline resources. For the live broadcasts we are doing now, if you are a grassroots entrepreneur , an entrepreneur like me who has just graduated and has nothing, how to do it?

There is also Dongqiudi, which requires timely news and a team of editorial content, etc., which all require strong content production capabilities, that is, PGC capabilities. Therefore, social networking in vertical fields may be a good entrepreneurial opportunity, but the ability to produce content still requires a very high level of skill. Only teams or entrepreneurs with a lot of resources can try it.

3. Social networking

Although WeChat has many communities, when you open WeChat, there are only a few truly useful and active communities. Moreover, most WeChat communities are composed of acquaintances, so it is difficult to promote them. We can start with interest communities. The target audience of the groups are all users on the platform. The user base will increase, and the users who join the groups will have the same interests, which may ensure the activity of the groups. However, it is difficult to cold start this entry point, and kol is very important. You can think about it. I think communities can make some users settle down and will not divert them to WeChat.

4. Platform social

Maybe this can only be played with Taobao, Tmall , JD.com, Mogujie and other platforms. It is based on interest-based social networking under big data. We all know that only having online and no offline "appointments" may be meaningless. E-commerce social networking is also a field that Jack Ma has always wanted to do, and no one has been able to do it well yet. It may work for big guys to realize their dreams, but for grassroots entrepreneurs, they can only think about it.

5. Scenario-based social interaction

Based on a certain scenario, we can dig into a user's most painful point and pierce the user's heart like a needle. This is something that each of us can look for. Foreigners can play with the function of self-destructing messages so well, but we in China may not be able to do it, because we completely copy others without any innovation. Therefore, we need to find scenarios that suit our national conditions in China, dig deep, and innovate.

6. Find product gaps

Look for the gaps in huge products like WeChat. For example, Moments. Most people are too lazy to post now because there are too many people involved and they are afraid that their leaders will see it. Micro-businesses are everywhere and the statuses posted may all be good and pretentious without any real feelings. In fact, these are the shortcomings and gaps in Moments. You can explore people's needs in these aspects. If there is a software that is the same as WeChat, where acquaintances socialize, but acquaintances are really just acquaintances, a piece of pure land in life where you can express your emotions and record your life, would you use it?

7. Keep up with the times

The era of AR , VR , and MR will come. It may not be impossible to realize our social dreams by using augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed display video social networking, voice social networking, etc.

Steps to create a product

There may still be many gaps that need to be explored by each of us entrepreneurs. Every product has a life cycle. Everything must die after it is born. WeChat is no exception. It is just a matter of time. What we need to do is to grasp our own products, not just social products. A large part of the products can be applied to the following steps and methods to realize our ideas:

1. User needs

Based on certain user needs, deeply explore the value of the product to users. Nowadays, too many people talk about needs and pain points. I think they are all good, but I think we can use a different word, which is value. As long as it is valuable to users, there is no need to worry about users not buying it or not being sticky. Value may better reflect product quality at the product level. Exploring value can help us better create demand. Someone once said that an excellent company is one that meets needs, while a great company is one that creates demand. It finds the bridge between users and the goals they want to achieve, and then grafts and creates the bridge, which creates demand. This is the value of the product to users.

2. Target Users

Identify your target users. When we analyze the target users of our product, we need to break down the dimensions into age, gender, job, interests and hobbies, etc. to construct a user portrait. Based on the premise of great demand, we realize the minimum viable product and then iterate quickly. In each iteration, we make a layout at the strategic level to satisfy a certain type of user. Therefore, after determining the target users, we do not satisfy them all at once, but take it step by step, satisfying a certain type of user in each iteration, and proceed step by step.

3. Functional points

The next step is the functional points, which can be extracted through requirements. For example, it takes 5 km for someone to get from point A to point B, but it takes 10 minutes to get there. At this time, the ancient people would say, give me a strong horse. However, our focus is not on the horse. The horse is indeed a user demand, but the user’s fundamental demand is convenience. At this time, when we are creating a function, we are not making a horse, but the car . After the functional points are extracted, of course, an interactive combination is carried out and a product is born.

4. Application promotion

After the product is born, what should we do? We use promotion. After the child is born, we need to raise the child. At this time, we need various channels to promote our products, such as major websites, forums, BBS, QQ, WeChat, Moments, new media , etc. to operate our products . Acquire seed users and collect a large amount of user feedback to update and iterate our products.

5. Profit model

The last one, and the one that investors are most concerned about, is the profit model. Many people say that starting a business that is not for profit is just a scam. In fact, this is not without reason. We need to have a deep understanding of our profit model, when we will start to make a profit, and how long we can sustain without making a profit.

After judging through the above five steps, if it is feasible, we can start creating our product. Don't be too eager to produce our product. In a product worth millions, you won’t even know how you died. We must proceed step by step, adopt a lean approach, and seek feedback.

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

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