If you want to become the most scarce operator on the Internet, please follow these ten steps!

In the author's opinion, product operations in the true sense should be relatively scarce in the entire Internet. So how do you become a scarce operator ? The author gives these ten steps.

There are many articles online about content operation, user operation , channel operation, event operation, and new media operation , but there are very few discussions about product operation. There should be two reasons for this. First, not many people are involved in product operations. It is a job quite similar to that of a product manager , and most people should be doing operations in a certain direction. For example, when operating a public account, people will think about how to write high-quality articles and how to increase followers, but when it comes to product operation, they will think more about how to develop it into a function or product based on the open interface capabilities of the public account.

On the other hand, if you are working on operations for content-rich products ( e-commerce , community, media), the possibility of being exposed to it is high. However, whether you can be assigned to product operations depends on your ability and a lot of luck. If you are working on tool -type products, then there is basically no concept of operations. So in general, product operations in the true sense should be relatively scarce for the entire Internet.

When faced with a new thing, we tend to define it according to our existing thinking logic in order to incorporate it into our familiar experience and thinking framework. First of all, I have to make it clear that as a practitioner who has been working in operations for less than 5 years, I am not currently able to give a concise and accurate definition of product operations. If we really have to define product operations, according to my own understanding, it means that after the product manager creates a certain function from scratch, he or she needs to be responsible for all work related to this function, including content, users, activities, channel operations, product upgrades, etc.

The definition given above is more of a phased summary based on personal experience and thinking. Then I happened to be exposed to content-based product operations when I was working on Tieba post reading (a content-based function attached to the Tieba client). I broke down the worthwhile parts of the whole process into 10 steps and shared them here. Just like what Facebook advocates, done is better than perfect. You are welcome to communicate more about product operations.

01. Content positioning

In the process of creating a function from scratch, product operations need to collaborate with product managers to ensure that new functions are smoothly launched with the release of new versions.

At this stage of product operation, at the content level, it is necessary to combine the product's own positioning to determine the user positioning of the function, determine the content positioning of the function based on user preferences, and confirm the content update mechanism based on the content positioning, whether it is automatic update or manual update, and whether there is an update mechanism and review and release mechanism. At the same time, through the analysis of the content reading and interaction volume of the function during the grayscale period, the content positioning and update rhythm can be further optimized.

At the functional level, the main focus is on the Mis backend that you use frequently. For product operations of advertising systems, it is to do the backend for post -advertising delivery during the product development phase. For content-based functions, operations are more concerned with the content editing and publishing backend.

02. Target decomposition

After the function is launched, if the product manager "passes the buck" to you, then congratulations, you have entered the product operation stage. You will be responsible for any work related to this function. In addition to your own operation work, there will also be function iteration, daily activity of the function, customer service of the function... Your operation and global thinking capabilities will be greatly improved.

Before you start to operate a product, you need to be able to come up with a plan based on the project background and goals of the function and your own operational thinking. Think clearly about what you can do to directly or indirectly improve data in order to achieve your goals, what is the path to do things, which departments need support, and what are the indicators to measure whether these things are done well?

03. Data Analysis

After clarifying the function's goals and implementation paths, operations need to understand the most realistic status of the function through data. In the early stage of a function, you need to report data every day and write a data analysis report on the function every week. Data analysis can help operations make you more fulfilled and see your quantifiable value output every day. Data analysis work includes data deployment before release, tracking of key paths, and continuous attention and analysis of data in subsequent operations. Understanding the current status of functional data is a means, and proposing functional optimization needs through data is the core purpose of this operation. For example, if you find that the number of likes for a content is relatively low, you can propose optimization suggestions such as placing the like button in the content information flow or amplifying the like cases.

As an aside, data analysis is very important in any situation. If you are operating a product with pure content reading function, as an entrepreneur you need to use data to prove your model and get financing; for business incubation projects, you need to prove the value of this function to the core KPI, that is, the necessity of the content you have created.

04. Competitive product research

After determining the major optimization direction based on functional data, product research is usually conducted to further support and implement the specific optimization plan for the function. I understand product research as user research and competitor research.

User surveys mainly focus on setting up survey questionnaires around optimization directions to obtain user feedback, which can be conducted through quantitative questionnaires and qualitative interviews. Companies with the conditions can conduct user research and cooperate with the user experience department, but operations still need to be informed of the background of the research and user sample requirements.

Overview of a research report on a certain function

The research on competitors is mainly to study the specific implementation methods of functional optimization, to see which functional interactions that you want to further optimize are done better in the Internet industry, how they do it, and what are the points worth referring to. If the function you are responsible for is a content reading function like reading posts, you can study more content products such as Douban Yike, Zhihu Daily, Guokr Selection, and NetEase News Client. For information on how to efficiently conduct competitive product analysis, please reply to the keyword "competitor" in the official account "Product Rookies" to view it.

Douban Yike content format

05. Functional MRD

Writing product requirement documents is a common means for operations to communicate efficiently with designers and technology. Under normal circumstances, the work of drawing functional prototypes should be done by the product manager, but the product operation is the first person responsible for the function, so the work of drawing the prototype has to be done by yourself.

When writing functional MRD, product managers like to use Axure RP to draw wireframes. Of course, it would be best if the operations manager can also use this tool. If not, I suggest using PPT, which has many graphic elements and can set up some interactions. In addition, each company has a different writing format for functional MRD. I will share a writing format that I often use for your reference.

Functional MRD Writing Template

06. Grayscale release

For large-scale Internet products, operations usually use grayscale release methods when optimizing and releasing functions: the product release process is not achieved all at once, but gradually expands the scope of users, from internal company users -> more loyal seed users -> a larger range of active users -> all users. During this process, operations personnel will promptly improve product-related functions based on user behavior data from the beta version.

When operators do grayscale releases, they need to complete a series of tasks such as grayscale user screening, data deployment, data analysis, test reports, etc. according to the purpose of the function of this version. Of course, there are now many developer platforms that provide grayscale release tools to help operators complete these tasks efficiently.

Grayscale testing tool provided by a development platform

07. Product release

This is a link that is most easily overlooked by product operators. Operators who have not been exposed to channel promotion may have only done the most basic on-site promotion, and may not even have done any new version update promotion.

The correct release plan for product operations should include " first release in the app store , planning and implementation of ASO , SEO , and release of industry news releases." You can even combine this release node to plan a lucky draw for updating the new version and commenting on it in the app store, so as to increase the coverage of the new version among old user groups and optimize the reviews of the app products.

08. Content Standards

I believe that most functions, like content-based functions such as reading posts, will have a rough classification of the functions they serve at the beginning. However, after the function is able to gain a foothold in the product, it is usually necessary to start reorganizing the display logic of functional services, such as the latest or hottest and more distinctive service presentation methods given by operations, based on geographic location, smart recommendations, most interactions, most likes, tag labels, etc.

If you are operating a UGC function where users create content, you need to set up a content sharing guidance mechanism at the product level, which is the guidance pop-up layer that often appears when we use a new app. For this aspect of work, you can refer to Zhihu or Baidu Encyclopedia to guide users and build scenarios for points rewards and punishments. Zhihu provides a "Zhihu Guide" as a guide for newcomers so that they can quickly understand the community, learn how to operate, and master the rough community content standards. The encyclopedia has turned the new user orientation into a small task like a game , guiding newcomers through videos and texts.

Baidu Encyclopedia’s new user guide

09. Event Planning

In my opinion, activities are the best way to improve data and verify the direction of function optimization in the short term. For example, if you want to verify whether points can effectively stimulate user sharing, you can simply plan an activity to give out benefits to verify whether material incentives can effectively increase the amount of content sharing for your product.

I won’t say much about event planning. The key is to prepare in advance and build special tools for the event, including special content template tools (if there is no technical schedule, Sohu Quick Site, ih5 and other tools are recommended) and interactive tools such as voting/PK/audio/lottery/bullet screen, etc.

10. Project report

A function can basically be divided into several different operation periods, which can be generally divided into "inspection period - entry period - growth period - high growth period - maturity period - decline period". Each period will have different focuses, and the overall operation status of the function needs to be reported to the higher authorities.

If the project is reliable, there are many data points, platform data analysis is done frequently, and the project summary document writing routine of "project background, project goals, project data, operational analysis, experience reuse, and follow-up plans" is used, there will be basically no problems when encountering the leader's surprise project overall report.

Here I will focus on the project data part of the report. As the focus of the report, project data can be divided into core data and peripheral data (including content data, user data and comparative data of various dimensions).

Before reporting core data, you need to attach an overview of the project status so that leaders can quickly grasp the operational status of the function. This part of the pleasing approach uses a benchmarking method of a certain product that everyone is familiar with. For example, if you are working on a primary school education product information sharing project, then in the report you can use the following data to open "The sharing of educational product information and user consumption are both quite large, the product has 20,000+ daily active users, and users share an average of 200 high-quality product content per day. The overall per capita browsing PV of the project is 10, and the per capita sharing volume is 7 PV. It is very likely to become what is worth buying in the K12 field."

The above are the 10 steps of product operation work summarized by Xiaoxian based on his personal operation experience. Different functions require different things to be done, and there are other tasks that are not covered. For example, O2O product operation will have one more merchant management than content-based product operation.

In general, product operations require a more comprehensive operational mindset than operations in a single direction. At the same time, they have to manage operations in multiple directions, and there are more things to do. If you don’t want to go astray, product operations need to always remember the core indicators of the functions and the purpose of operations (for example, the purpose of the operation of reading posts is to increase the retention of new users, and the core indicators are the retention data of new users of the product as a whole and the retention data of new users who use reading posts).