1. The concept of content operationBecause many users of Internet products have the need to consume content. Content operation is to meet users' content consumption needs, increase product activity and users' awareness of the brand by producing and reorganizing content.2. ValueThe value of operations personnel is to establish a bond between products and users.Using channel promotion to let more users know about and use the product is to attract new users; using content, users, activities, etc. to give more reasons to use the product is to promote activation and retention.Content operation is the process by which operators meet user needs and drive continuous visits by launching high-quality content and planning graphic presentations. Let users understand and use the product, and let users feel the value of the product.3. FunctionThrough content operations attached to products, not only can users’ rational content consumption needs be met, but users can also have an emotional understanding of the product’s tone.Meet users' content consumption needs and convey the product's positioning and tone.4. Mode① Traditional modela. Zhihu Daily. In order to enhance Zhihu's content distribution capabilities, increase the number of times content is viewed and the breadth of its distribution, the high-quality content produced by users will be screened, integrated and packaged, and presented to users in the form of an independent app.b. Hupu Sports. The feature of the news is to translate foreign media content, build brand awareness by meeting the differentiated needs of users for obtaining such information, and thus increase traffic. The specific implementation form is that translation, editing and publishing are completed by official personnel, which requires high news screening and copywriting skills.c. Himalayas . By building a PGC platform, we introduce various high-quality audio content. After the operation screens these contents, it will be recommended on the homepage and other display positions to play a role in traffic distribution. At the same time, personalized recommendations are made for users through algorithms. The combination of these two methods meets the user's needs for listening to audio.The above three cases apply the traditional model of content operation, which has been very popular in the industry in recent years. Its characteristics are reliance on the editing and planning capabilities of operators and the huge workload. The advantage is that the quality and timeliness of the content can be guaranteed:a. Quality. Due to the deep involvement of operations staff, the quality of topic selection, title copywriting and content layout can be guaranteed, ensuring the overall quality and tone. It not only improves the user's reading experience, but also plays an important role in building product brands and setting content benchmarks for UGC.b. Timeliness. From web1.0 to the present, major portals have very high requirements for content timeliness, and general media platforms need to work in three shifts. The same is true for non-information products. It requires human supervision to ensure timely response, otherwise no matter how well UGC runs, it will be useless.The above two advantages are obvious, and are also the effects currently pursued by major media platforms. But the traditional model also has its disadvantages:a. It is separated from usersAlthough operations can use data and user feedback to determine whether the content is high quality and whether it can meet user needs, fundamentally speaking, content operations and users are still separated.When planning content, the entire process from conception of topic selection to completion of output is "one-way", which only represents the views and perspectives of the operation personnel and has no intersection with the users. This working mode determines that the output content is not from the user's perspective. Therefore, even if operations try hard to focus on user needs, it is actually difficult to do so because the butt determines the head.b. It is difficult to differentiate the contentWhy is it so difficult to operate a public account and why it takes so long to increase followers? One of the reasons is that everyone is chasing hot topics, and the hot topics are the same, so there is not much room for differentiation in content. If you don’t chase hot topics, it will be difficult to attract a large number of users and increase followers will be even slower.The same principle applies to content operations. Everyone is competing for quality, timeliness, and even "attracting eyeballs," which leads to serious content homogeneity, distracting users' attention, and affecting the effectiveness of content operations.c. Limited number of users coveredEven if the target audience is the majority of users, it will be restricted by the amount of content output and display channels. Coupled with the increasingly segmented user needs, it will inevitably lead to the inability to meet long-tail demands.The output of content is determined by operational manpower and has a ceiling; the display channels are determined by product form and are usually limited in number; but there are many segmented user needs, and the total number of users covered by these needs is large. The contradiction between coverage and segmented needs cannot be met by the traditional content operation model.The above three points are the disadvantages of the traditional model and are difficult to bypass. The solution is to integrate content into the product process and use the product to provide users with scenario-based and personalized content. This is the second model mentioned above: the innovation model.②Innovation modelThe specific practices can be divided into three aspects: scenario-based, personalized and product process-based.a. Scenario-basedList the scenarios in which users use the product one by one, then list the requirements corresponding to the scenarios, and finally plan the content based on the requirements. Through this process, users and content are connected to better meet user needs.The simplified expression is as follows: user → user scenario → demand under the scenario → content used to meet the demandTaking the movie app as an example, the target users are people who go to the cinema to buy tickets to watch movies. The user scenarios are roughly movie-watching decision-making, ticket purchase, ticket collection, movie watching, and interaction (or none). Each step has targeted needs and corresponding content can be provided.Take the "ticket purchase" link as an example. The survey found that after purchasing tickets, users also want to plan their time for the day of watching the movie and learn about the relevant information about the movie or theater so that they have a clear idea of what to expect. Here are a few specific requirements:
Mode of transportation. Including subway/bus routes, parking lot locations and charges, taxi fare estimates, etc.
Nearby shopping district. Generally, watching a movie is a series of activities that also includes eating, drinking coffee, shopping, taking a taxi, etc. Therefore, the demand involves recommendations of nearby restaurants, brand stores, shopping malls, and even discount information summary
The actual situation. If the cinema is unfamiliar to the user, more pictures can be provided to show the cinema and its surroundings, so that the user can understand the actual situation in advance.
Parent mode. If you take your children to the movies (not recommended), you will be interested in nearby places suitable for children to eat, play, and rest, such as children's playgrounds.
Make a list of needs, collect and produce content in a targeted manner. Platforms like Meituan can connect various "eating, drinking, playing and having fun" services in the form of content, and then push the content to users who have just completed ticket purchases, so that users can read it in time. Being able to provide such thoughtful and differentiated services is beyond users' expectations and can greatly improve user satisfaction. In today's world where products and services are becoming more homogenized, it is possible that these details of experience will become the reason for users to choose a product.In order to ensure the quality and accuracy of the content, it can only be produced through operational editing. And because there are so many cinemas, it is impossible to provide relevant content for all cinemas. You can give priority to cinemas with large ticket volumes.b. PersonalizationEven within the same product, users’ characteristics, needs, and activity levels can vary greatly, just like a community where, although everyone lives there, they are divided into genders, young and old. If content services are provided to all users of a product according to uniform standards, it would be like distributing the same item to all residents in a community, which would definitely only meet the needs of some people.For a product, the greater the number of users whose needs are met, the greater the benefit to the product itself, which is reflected in DAU/UV, UGC volume, brand awareness and other aspects. To achieve this effect, users must be classified according to different dimensions, such as population type, interests, activity level, etc., and then personalized content must be provided to different groups of people in a targeted manner.That is to say, the residents in the community are divided into the elderly, children, young men and women, white-collar and blue-collar workers, those working in Zhongguancun or Guomao, etc., and then different services are provided to meet their different needs.Taking the mother and baby app as an example, the target audience of the product is divided into three stages: preparation for pregnancy, pregnancy, and 0-N years old. The user characteristics and needs of each stage are obviously different. The pregnancy period is measured in weeks. The expectant mother's feelings, issues to pay attention to, prenatal check-ups, and items needed are different each week. Therefore, when providing content, maternal and infant products operate personalized content according to these stages.At this stage, maternal and child apps are already very mature in this regard, and this is generally how they are done. By manually editing high-quality content, it is displayed through product push based on the different stages of the user's life.c. Product ProcessingAfter completing a complete product operation process, users often close it and leave. In this situation, there is a possibility of user loss, because it is entirely possible that users will continue to operate, but because the product process has ended, users have no choice but to end it.Content operations can draw on this idea and add content that meets user needs after the original operating process. Without harming the user experience, take back this part of the traffic and increase the step length. This idea is already very popular in the e-commerce field, mainly appearing in related product recommendations after an order is placed, driving additional purchase conversions. But for user products or tool products, there is still a lot of room for utilization.Taking travel apps as an example, in addition to traditional e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.com, travel products such as Ctrip also have the ordering process. The user's operation process is to determine the destination, select the product, fill in the information, and complete the payment. In theory, the complete product process is completed at this time, but in fact the user's needs are not over, because after completing the purchase, the user needs to prepare for the trip.Although I won't start packing right away, I at least want to know some precautions and strategies. If you provide such relevant content after the transaction process is completed, you can get this part of the traffic and step length. More importantly, this is in line with user needs and will improve user satisfaction.Let’s take a look at food delivery apps. Similar to travel products, this link can be used after completing the payment for takeout; but the difference is that after placing the order, you will enter the stage of waiting for delivery. If the user is in a hurry to eat, he will check the delivery progress frequently. During this waiting process, if relevant content can be pushed to users for them to read, it can save users’ waiting time for food delivery, relieve their anxiety, and improve the user experience.Ele.me has put a small game called "Who will pick up the meal" on the order completion page. Allowing users to play games while waiting for food to be delivered has the same effect as pushing content, but is more interesting and more appropriate.5. Specific practicesAfter talking about the two modes of content operation, let’s talk about how to carry out content operation step by step. The model is a higher-level strategy, and the execution phase is the method of implementing the ideas.①Analysis ideasFirst, determine product positioning and target audienceThen, determine the content positioning based on the characteristics of the target population.Finally, adjust and correct repeatedly in practiceFrom the homepages of the above five apps, we can see that the content styles and tones vary greatly. The most fundamental reason is that the positioning and target groups of each product are different. Taking AcFun as an example, its positioning is focused on two-dimensional content and its user population is very distinctive, so the atmosphere of the entire product is very good. This is why their user loyalty is several orders of magnitude higher than that of major video sites.The first two steps are to determine the product and content positioning, which have been discussed in previous articles and will not be elaborated here. Here we focus on the third step, how to repeatedly adjust and correct in practice. Let me first talk about two difficulties:a. Content standards are difficult to defineWe hope to meet users' needs through content operations and attract more users to visit. However, there is no particularly clear definition of what kind of content is considered good content, and it is difficult to grasp. Therefore, this standard needs to be repeatedly discussed, clarified and understood during the team execution process. When encountering situations that are beyond the scope, we should bring them up for open discussion and reach consensus again. By repeating this process over and over again, an internal standard can be formed. Of course, in this process, the person in charge is the one at the helm, and the content standards are basically a reflection of his views.b. KPI can easily affect content positioningIn the process of content operation, it is very likely that the following situation will occur: for content that meets the positioning, user data is temporarily not high, but users like content outside the positioning range very much. This is caused by many factors, such as the user source not matching the product positioning, or the user's high demand for entertainment content and low demand for in-depth content, etc.At this time, if you simply follow the KPI without clearly analyzing the reasons behind it and cannot withstand the pressure, you will deviate from the originally designated content positioning, resulting in unclear product positioning, changing the product, or even killing it.The correct approach is to understand the magnitude of user demand before execution and anticipate subsequent risks. When the data is lower than expected, we need to analyze the specific reasons. If it is within normal expectations, you must withstand the pressure and keep trying, and don't be tempted by the so-called beautiful scenery on the roadside. Even if the content direction is adjusted, it should be because of the proof of practical conclusions rather than blindly pursuing data.② Execution methodFrom the perspective of content output sources, content operation methods can be divided into official output and user output.a. Official outputIt refers to the website editor or content operation staff, who independently plan and produce the content, which is generally high-quality, in-depth or important content. The advantage is that the timing and quality of content can be controlled to meet user needs and convey product tone; the disadvantage is that the labor cost is high and it is not suitable for mass production.