6 key points for social operation of mobile games

According to CNNIC's "35th Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet", 62.8% of users obtain mobile game information through chat software, and 55.5% of users obtain mobile game information through recommendations from family or friends. This shows that communication and recommendations from friends have become one of the main channels for users to obtain mobile game information. Social factors in games and word-of-mouth communication of games play a vital role in users obtaining game information. At the same time, more and more manufacturers are beginning to realize that sociality has become a key factor affecting the addition and retention of players. Complete social functions can not only greatly enhance players' sense of participation and activity, but also increase game stickiness.

Recently, at the 2015 Mobile Game Fine Operation and Promotion Tour Salon, Wang Xue, Business Director of Momo's Game Department, shared the company's experience in social operation and promotion of products such as "Momo Battle" and "Momo Bears", and introduced the six key points of mobile game social operation: "effective, dissemination, interaction, authenticity, humanity, and extension".

1. China's third largest mobile social platform - Momo

You may be familiar with Momo. We can use some data to understand the current situation of Momo. Momo is the third largest mobile social platform in China. WeChat ranks first, QQ ranks second, and Momo ranks third. I will share with you the data disclosed in our Q1 financial report. Our monthly active users reached 78.1 million in March, and the total number of members is 3.1 million. The number of groups has reached 5.5 million. Groups are a very active system that can help people with similar interests form a chat organization. We can see that there are various groups in first- and second-tier cities, such as some badminton groups in a certain community.

We have divided Momo's users into location, membership, social, roaming, etc. I will string these labels together in a few sentences: First of all, we are a location-based mobile social software. Our characteristics are that we are young and relatively high-end software. At the same time, we have message boards, memberships, and Momo bars. For us, the age of our users is mainly between 18 and 32 years old, and I think this part of users has a very high viscosity, which is the effect of youth. Why is it high-end? Because Momo's users are basically concentrated in the top 20 cities in GDP. Through these labels, everyone can have a rough understanding of Momo. I think socialization can bring two benefits to games: First, it can bring very good spreadability to games. Second, it can improve the long-term retention of games. Next, let's discuss how to do social operations based on the characteristics of our platform.

2. 6 key points of social operation of mobile games

1. Extensive dissemination is the primary benefit of social operations

Communication is the first benefit brought by social networking, and games need to be widely spread. Let me talk about how the Momo platform does it. Our games all have a function called sharing, which means there will be a button built into it, and this button is sharing. I think this is very necessary. We must give gamers an outlet to tell everyone that I am playing games here. Let me give you an example. Our approach is a little different from other platforms. We have a fixed sharing mode, and the copy shared is written by players themselves. We were making a game called Momo Hegemony at the time. There was a very interesting thing in Momo Hegemony, which was to place a very beautiful city. However, the sharing copy could be changed by the players, and the shared things were not fixed, so everyone's sharing was different. For example, arranging the castle in a heart shape to show goodwill to female users would cause a topic.

We think that sharing things is not enough, so we added a game status to everyone's sharing information. That is, everyone can see what games each user is playing. What is the purpose of this thing? When you want to make friends or want to have a deeper relationship with him, you must first understand him. So photos must be included, and reading his comments, adding games is also an important way to get to know him, so we added this thing.

2. Social functions should be implemented to effectively stimulate activity

Of course, the social functions mentioned above are not enough. In addition to knowing what the player is playing and how well he is playing, you can also comment on the game, such as how many cards there are, how many levels there are, etc. Let me give you an example. I really want to get to know a player who is playing Athena. Then I will find a topic and tell him that you have reached such a high level with Athena. In this way, there will be a topic for communication with him, so I think this thing is very interesting. Whether it is sharing or displaying status, it should be done more deeply.

Therefore, extended sharing is a very effective means. There is also a function called friend push. We will give some rewards in the game to let him call his friends to come. We asked Chen Qiaoen to register an account, and the effect is still very good. We can let one friend pull several friends to participate in this game together, which I think is very important.

3. Focus on interaction and create opportunities for social interaction

Mobile games are still in the stand-alone stage, and basically there is less interaction. So we hope to highlight the convenience of interaction through social conditions. We have thought of many ways to force the interaction to persist, of course, including some simple and basic interactions. Many platforms are also trying this, including WeChat. WeChat's earliest games also have interactions, etc. We have also made some attempts in this regard. This picture is a system where friends help. For example, if you can't pass a level in the game, you can ask your friends to help you. This is a very good and positive interactive relationship, which can retain more players.

In addition, Momo also provides friend interaction. You can invite your friends, and the game administrator can ask your friends to help you build your home and collect rent. In addition, we also developed a hiring system. When we launched the second game, Momo Audition, we used the hiring system. You can hire your friends to interact with you, including dancing, etc. This hiring thing actually makes the interaction more real. So after we launched this feature, the players' response was very good.

4. Players need love, hate, and vengeance in the game

Mobile games nowadays lack some human touches and are often boring. So we tried to add some emotional elements to the game and design some conflicts. We did it very simply. We added the concept of "region" to Momo Battle. Momo Battle is about you hitting me and I hitting you. After adding "region", there will be love, hate and vengeance. So based on this foundation, we created battles between cities, which worked very well and brought in many times the revenue.

5. Real social scenes can strengthen players’ personalities

We want to make social scenes more realistic. Momo transfers real game avatars directly into the game. The people you see are the most real people, and you can know what they look like in real life. We try to upload not only real avatars but also personal information for players, so that individual players become flesh and blood, which can give players a completely different feeling. The Momo platform can do this.

6. Social networking needs to be extended to attract a wider range of players

Players cannot fully communicate on the mobile phone screen, so you need to extend various relationships. So we did several things at that time. The first one is to connect the game content with Momo Bar. This is something that many games have already done. Many games actually have an external link to the post bar, but many people do not pay attention to this. Let me show you a picture. The number of users in our Momo Bar of Momo Hegemony is 2.41 million. This is very helpful for the game. We can import a lot of activities here, and many of our problems are discovered here. Another is to provide players with a place for offline communication, which is very helpful for improving the stickiness of the game. But we think it is not enough, so we combined a group with a guild, that is, automatically generate a group, and the chats of the group and the guild are interoperable. You don’t need to log in to the game, you can also communicate in the group and the guild, which is very rare.