If you want to do a good job in content operation, you need to establish your own content cognition framework!

Online content operations can be understood as the display of various products, platforms, channels, and brands that users can access, including text, pictures, audio, etc. Content operation can be divided into new media content operation, platform content operation, community content operation, etc. based on different platform channels. It can also be divided according to business into promotion content operation, product content operation, user content operation, etc. Although each company will have slightly different settings, with a basic cognitive framework, you will not be so confused about content operations.

1. The value of content operation

To understand something, one must understand the value it represents. The value of operations can be understood from the perspectives of user needs and business conversion.

In order to understand a product, brand, or society, users need to receive a lot of text, jokes, videos, etc. every day. Content is the connection point between user needs and business. Through content, users can understand, accept, recognize and consume products and brands more intuitively.

Value 1: Content connects products with users

1. Communicate brand value
2. Cultivate and educate users

The launch of a platform and the release of a product does not mean that it can be directly understood and used by users. This requires operations to inform users of the value of the platform and products in a way that users can understand. Attracting new users, retaining users, activating users, converting users, and spreading users’ behaviors, all these changes cannot be separated from the use of content to communicate and educate users.

Whether it is event operation or brand operation, it is connecting with users through different forms of content presentation. Users' attention and willingness to pay will vary due to different content. In addition to the UI, users can form an intuitive impression of the product through a piece of copy , a focus picture, or a soft article. When many new products are launched, the product content pages that display the new product’s selling points do not have good soft content promotion. Can the final conversion be good?

Value 2: Content becomes part of product services

1. Users directly consume content
2. Content assists users in consuming products

Although old-fashioned instruction manuals are slowly being phased out by users, this does not mean that the product can provide complete user services . Take Apple products for example. Although they pursue minimalism, there are a lot of corresponding content on the Internet about the usage tips and strategies of many products. Even if they are contributed by users, this is also a way of content operation.

Many people often encounter some problems when operating content, such as using their own perspective to pile up content that users cannot understand at all, and one-sided pursuit of minimalism. In fact, users have no idea what they want to express. Apple’s products and instructions are very simple, but Apple’s extended content services are very rich. Changes in user needs have driven changes in content presentation. Products do not need content, but they need upgraded content. Content has even become an important part of user consumption of products.

2. The value of content operation

Xiaoyuan has previously shared the differences between editors and content operators. Although the ways in which they exert their value are somewhat similar, there are still essential differences.

There are generally two ways for content operations to bring value to products:

1. Publish content

Many products and brands mainly use content publishing to realize their value. Content will serve as a carrier of information and will be delivered to target users according to certain rules. Conversion is related to factors such as exposure and content quality.

(1) One-way content publishing

Content operators publish "one-way" content. Some traditional news media information websites and traditional brand promotions use this kind of content to convey information. This is usually suitable for products and brands that have high requirements for standardized content output.

This method of content delivery requires very high editing and planning capabilities from content operators, whether it is the quality of the content's unified standards or the frequency and speed of content updates and push notifications. Content users need to grasp the topic direction, title, content, timeliness, amount of information, etc.

Although this type of content is standardized, one-way content push also means that the user's voice will not be displayed, and the content can easily fall into a situation of lack of interaction and dissemination. Especially for content released by brands, once there is a lack of interaction, it is difficult for it to form its own personality. Without dialogue between users and brands, the stickiness will be relatively weak.

(2) Conversational content publishing

Users began to want to communicate with the products and brands that speak, which made a lot of content become "humanized." The content began to focus more on communicating with users and began to become closer to users. This kind of "conversational" content allows users to have the same emotions, and their emotions are easily driven by the content. The content begins to transform into value in the process of interaction with users.

The promotions of many brands have also become more "personalized". If there are people who have been paying attention to the Hammer phone, many of them will be influenced by Luo Yonghao's persistent attitude and buy the phone because of the emotional content.

2. Activate content

In addition to publishing content, content operators also have another way to realize value, which is to activate content for sharing. For example, live streaming , Zhihu, etc. In this case, content operations will change to activating content and guiding value conversion.

(1) Create a scene

Content operation needs to create a scenario where users actively share valuable content. For example, Zhihu has created a professional and in-depth content sharing platform, allowing more users who are suitable for this scenario to join and share corresponding content according to the rules within the scenario.

If users share content spontaneously, there will be a lot of unformed "corner" content, and even a lot of low-quality content that impacts the atmosphere. Therefore, in order to create a scenario for content operations, in addition to guiding content laying, it is also very important to formulate rules, screen and review content, and perform other operational work to guide the direction of content.

(2) User Personalization Operation

By personalizing the operation of user content, UGC and PGC can be continuously produced and generate value. Content is produced by users, but after "secondary processing" by content operations, in addition to the form of content presentation, more emphasis is placed on personalized operations of users. This is also a way for content operations to realize value.

Blooming will share one of her stories in each push of the WeChat official account . These stories are all from real users. After deep secondary processing such as screening, editing, and display by content operations, they become content with communication power and brand tone to convey value.

When content is combined with users, the content of benchmark users can influence the behavior of followers, and the content of old users can be used to educate new users. The operation of content is also the operation of users. The user's personalized content creates value in the operation, and will reversely encourage users to actively create more valuable content. This is also a virtuous circle and a content operation method with divergent influence.

3. Product Operation

While operating the product, it influences the content generation and conversion process. In the process of attracting new users, promoting activation and conversion of the product, it stimulates the generation and conversion of valuable content. For example, on platforms like Meilishuo and Xiaohongshu , users publish content on the platform according to the experience process planned by the product, and different rules will produce content of different values.

Combine the product operation process with the content operation process , including guiding the release of content, reviewing and screening content, recommending content, and how content generates conversions.

3. Core Work of Content Operation

In the previous section, we have discussed the value of content operations and the ways in which that value is realized, allowing everyone to build a mental understanding of content operations. Next, we will complete the cognitive framework of content operations from the perspective of specific work execution.

1. Make good content operation plan

Only when content is operated under the guidance of planning can it generate value that meets operational objectives. Of course, not everyone who does content operations will be involved in content operations planning, but some planning ideas are very helpful in understanding operational goals. This has been mentioned in the article shared by Xiaoyuan before, so I won’t repeat it here. Just to briefly list the three important aspects of content operation planning.

1. Determine the attributes of the target group and the corresponding positioning of the content
2. Plan the layout and direction of the content
3. Determine the resource cost of investment based on the content value output target

Don’t ignore the role of content operation planning . There will be too many different voices involved in this process. Occasionally, someone will say, make an H5 that will spread crazily, and someone else will say, find a big V to do a soft-text promotion. People who don’t understand will think that others can achieve the results by doing these things, and often ignore the overall content operations done by others behind the scenes. Therefore, if the planning is done well, other people’s arrangements or suggestions will become a highlight, rather than a factor that distracts the energy of content operation and causes the content to go astray.

2. Content Operation Standards (Assessment)

Even though operations often play a role that is difficult to quantify, content operations also require standards. It just requires balancing and setting explicit and implicit standards.

(1) Explicit standards: directly using data to measure

For example, for a WeChat public account , the update volume, open rate, and forwarding volume can be used to directly judge the quality of pictures and texts based on the data level. This standard can also encourage content operators to focus on each content and create content with better effects.

(2) Invisible standards: maximizing content value and linking it to goals

Whether the content is of high quality, creative, and able to convey the brand tone... there is no way to break these down into direct data. A situation often occurs where the content is actually very good, but the KPI data reflected is not high, and then the value of the content is negated by the superficial KPI .

Xiaoyuan will pay attention to the data, but she pays more attention to the content itself. Data can be manipulated manually, and the content will reveal the strength of the operation. Poor data performance may be temporary. "If it's good content, the data will definitely be very high." This statement is actually very "layman's talk".

There is actually no need to set too detailed KPIs for content operations. There are fewer dimensions and they are more closely related to the ultimate goal, so that each function can be linked relatively flexibly. Of course, this also requires an operations leader with strong management capabilities, otherwise it is easy to end up reaping the benefits without doing anything else.

3. Implementation of content operations

After the content operation plan and standards are determined, the next step is to implement the operation content.

1. Select a topic and determine the content prototype
2. Performance, every detail that makes up the content: title, layout, design, etc.
3. Push, push rules

Whether the content has its own unique opinions, how to present it, the layout, and the pre-embedded content are all things that must be considered when implementing content operations, which will affect the final effect. Details in execution may seem small, but they will affect the user experience, and details demonstrate strength.

The content of each channel is presented differently, so content operators need to repeatedly test the performance of the content in the corresponding channels. Xiaoyuan will continue to share content such as "How to make an attractive title" and "What is a good layout", which will not be elaborated here.

PUSH may be just a routine action, but when and how it is sent are things that content operations can control. If the PUSH is too rough, it will hurt users, or it may be too indirect and users will ignore it. This can be seen from the push performance of service accounts and subscription accounts .

However, PUSH is a channel and action that directly contacts users, allowing users to receive information relatively accurately and without harassment. This is an important way to quickly improve operational results . Would it be different if PUSH was also used as a fun and operational means to provide better user experience?

For example, some apps will push time-based activities at a certain time each week. Of course, users can also quickly and easily give feedback on their experience with receiving information, cancel push notifications, continue receiving, or even customize their own receiving time.

Each content operation will have different factors to consider during the specific implementation process due to the different breadth of thinking. Whether you can systematically think about the relationship between content and users is very important for the final effect of the operation. If you simply operate based on “what I think” and hurt users, and cause them to leave, you will think it is because the users are not accurate. Xiaoyuan hopes that everyone will not operate in this blind and subjective way.

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

The author of this article @粉小圆 is compiled and published by (青瓜传媒). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!