How to better utilize material and spiritual resources to motivate users?

As long as the product is valuable, people will use it. For example, when paying the bill at a restaurant, it is more convenient to use WeChat Pay than to use cash; when calling a taxi, it is more convenient and cheaper to use Uber than to wait for a taxi. However, if you want users to use the app continuously and frequently, you need user incentives. In terms of implementation methods, it can be divided into two types: products and operations . Product methods include points, levels, rankings, medals, sign-ins, V certification, etc.; operation methods include activities, recommendations, packaging, payment, etc. However, user incentives are not just a means, but a system. Therefore, in the execution process, products and operations are inseparable.

To build a user incentive system, you need to start from user needs, choose the appropriate model, and then combine it with the product. The user needs mentioned here can be divided into two types: material and spiritual. Material means money or physical objects, and spiritual refers to psychological or emotional satisfaction. Next, let’s talk about how to use material or spiritual means to motivate users.

1. Material Incentives

Material incentives are the use of material as a reward for user contributions. The materials mentioned here include not only money, but also physical objects that can be converted into money. Therefore, material incentives are centered around money and are essentially the same as transactions. The buyer is the product side, and the seller is the user side, and they trade on the product in a manner and at a price that both parties agree on.

Let me illustrate this with a few cases:

① Baidu Knows

When I was at Baidu Zhidao, I was in charge of a project called “Ask the Doctor”. The general idea is to invite doctors from public hospitals to answer minor medical questions. The situation in the Internet medical industry at that time was that top resources were extremely scarce and the time of experts in tertiary hospitals was priceless. To attract them, there must be either academic research benefits or economic benefits.

The light consultation orientation of "Ask a Doctor" determines that the cost of a single question is very low, probably only a few dollars, which cannot meet the needs of experts in tertiary hospitals, so the target of introduction has shifted to doctors in second- and third-tier cities, and second-class or lower-level hospitals. These doctors have relatively ample time and low incomes, so fees like these for light consultations can motivate them.

The industry practice was very mature at the time, and these doctors were paid to answer questions online. A tiered pricing method is adopted, that is, the fee is calculated according to the number of questions answered. The more questions you answer, the more money you earn.

This is a typical material incentive system that uses money to attract and drive users. Everything that operations do is basically related to money:

• When recruiting doctors, the main selling point is paid answers
• When communicating with doctors, a lot of time is spent answering questions about costs
• Continuously optimize the salary system and improve the efficiency of cost use
• Strengthen review to ensure the quality of answers
• Follow up the company's internal processes to ensure accurate and timely payment

This type of incentive is based on the same principle as earning a salary from work: you get a day's salary for a day's work, and there is a clear calculation method and expectation.

② Baidu Public Testing

Baidu Public Testing is a paid task platform. Each product line packages standardized operations into tasks and assigns them to core users, who are paid according to the number of operations. This model maximizes the use of Baidu's massive user resources, which not only motivates users but also saves Baidu's manpower.

What users need to do are very simple, black-and-white objective questions that do not require thinking. For example, when matching Chinese characters and letters, "the strongest operation" would be matched with "yunyingzq" or "yyzq". If you match 500 sets, you can get a JD card worth 100 yuan. In this task, each operation is equivalent to 0.2 yuan, and payment is made only when 500 operations are completed. There are clear pricing and payment conditions, which fall into the category of material incentives.

Meituan also has this kind of crowdsourcing model. Users can take a photo of a merchant’s store with their mobile phone, upload it to the crowdsourcing app, and attach the merchant’s name. After passing the review, they can pay according to the number of photos.

The advantage of material incentives is their strong leverage ability. Because people are profit-seeking, when users learn that they can make money here, they will definitely participate quickly and on a large scale.

The disadvantage is that the quality of user contributions cannot be guaranteed, and the atmosphere of the product will also be affected. Material incentives are like a naked monetary transaction. The interaction between the two parties is based on money, so users will naturally treat the product in this way.

For example, if you tell users that they can earn 1 dollar by posting a post, then in the eyes of users, they will only focus on the operation of posting and will not pay attention to the quality of the post. This cannot be blamed on the users, as the quality of posts is not part of the rules of the transaction.

Currently, most of the Internet products that require user contributions are based on interests and hobbies. For example, users record the cooking process step by step and post it to the Xiachufang app because they enjoy the cooking process and want to share it with others. From these photos and text descriptions, you can see the emotions that users have poured into this. This is no longer just a dish.

If you tell the user to send a dish up, I’ll give you 5 dollars. It should bring a lot of new content, but there is definitely no emotional element. Every picture and every description is cold. Because users are performing tasks and are not emotionally invested.

Therefore, having money is not necessarily a good thing, and material incentives are only applicable to a smaller range of situations, such as crowdsourcing products. Content or user products should not rely on material incentives, which will affect the content quality and product atmosphere. It is best to adopt spiritual incentives to maximize the interests and hobbies of users and transform them into contributions to the product.

2. Spiritual motivation

Spiritual motivation is to achieve the goal of continuous user contribution by satisfying their emotional needs. It is an internal, intangible motivation, as opposed to tangible material motivation.

In terms of form, there are three main types: interaction, display and privilege.

①Interaction

Interaction is the simplest and most direct motivation. Users will stay or continue to contribute because of the interaction the product brings them. Whether he is a star expert or an elite newbie, it's the same.

Although celebrities generally do not interact with ordinary users on Weibo, it is actually these ordinary users who motivate them. Just imagine if no one interacts, the stars will have no motivation to continue playing.

The forms of interaction, including following, replying, liking, forwarding, etc., are all products of communication between people. There are three main ways to achieve good interaction.

a. Exposure in high-traffic locations to contribute to user conversion interaction

It is generally achieved through manual recommendation or machine algorithm. Manual recommendations, such as Zhihu Daily, which focuses on content quality rather than personalization; algorithm recommendations, such as Toutiao, NetEase Cloud Music's recommended playlists, and all charts.

For products with large traffic, the value of operation is realized through such traffic distribution. What content or people to recommend in high-exposure and high-traffic locations not only reflects the product tone and shapes the product atmosphere, but also motivates content-contributing users and is also the standard for high-quality content.

Maimai has a combination of manual and algorithmic recommendation mechanisms for high-quality content. The picture below is the notification received after the content is recommended. Such feedback is very important for contributing users.

b. Operational participation and interaction

This situation is mostly used in the cold start phase, because the number of users is small, so the amount of interaction received by users is even less. The operators must rush forward and start playing themselves, and may even need multiple aliases to take turns interacting with users and meet the interactive needs of contributing users, so as to retain the first batch of seed users .

c. Automatic distribution of strategies

Not only can we interact through manual operations, but we can also do automatic distribution through strategies. Because operations staff can only focus on the most important content and the most core users, the coverage is very small, but there are many situations that require covering a larger number of users.

For example, right after you complete the registration for a product, some fans follow you and greet you; before you start the app, you will get a push notification that someone is approaching you. This situation is usually distributed by a machine.

First prepare accounts with personal information and avatars, usually of beautiful women and men, and then distribute them to newly registered users or users who have not activated their accounts for N days. The purpose of doing this is to leave a good first impression on new users and give them a reason to stay. The two cases in the following pictures are the interactive reminders received by new users after they register.

②Show

Placing users or content in an important position on the page is an affirmation or reward for users. It is similar to the school publicly posting a list of the top ten students in the grade. The students on the list will feel overwhelmed with honor, which is a very powerful motivation.

The display mentioned here is the same as the "traffic distribution" mentioned above. Both put people or content in important positions with high traffic. But from the perspective of user needs, it is different. Display is like the photos of outstanding employees in the bulletin board, which relies on this sense of ritual to achieve motivation; traffic distribution is achieved through display conversion interaction, and the essence is still based on interactive incentives.

However, users may not be aware of the incentive of "display" because it is not stimulating enough. After all, the display only remains on the surface and will not bring any actual benefits. The picture below is a list of popular authors on Douban Yike. It is just for display purposes. If you want to follow or read the author’s content, you need to click a few more times, but few people will do this.

③ Privileges

Priority boarding for business class, acceleration for Thunder members, red nicknames for QQ, free shipping on JD.com, and the authority for Tieba moderators to delete and pin posts to the top of the forum are all privileges that only a minority or paying users can enjoy.

Privileges are to distinguish special users from ordinary users according to clear standards, provide better services, and meet these users' needs for respect and a better experience.

The specific approach is to first stratify the services that the product can provide, and provide basic services that can meet the needs of most users free of charge; and provide non-basic value-added services that require the consumption of core resources to users conditionally. This condition can be payment or requiring user contribution.

Secondly, publicize the conditions required to obtain privileges, promote them in important locations of the product and in the operating procedures, strengthen users' awareness of privileges, and truly create a sense of uniqueness, scarcity, and dignity.

3. Material or spiritual, how to choose

When choosing a method to motivate users, the core is to focus on user needs, combine it with the actual situation of the product, choose a suitable incentive model, and use every possible method to do it thoroughly and to the extreme. Don't think that if we take both material and spiritual approaches together, there will be a synergy and the results will be better. This is wrong. You must choose one to focus on, material or spiritual.

When a person decides to do something, it must be for a clear reason. This reason is either material or spiritual (including social). For example, you decide to do something for a company because you are working for the company and the company will pay you a salary. This is an obligation of both parties and has a clear material attribute.

For example, when you decide to do something for your mother, you will not consider material factors. Because of blood ties and family affection, you do this thing out of spiritual attributes (social attributes). Suppose material and spiritual things are mixed together, and you do something for your mother, and she is not only very happy but also pays you 100 yuan. This will make people very uncomfortable.

The same principle applies when doing operations. We drive users to contribute to our products. There are two paths before them: either material or spiritual. Once you make a choice, you must be resolute. This makes it easier for users to mentally understand the matter, such as "I'm here to do a part-time job" or "Let's work together to build the best community." If material and spiritual incentives appear at the same time, users will feel confused and unable to find their place in this matter, which will ultimately affect the effectiveness of user incentives.

Therefore, when planning a user incentive system, we must have a clear direction and stick to the end in the face of both material and spiritual paths. You can also choose a combination of main and auxiliary, but you must clearly highlight the status of the main line to ensure that users' cognition is not biased.