How to do content operation? It’s all here!

"Content" in a broad sense includes music, film, television, radio, publishing and other aspects. For example, Chen Tong, the former editor-in-chief of Sina.com, was responsible for content operations after joining Xiaomi. The "content" here is used in a broad sense.

"Content operation" in a narrow sense mainly appears in the Internet field and is a type of operation method. It is common in content or user products, such as Tieba, Weibo, Hupu, and Bilibili; it also includes video products, such as Tencent Video and iQiyi; pure transaction or tool products are less involved, such as Tmall , Meitu XiuXiu , Moji Weather, and Meituan Takeout . Even if such products have a division of labor in content operation, it will not be very important.

Just like user operation , we will discuss content operation from the aspects of concepts, values, practices, etc., with reference to cases.

1. Concept

Everything is people-oriented. Where there is demand, there is supply. This is the law of human society. Therefore, precisely because users have the need to consume content on the Internet, such as watching videos, jokes, news, in-depth analysis, etc., there are so many products providing content services, and the position of content operation exists.

Therefore, content operation is to meet users' content consumption needs, increase product activity, and enhance users' awareness of the brand by producing and reorganizing content.

2. Value

The responsibilities of PM and RD are to create the product, but this does not mean that there will be users using it. At this time, operations personnel are needed to promote the connection between products and users, and use channel promotion methods to let more users understand and use the products, which is to attract new users; use content, users, activities, etc. to give more reasons to use the products, which is activation and retention.

Therefore, the value of operation is to connect users and products, establish a bond between the two, allow users to understand and use products, and allow products to deliver value to users, as shown in the figure below.

Content operation is one of the ways of "bonding", and others include user operation, event operation, brand operation, etc. This link is the value of content operation. Operations staff meet user needs and drive continuous visits by launching high-quality content and planning graphic and text presentations.

3. Function

To understand how important content operation is to a product, it may be easier to understand by giving an example from real life: you are planning to decorate your new house, so you come to visit me and learn from me. Before you come, plan to learn from my experience in placing bookshelves, workbenches, and beds in small spaces, including how to deal with windows in corners, because you will also encounter these problems.

You were attracted by the light gray tones of my home, and even the floor lamp impressed you. Before I even introduced it, you have already realized that I am pursuing a simple, practical, and fresh style. When you leave, you will have a clear overall impression of the decoration style of my home. Not only the furniture placement and interior makeover, but also those lovely decorative items.

In this story, "you" are the user, "visiting and learning" is the demand, "my home" is the product, and "decoration" is the content.

Before coming to my house, you have a clear rational need to learn how to solve problems. After coming to my house, you will be deeply impressed by the color style and small decorations, which is an intuitive and emotional gain. After leaving my house, you not only learned how to decorate, but also had an overall understanding of the style positioning of my house.

To put it simply, by relying on content operation (decoration) of the product (my home), it not only satisfies the user's (you) rational content consumption needs (visiting and learning), but also allows the user to have an emotional understanding of the product's tone.

Therefore, the role of content operation can be summarized into two points: meeting users' content consumption needs and conveying the product's positioning and tone. Here are the detailed views:

① Satisfy users’ content consumption needs

The most important role of content operation is, of course, to provide users with content they want to see. Content needs can be broken down into four categories:

• Get information, such as NetEase News and Toutiao
• Kill time, such as Qiushibaike and Weibo
• In-depth reading, such as Zhihu and Curiosity Daily
• Consumption decisions, such as Xiaohongshu and What’s Worth Buying

Of course, there will be overlap in products that meet these four types of needs. For example, Weibo can be used to kill time and obtain information. The examples provided above are only for facilitating understanding.

② Convey the product’s positioning and tone

Through the means of content, users can have a certain perception of the product and form a specific impression. If you regard a product as a person, the product tone is equivalent to the person's personality.

For example. When a stranger approaches you, the first thing that catches your eye is his appearance, neat hairstyle, straight suit, and gold-rimmed glasses; secondly, you will feel his inner temperament through his appearance, his kind smile, elegant conversation, and strong aura. Almost the moment you see him, you already have a certain impression of him, and the process of forming this impression does not require focused thinking, but is an intuitive subconscious reaction.

The intuitive feeling at this moment almost determines your impression of this stranger and will directly affect the subsequent communication between the two people, such as love at first sight. In short, you can feel a person's inner temperament through his or her external dress and form an intuitive impression of him or her. Applied to content operation, it means conveying product positioning and tone to users through content, so that users can form a certain intuitive impression of the product.

In addition to the UI, content plays a big role in users’ intuitive impression of a product, such as a title, a paragraph of copy , or a focus picture. The homepages of five apps are selected below so that you can feel how the content conveys the product tone.

The five homepages with different styles will give users a specific perception and convey the product positioning. These pages are not "originally like this", but the content operators produce and screen content to create the pages that users see. Just imagine that if these five pages only have box diagrams but no content, they are like a person with a skeleton but no body. Even if the UI is good, users will not feel anything.

The key point here is how operators produce and screen content to achieve the desired effect. Behind this decision there are analytical ideas and execution methods. Below we will focus on the content operation model.

4. Two modes

From the earliest website editor, to the later website operation, and then to the current content operation, this position is constantly evolving. In the current content operation work model, one part is a continuation of the previous one, similar to editing; another part draws on the ideas of product operation and has innovative elements. Therefore, content operations can be divided into traditional models and innovative models.

① Traditional model

The following three cases can be used to illustrate:

• a. 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 users

Although 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 content

Why 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 covered

Even 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 model

The specific practices can be divided into three aspects: scenario-based, personalized and product process-based.

a. Scenario-based

List 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 demand

Taking 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 homogeneous, 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. Personalization

Even 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 Processing

After 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 practices

After 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.

① Analysis ideas

• First, determine product positioning and target audience
• Then, determine the content positioning based on the characteristics of the target population.
• Finally, adjust and correct repeatedly in practice

From 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 define

We 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 basically the content standards are a reflection of his views.

b. KPI can easily affect content positioning

In 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 method

From the perspective of content output sources, content operation methods can be divided into official output and user output.

a. Official output

It 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.

The forms include special planning and in-depth reports, for example:

Bilibili's year-end review

NetEase News Special Topics

What to buy

In-depth content from Curiosity Daily

b. User output

The content is planned, produced and produced by users, which is often referred to as UGC or PGC. However, most of the content displayed by Internet products at this stage has undergone secondary processing, so the user output mentioned here is actually UGC+secondary processing.

"Secondary processing" does not mean modifying user content, but optimizing content presentation or priority sorting through product strategies or manual operations. The following three cases are used to illustrate:

Case 1: Zhihu

Zhihu is a UGC platform. The content selected and displayed in the timeline is based on product strategy, with no manual intervention from operators. Ensuring the cleanliness of tl is Zhihu's bottom line. Even if we haven't found a good way to make a profit, we will not interfere with the content display here.

Case 2: Maoyan Movie

The picture below is the short review list page of "The Mermaid". You can see that there are already 350,000 short reviews 7 days after the movie was released, but browsing users will definitely only read the top few, so it is very important to optimize the short review sorting. It is definitely unrealistic to rely on manual sorting because the volume is large and the subjective factors are too strong, so we have to rely on strategic sorting, with the goal of finding high-quality and popular short reviews.

Case 3: Toutiao

Toutiao uses algorithms to recommend valuable and personalized content to users. From the user's perspective, every time you open this app, you can see content that interests you, which is a great experience.

In addition to official outputs and user outputs, some details in execution are actually very important. For example, the layout of the content and the pre-embedded post replies are things that content operations must do and will affect the final effect of the project.

If the content is poorly laid out, the paragraphs are unclear, the key points are not highlighted, and the pictures are inappropriate, this high-quality content will no longer be considered high-quality by users and will most likely be closed within seconds. Because fewer and fewer users are willing to patiently read the content, more people are just scanning the content.

If replies are not pre-buried in the first few posts of the thread, the direction of public opinion in the comment section cannot be guaranteed, which will affect the atmosphere of the entire discussion and thus the effectiveness of the topic. What’s more serious is that if someone on the first three floors questions or abuses, it may ruin the project.

These details in execution may seem trivial, but they will affect the user's reading experience and the final effect of content operation, so we must pay enough attention to these details to ensure that each link is implemented in place.

6. PUSH

PUSH push is just a common function that every APP can have. Whether to send or not, to whom to send or what to send are all controllable by the operators. But this feature seems to have magic, making people who have used it unable to stop. Because PUSH is the closest channel for products to reach users, it allows users to launch the APP without any intention or scenario, and is a shortcut to quickly improve product data.

Therefore, the management and control of PUSH resources is even more important than the copywriting and content itself. If PUSH is used recklessly, it will harm the user experience and the APP will be uninstalled.

Generally speaking, PUSH falls within the scope of content operation, so I will use a small section here to talk about my views.

①Completely accurate PUSH push does not exist

Many friends said that they can do precise PUSH according to user characteristics, operation behavior, content classification and other dimensions. This sounds like a good solution, but in reality it is impossible to be completely accurate. There will definitely be a certain amount of irrelevant users covered because the user conditions are too complex and uncontrollable.

Even users who use Keep every day may be disturbed by the PUSH reminder to exercise, because users' daily routines are often not so regular.

Even if he has been a Manchester United fan for more than ten years, he may not like Hupu to constantly push goal news during the game, because he may be watching the live broadcast at that time.

Even if the push logic is clear and the target audience is segmented, it will still disturb the users. Therefore, we can only strive to find the critical point between product benefits and user experience, and increase product benefits within the range that users can tolerate.

② Make every push a little bit more interesting

No matter what type of APP, they are all blindly chasing hot topics and following the trend of using Internet buzzwords to write copy, so we see a lot of clickbait headlines trying their best to push topics that are already popular, but the content is completely uncreative.

I am against PUSHing such content, which is meaningless for the product. From the perspective of product benefits, PUSH should reflect its own characteristics and have unique viewpoints that are consistent with product positioning. This is what I mean by "a little bit of pursuit."

Users will not buy into the undifferentiated PUSH, which will lower the product’s reputation and may even lead to uninstallation, which is a huge loss. Perhaps it is because we only see the pulling effect of PUSH, but cannot see the uninstall data caused by PUSH, which makes everyone so careless.

③ High-level staff manage PUSH resources

For PUSH, not only the title and content are important, but also factors such as frequency, quantity, and timing are also critical. Therefore, only by strengthening the control of PUSH resources can the overall effect be maximized.

However, if an ordinary employee is put in charge of the management and control of PUSH resources, he or she may make unreasonable judgments due to insufficient perspective and information; he or she may also be forced to comply due to pressure from other colleagues or superiors.

If a high-level employee, such as a manager or director, is put in charge, he or she will have better control over the project, receive more comprehensive information, be more conducive to making more reasonable decisions, and be fully capable of bearing greater pressure.

7. Unquantifiable benefits are also valuable

Operations are goal-oriented and use data as the basis for measuring results. For communities, the benefits of planning activities with prizes are community activity, and the measurement data is the amount of interaction; for e-commerce, the benefits of packaging popular activities are store traffic and brand, and the measurement data is transaction volume. On the other hand, if the operational measures cannot bring direct and quantifiable benefits, then this matter has no value and can be left undone.

This is the case in most cases, and most teams judge and execute in this way. However, operations will still do some things that have no direct and quantifiable benefits. Some of these things must be done to maintain the normal operation of the product and cannot be avoided; some of them are subjectively believed to be valuable, but are difficult to prove.

Such problems usually occur in content operations. Here are three examples:

①Startup image. Many APPs will make operational plans for startup images to achieve the purpose of event promotion , resource exchange, sales realization, and transmission of product tone. Creating a startup image that matches the product's tone every day requires continuous investment of manpower, but it does not provide quantifiable benefits.

②Content drives transactions. Many e-commerce or transaction products are no longer simply selling goods, but instead assisting users in making consumption decisions through high-quality content. Under this model, the requirements for content quality are very high, and it is impossible to meet the requirements by relying on UGC and PGC. We can only rely on official planning output, but there is no way to distinguish which transactions are brought about by the content.

③Content filling. Simply put, it means that operators manually fill in content or standardize integration. The content here is diverse and can be divided into text, pictures, videos, etc., and is applied to community, music, movie and other types of products. Without these contents, the product cannot convey its positioning and tone, and will lose its soul, but it is impossible to quantify how many users each piece of content can bring.

The above cases have one thing in common, which is that the operational effects cannot be quantified and have no direct impact on the final indicators of the product.

What operations do is more or less valuable, but the key is that sometimes the value cannot be directly and quantified, which means it is difficult to clearly state what the use is. For example, you can get one day's salary for every day you work in the company. Getting a salary is the direct benefit of working, and the salary number is the quantified benefit. "Direct" represents the causal relationship between the previous and the next, and "quantitative" means that it can be expressed in numbers.

Assume that the goal of the operation is to increase the DAU of the product, so a "daily 1 yuan sale" activity is carried out to drive the increase of DAU. Here, the goal is the reason for doing the activity, and the activity also facilitates the achievement of the goal. There is a direct causal relationship between the two, and the final effect on increasing DAU is quantifiable.

Still this case. In order to increase DAU, you can also do paid promotion in major application markets to drive new activations. As long as retention remains unchanged, you can drive an increase in DAU. This operational measure has an indirect improvement on the ultimate goal, and the cause-effect relationship is clear. The logical sequence is A (the operational measure is paid promotion) → B (the implementation path is new activation) → C (the ultimate goal is DAU).

To sum up, benefits that are not directly quantifiable are called implicit benefits; otherwise, they are explicit benefits. The benefits brought by content operations are often hidden. The following three cases are used to illustrate this.

Case 1: Image

1. Startup image

As mentioned above, common uses of startup images are: event promotion, resource exchange, sales realization, and transmission of product tone. In the first three cases, the startup image is just treated as a resource, and the focus is on management rather than operation. The last case is what content operations should do. Many products do very well in this regard. Here are a few examples.

① NetEase News

We invited Luqiu Luwei, Feng Lun, Wu Xiaobo and others to each use a sentence to convey NetEase News' "attitude" brand.

This is the response made by NetEase News in response to major events such as the "Paris terrorist attack." Convey the brand image of the product from the perspective of humanistic care.

②Salted fish

The startup image that Xianyu made on the day of Kobe's farewell game has the caption "Always with you". What it means is that even though Kobe is no longer on the court, we are still here. Although it is not particularly appropriate, at least it combines hot spots and products, which shows that the operation is strategic.

③Go home for dinner

The points that can be combined with operations include not only major events such as the Paris terrorist attacks and Kobe's retirement, but also various festivals and even solar terms that take advantage of the "go home for dinner" strategy.

④UC Browser

As someone who has gone through the college entrance examination, seeing this literary and artistic startup page should leave a deep impression on this browser.

⑤ Maoyan Movie

Maoyan releases a startup image every day, which contains a movie poster and a one-sentence copy. The person in charge of the content operation of this event is a student who has watched thousands of movies and has aesthetic pursuits.

After a period of continuous operation, you can see such praise on social platforms:

From these feedbacks, we can see that users will pay attention to and like the details of these three seconds. Some people even say that they open Maoyan Movie once a day just to see the startup picture. This is equivalent to a literary version of the sign-in function, which is a very typical hidden benefit.

2. Background image

⑥ Weather Information

The background pictures of Weather.com are beautiful, and can display nearby landmark buildings based on the user's geographical location.

The background images will definitely not be added to the APP by themselves. WeatherTelecom has brought in a steady stream of high-quality image resources through external cooperation and recruitment of user works. So, this is the benefit from operational measures.

⑦700bike

The background image of this cycling APP is also the responsibility of the operator, including the selection of images and text. Background images related to festivals or events will also be uploaded depending on the situation. This case is similar to the one about Weather Channel, so I won’t elaborate on it.

3. Avatar

⑧In line

Want to know how important the avatar on the page is? Take a look at the following two examples. "Zaixing" takes a professional approach and relies more on intuitive feelings on the Internet. For example, a powerful text description or a professional photo.

As can be seen from the picture above, there are fixed standards for photos, such as front view and half-body close-up. In order to implement such regulations, the industry specially invites photographers to take photos for experts for free. Only experts who participate in the photo taking can be recommended.

⑨Baidu Knows

Let’s look at the effect of Baidu Knows. Although it was still a professional game, the effect was greatly reduced just because of the avatar and failed to meet the final expectations.

Case 2: Content drives transactions

If you are just selling goods, the competition is about products and prices. Most businesses in this field do not have core competitiveness. The most typical example is overseas shopping. Therefore, many overseas shopping products have begun to engage in content operations, hoping to drive transactions and differentiate themselves from other competing products.

The core strategy is to give products more meaning through content, such as conveying emotions or telling touching stories, giving users more reasons to consume, not just comparing prices. In execution, someone needs to be responsible for content and transactions respectively. The benefits from trading are very clear, i.e. transaction amount or profit, but it is difficult to measure the benefits from content operation.

If the page UV is high, it may be because the product is cheap and attractive, not necessarily because of the content, or even because users do not read the content at all. If the page UV is low, it may be because the product is not attractive, but it may also be considered that the content is not outstanding enough. Simply put, it is impossible to measure how much direct impact content has on transactions. The following two cases present such problems:

⑩Gift

This type of case is very common and can be seen by simply opening a shopping app. The value of content provides users with more reasons to buy and converts more trading users, so it is necessary to continuously launch high-quality content planning.

Case 3: Content filling

In some cases, operations personnel are required to manually fill in or edit content to complete product content construction. However, the benefits brought by the operational manpower invested in the product cannot be quantified.

⑪ Maoyan Movie

The movie information of movie apps can be introduced through crawling or cooperation, but in order to be professional, standardized and distinctive, it must be processed through operations. The picture below is a list of actors of "X-Men" in four movie apps. Comparing the viewing angles, it can be clearly seen that the first one is more standardized and neater, and has the best overall effect. Looking at the other three, there are half-length photos and full-length photos, and the positions of the faces in the photos are high and low, which makes it look very messy.

The first cast list comes from Maoyan Movies. In order to achieve this effect, a certain amount of manpower is continuously invested to collect and process photos so that every photo meets the requirements. Although the effect of this cannot be measured in terms of data, it has an obvious improvement in user experience, so it is still valuable.

⑫NetEase Cloud Music

The same is true for music apps. In order to ensure the rationality of the classification of tracks, many music apps hire students majoring in music to label each track. The benefit of doing this is that the music recommended to users will be more accurate, which is the core of the user experience.

After reading the above 12 cases, I believe you will have a deeper understanding of the value of "hidden benefits" and can draw the following three conclusions:

1. Hidden benefits are valuable

Data is not the only criterion for measuring the effectiveness of operations, but a tool for subjective judgment. We must never assume that something is worthless just because we cannot draw any conclusions from the data. Reliance on data should be moderate and based on different scenarios. Making decisions based solely on data can easily lead to deviations and may also result in the loss of some good opportunities.

Human wisdom is the driving force behind social progress. If we only look at "numbers" and ignore "people", we will go to the other extreme. As long as we believe the decision is reasonable and beneficial, there is no need for a rigid argumentation process. Therefore, implicit benefits are still benefits and are valuable.

2. Decision-making is the key link

While subjective judgment is important and valuable, it is premised on the ability to make reasonable decisions. When making subjective judgments, there is generally no successful experience and no rules to follow. It depends entirely on the personal qualities of the decision maker and may also be affected by other objective factors. Therefore, even if decision makers have a broad vision, rich experience, and sharp thinking, they may still make wrong decisions.

Therefore, when making decisions, operators must be mentally prepared for trial and error, have the courage to withstand failure, and most importantly, have the ability to adjust and stop losses in a timely manner.

3. Pursue better results and experience

In order to ensure the existence of hidden benefits, we must put an end to the practice of quick success or KPI-focused approach, work with more aspiring employees, and maintain a relatively relaxed and free team atmosphere.

Things related to hidden benefits are generally not about maintaining basic work, but about pursuing better results and experiences. For example, the startup image does not need to spend so much time planning, and it will not affect users' use of core functions. Another example is the movie library. Even if there is no story background, behind-the-scenes footage, classic lines, movie soundtracks, etc., it will not affect users' information query. However, by doing these things, you can take the product experience to a higher level.

If one only pursues explicit benefits and focuses on one's own KPI, a situation may arise where everyone is busy with their own business instead of actively exploring. This kind of lack of ambition is very scary for Internet companies.

8. The Dos and Don’ts of Content Operations

Everyone has his or her own principles in life and knows clearly what should be done and what should not be done. for example:

• When a friend comes to borrow money, your principle is to help in emergencies rather than help people out of poverty, otherwise it will be of no use no matter how much you say.
• You are used to doing things from beginning to end. No matter how big the difficulties are, you will overcome them and finish the work.
• In a company meeting, everyone else has a different opinion from you, but you still insist.

These principles make us complete human beings with different personalities. Being a content operator is the same as being a person. You must have principles to give the product a soul, rather than just being a content filler. Because only when users feel the soul of a product can they recognize and remember it.

On the contrary, if the content operation is done without principles, ethics, or bottom line, and blindly follows the trend, the product will become a soulless thing with unclear brand image, no user atmosphere, no tone, and no value of any attention or use. This is also an important reason why many products seem to have done a lot but never succeed.

If you want to stick to principles in content operations, you must know what to do and what not to do. Just like being a person, choosing what to do, from what angle to do it, and for whom to do it, different choices will lead to fundamentally different results. Knowing what to do and what not to do is the process of selection.

There is definitely no clear implementation standard on which to base the choice. The general idea is to extend the content tone and three views you want to convey from the positioning of the product and content. For example:

There was a hot topic in the film industry at the time. Fang Li, the producer of "A Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix", knelt down and begged for support. This matter is extremely controversial and there are many different voices. As an operator, how you view this matter will determine what angle and operational measures you take. After all, before this, there was no corresponding methodology to teach you how to deal with it, and there were no matching cases to follow.

I agree with this point of view: movies and kneeling are two unrelated things. You cannot go to see Fang Li’s movies just because he kneels. There is no logical relationship between the two. If you want good box office results, you should do well in the things related to the movie itself, such as production, distribution, marketing , and ticket sales.

If everything that should be done has been done, but due to some objective conditions, there are few screenings and poor box office, this is the current situation of Chinese films and it certainly cannot be solved for the time being. Kneeling should not be a way to increase box office sales, it is moral kidnapping.

Suppose we all shout in support of domestic art films and support Fang Li's approach, and go watch "A Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix". Then there will definitely be others who will follow suit next time. By then, Chinese films will no longer compete on quality, but on performance, which will become a vicious cycle.

Sure enough, a few days after Fang Li knelt down, people followed suit (picture). Friends who supported Fang Li before, would you like to support this friend as well?

Whether this view is correct or not is not the most important thing. What is important is that this view is based on correct values, independent thinking, and no one follows the crowd.

If we follow this point of view, the operational strategy is to ensure timely reporting, but never support it, and guide users to participate in discussions from a neutral perspective. Let’s take a look at a few media reports to see everyone’s attitude.

The People's Daily clearly expressed its opposition:

Here are three voices of support:

This is a sane or neutral point of view:

Although this is only a media-related case, it is also applicable to the content operation field of the Internet. This example shows that operators have different attitudes towards this matter and will do different things. I hope that all operations practitioners can have spiritual pursuits, and not just focus on KPIs and do short-sighted and low things. Just like in life, even if you gain an advantage this time, it may be harmful in the long run.