With 50 million fans across the internet, what is Dingxiang Doctor’s replicable methodology for creating hit content?

Founded in 2014, after more than five years of development, Dingxiang Doctor has become a well-deserved leading new media in the field of medical and health.

It is understood that the total number of fans of Dingxiang Doctor's new media matrix has exceeded 50 million .

Among them, the number of fans of WeChat public accounts has exceeded 15 million, and it has been ranked first on the WeChat public account health list for many years; on Zhihu, Dingxiang Doctor ranks first in the total number of fans , which has reached 2.927 million so far; it has been stationed in Douyin for more than two years, with a total of 9.018w fans; the number of fans on Weibo has reached 5.23w, and it has frequently appeared on Weibo hot searches...

In addition to flourishing on new media platforms, Dingxiang Doctor is always the first to speak out whenever major events occur in the health field, shattering misunderstandings and revealing the truth for the public.

For example, in July 2018, regarding the Changchun Changsheng vaccine incident, Dingxiang Doctor’s article “7 answers everyone should know after the Changchun Changsheng vaccine incident” was read over 11 million times and shared over 1 million times. In March 2018, when rumors that Starbucks caused cancer were rife, Dingxiang Doctor was the first to publish a rumor-refuting article…

From time to time, there are hot-selling contents that go viral on the entire Internet. So how does Dingxiang Doctor continue to produce hot-selling contents?

We invited Mr. Dong Yang, the head of DingXiang Doctor's new media, to share with us the two key points and one method of DingXiang Doctor's popular logic , hoping that it will be inspiring to everyone.

1. Two Key Points of Hot-selling Logic

In order to create popular content, Dingxiang Doctor has an internal content production manual , which contains the experiences and lessons learned from previous content creation. The content production manual includes a lot of content, such as how to collect materials, how to title, the presentation format of the cover image, etc.

Here, we mainly talk about the core logic of creating a hit product. First of all, we need to know this sentence, that is: not every topic can become a hit, but we must use the logic of hits to do every topic.

So, what is the logic behind the hit product?

1. Sharing genes

Dingxiang Doctor believes that there are two keys. The first is sharing genes.

Sharing is essentially a social activity, so the content being shared can be used as social currency for users. But why are users willing to share your content? This requires that your content demonstrates value.

ADingxiang Doctor's approach is to break down the path of user sharing actions when doing content planning, find the environment for users to express themselves, or express themselves on behalf of users.

For example, the topics and content we publish can help users shape their personal image, or can serve as topics for them to participate in discussions when some major events occur, so that they will take the initiative to share our content.

Therefore, when it comes to sharing genes, what Dingxiang Doctor needs to do is to help users find a reason to share and maximize this reason so that they "have to share it."

2. User-oriented

The second key is user orientation.

In terms of user orientation, Dingxiang Doctor insists on two "don'ts": no podium-style popular science and no textbook-style popular science.

Instead of doing podium-style popular science, we are required to start from the data to understand user needs.

A big disadvantage of traditional media is that it can only provide one-way communication, such as television, newspapers, etc. After the information is sent out, the user is in a passive position and can either read it or not, so the data is difficult to track.

But for new media, users have the right to decide whether to open the article or not. Through the data background of the official account, we can clearly see whether they like or are not interested in an article, and understand their pain points.

After meeting the needs of users, it is also very important to provide users with incremental information.

For example, we often talk about debunking rumors, but at this stage, Dingxiang Doctor has rarely done this. This is because many health rumors have become common sense after we repeatedly emphasized them around 2017, which is not incremental information for readers.

When you are spreading common sense, users will feel that it is worthless, so we must constantly look for new information increments to match the different needs of users at different stages.

Instead of doing textbook-style popular science, to put it simply, it means "speaking human language."

On the first day of setting up the account, Dingxiang Doctor repeatedly asked this question internally: Does your topic selection make sense? Our goal is to "translate" the most professional content into something that even a junior high school student can understand. Not only should they be able to understand it, but they should also find it interesting.

In Dingxiang Doctor's opinion, popular science content that follows the traditional structure of "what-why-how" is actually lazy.

Because such content is no different from textbooks. If you open any book, you will see content with similar structure and form, and its value will be greatly reduced.

It's like, when you're popularizing the dangers of playing with your phone, you tell your readers that playing with your phone will increase the pressure on your cervical spine, harm the health of your cervical spine, and cause neck pain...

When a reader sees such content, the only thing he may perceive is that his neck hurts, but words such as spinal pressure and damage to cervical health are actually quite abstract and difficult for users to perceive.

So how does Dr. Clove do it?

We converted some data and calculated the pressure on the cervical spine, and finally concluded that when we lower our head 60 degrees, the cervical spine has to withstand about 27 kilograms of pressure!

For a more intuitive display, we also made the diagram shown above. Lowering your head 60 degrees is equivalent to holding 11 2L bottles of Coke on your head. After seeing this, users can easily realize that their neck is under such great pressure when they are playing with their mobile phones.

Later, vivid and intuitive pictures became a feature of Dingxiang Doctor's content, rather than a simple and dry sentence telling readers that doing so may be harmful to health.

In terms of user orientation, we should also pay attention to user feedback .

Colleagues working in new media all pay attention to data, including reading volume, sharing volume, opening of special editions, fan retention, etc., but many people do not really make good use of this data.

The working method followed by Dingxiang Doctor is PDCA, namely Plan, Do, Check, Adjust: set goals - execute goals - check data - adjust strategies.

This is a cycle for producing an article, and it is also the methodology that Dingxiang Doctor has developed after countless cycles. You can also use it in your actual work when analyzing and summarizing creative content.

Because writing content based solely on inspiration is not sustainable. When the inspiration disappears, we can also accumulate some systematic methods through the process of continuous checking and adjustment to continuously produce high-quality content, even popular content.

2. 1 method: sharing mechanism

The above are some concepts. Next, let’s talk about a more practical method - the sharing mechanism.

Although this section will involve DingXiang Doctor, its overall methodology is suitable for all media. It’s just that you may need to slightly adapt your own account or operating channels.

Within Dingxiang Doctor, the sharing mechanism actually comes from two books - "Gossip" and "Rumor".

After studying these two books, we summarized a methodological formula: Communication = credibility x sense of value.

Why is a multiplication sign used here? Because for the field in which Dingxiang Doctor is located, if either the credibility or the sense of value is 0, the dissemination will be 0. If you are not trustworthy, your content will not be spread, it will have no value, and users will not spread it.

Therefore, what we need to do in this area is to provide value to users through content. Only when our content is valuable can it influence users to take the next step, that is, the action of dissemination.

The prerequisite for users to take this action is trust.

1. Credibility

How to improve credibility and gain user trust? You can refer to McKinsey's trust formula, as shown below:

Simply disassemble the formula in the above picture, for Dingxiang Doctor:

Qualifications are endorsed by experts;

Reliability is the evidence-based approach that we have always insisted on, which means there is evidence;

Intimacy means speaking human language, like a friend, explaining knowledge in a more intimate and gentle way, rather than disseminating scientific knowledge from a high position;

Self-positioning is user-oriented. You should be user-oriented, not self-oriented. The higher your self-orientation, the lower the user's trust in you.

1) The actual credibility of key information: the professional evidence pyramid

Taking Dingxiang Doctor as an example, how do we gain the trust of users? The most important thing is to ensure that key information is actually credible.

We have a pyramid of professional evidence, you can take a look:

In the professional evidence pyramid, we have a division of credibility. Many health rumors are not credible because they are all theoretical deductions.

To give a simple example, we often see that a certain ingredient in a certain food can kill cancer cells, so we conclude that eating a certain food can kill cancer cells. This is a simple theoretical deduction.

Because there is no authoritative research evidence to prove that food itself can kill cancer cells or even cure cancer. DingXiang Doctor will not derive the content from a theoretical level, we will simply ignore it.

The next level up is the expert’s opinion, or the expert’s individual case. Relatively speaking, experts themselves are authoritative, but their opinions often contain personal background materials, cognitive limitations, etc., and may even have some deviations, or be too cutting-edge. In this case, we will handle it with caution.

The next level is clinical trials, which must be conducted specifically for the population that is the focus of this topic. However, in medical experiments, some experiment A may turn out to be useful, while some experiment B may turn out to be useless, and this may also be controversial.

So when we adopt it, we will make some trade-offs in its credibility. For example, whether the experiment is reliable, whether the journal published is of high quality, etc.

The highest level is guidelines, especially those issued by national or authoritative institutions, or high-quality literature research. For example, guidelines issued by a professional association, announcements issued by the National Health Commission, etc. These are relatively authoritative and have reliable sources, so we generally adopt them directly.

For everyone, you should look at whether there is such accuracy in your major? Do you have such a standard internally when producing content? This requires you to build it according to your own expertise.

2) Presentation of proof: Exploiting human intuition weaknesses

It is not enough to just build a pyramid of professional knowledge, we also need to consider the form of proof.

When writing medical articles, you may face a problem: the content is extremely professional and users cannot understand it at all.

For example, many people feel confused and unable to grasp the conclusion after reading English literature. So how do we present it?

There are three techniques for presentation at this time: testimony, stories and lowering the threshold of trust.

Testimony refers to testimony from official agencies, expert testimony, or displayed data, and primarily takes advantage of the fact that the general public tends to trust authority.

Stories are equivalent to "user testimonials". They lower the threshold of trust mainly by having pictures and truth, and by taking advantage of people's tendency to follow the crowd and believe what they see.

We have used two forms of expert exposure, one with a clear real-life avatar and the other with a cartoon avatar.

When people see these two forms, they will definitely think that the one with a real expert’s head portrait is more reliable, because users can intuitively feel that this is a real expert. Although the cartoon head portrait says who it is, users will think it is a fake person. This is called seeing is believing.

There are two explanations in the picture below about why eating red dates and brown sugar cannot supplement iron. Which one may be more reliable for users?

The probability should be the above, why? Because it provides specific and real data. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me, but the objective data is like this. If you compare the data, you will know which one is more useful.

The explanation below is obviously me trying to reason with you and telling you not to eat that, but it’s useless. Users may ask why? Why do you say it is useless?

Such very tiny details are sometimes the key to determining whether a reader trusts you. When these small details are added together, it gives people a feeling of whether your article is credible or not.

2. Sense of Value

The second most important point of the sharing mechanism is the sense of value. The sense of value mainly includes practical value and circulation value.

1) Practical value

Practical value means that the information itself has a sufficiently large increment. We call this information key information internally.

If users know this key information, it will bring benefits, or if users do not know this key information, it will cause losses. At this time, it is necessary to emphasize the perception of actual value.

Practicality

The first is practicality, which can meet the needs. The stronger the pain point, the stronger the sense of value.

For example, when promoting the same product, the main selling points of the three bags of potato chips are cheap, nutritious, and not fattening. Which one can better meet user needs?

First of all, this depends on the population, but for ordinary or young consumers, not gaining weight may be the most important thing. Nutrition may be what they care least about. I am already eating potato chips, so why should I care about nutrition?

Therefore, we must identify the user's pain points and meet their most practical needs. We have also summarized a solution here, which is that going to extremes is the most effective.

The first is that the simpler it is, the easier it is for users to obtain it, the lower the threshold for implementation, and the stronger the sense of value.

Many rumors and widely circulated life tips are easy to obtain, easy to achieve, and have low thresholds. Users only need to pay a few cents, or just perform a simple action, to cure the disease, which is relatively practical.

Then users who see it may think that it is worth sharing it, or the actual cost of doing it is not high, so it is worth a try.

If your stuff is particularly complex and has a very high threshold, the reader’s first reaction may be that he can’t do it. You have said so much to him, and he knows that you are right, but for him, he cannot do any of them. In fact, it is because he does not have a strong sense of value.

The second type is something that users can achieve, but there is a slight threshold and it is a bit difficult to execute. In that case, you can adopt a large and comprehensive strategy. The more comprehensive, the more useful it is. It is so comprehensive that users may not be able to finish reading it at the time, but they will still find it useful.

Because many users have a collecting and hoarding habit. For example, if you give users 10 exercise methods for weight loss, they will collect them and think that they don’t need these things now, but may need them in the future.

Vigilance

The second point of practical value is vigilance, which is to remind users of the dangers. In the foreseeable future of users, the greater the harm, the stronger the sense of value.

For example, many people are unaware of the statement “700 million Chinese people will suffer from diabetes.” Because China has a population of 1.4 billion, users may feel that they may be one of the other 700 million people and it may not be their turn.

But let’s put it another way: In China, one out of every two people will suffer from diabetes.

In this way, the user's perception will be very clear. One of the two people is either me or the person next to me. This is a clear perception.

Therefore, even though the meaning expressed is the same, whether it has direct relevance to the readers when interpreting it is also very important.

Therefore, when you are creating content, you have to think about it. The content you want to express may be really serious for users, but can users really perceive this seriousness at the moment?

If they cannot perceive it, we need to use some word conversion methods to make users actually realize that if they don’t pay attention now, it may cause harm to themselves tomorrow.

Recreational

The recreational value of practicality is that it is more of a topic of conversation and provides a social opportunity.

For example, entertainment gossip and trivia may not have a clear, particularly practical, and problem-solving value. The point is that if I don’t chat with others, the sense of practical value will be relatively weak.

But if it is weak, it won’t spread? Not really.

The dissemination dynamics of each platform are different. For example, entertainment gossip knowledge will have a strong dissemination dynamic on specific platforms such as Weibo and Douban Goose Group.

So it still depends on your content and the attributes of the platform you are on, and you can choose the one that may better match the value of your content.

Don't just say Don't

Another point is not to just say don't, but to provide solutions and alternatives.

There was a time when Dingxiang Doctor particularly liked to say don't, telling users not to do this or that, that eating this is useless and eating that can't help cure their illness.

After saying all this, users will actually have a rebellious mentality: You tell me every day that it’s useless and it doesn’t work after taking it, so what should I do?

So don't just say what can't be done, provide users with solutions and alternatives. It can give users peace of mind about the completeness of the article.

2) Circulation value

After talking about credibility and practical value, we still need to consider a question: your content is both credible and practical, but can it be spread?

For example, Professor Li Yinhe teaches you 300 tricks for dealing with gender relations, which are both credible and practical, but will readers share it? It may happen in a small range, but users will definitely not spread it to a large group of people.

So we need to think carefully about what this action of sharing means to the user? It’s actually the character setting.

We all want to present a positive image to the outside world.

What are the positive keywords? Positive, sunny, humorous, patriotic, just, individual, etc.

When people share information or articles, they potentially hope to gain recognition from others, receive more praise from family, friends and colleagues, and leave a positive impression on others.

At this time, the importance of circulation value is reflected, and the most important thing about circulation value is to reflect the user's personal value and sense of superiority. Users can endorse their own image and gain benefits through the circulation of content.

Showing goodwill

A common point of circulation value is expressing goodwill, that is, expressing care, sympathy and gratitude for some things or groups.

During some specific holidays, Dingxiang Doctor will speak out or support some vulnerable groups, but relatively speaking, the motivation for expressing goodwill is relatively weak. Because this matter is not that relevant to readers.

For example, Dingxiang Doctor often talks about tobacco-related topics, such as quitting smoking. The sharing rate of this type of topic is very high, up to 10%, while our regular pictures and texts only have 5%-7%.

But you can guess, how many extra page views can be generated by each share? It is very low, only 1.5, comparable to gender topics.

A very crucial point is that many of these tobacco-related topics have the connotation of "I'm doing this for your own good, I'm advising you on what to do," and sometimes even have the connotation of aggressive persuasion.

When readers share with close people, their original intention is to do good to them, but from the recipient's perspective, you are dissing them.

We need to pay attention to this subtle relationship when creating content.

Pleasing others

The second point of circulation value is to please others.

The most typical example is sharing jokes and funny stories to show that the user is actually a very humorous person, but this point has very high requirements for content. Why is it so high? Because everyone has a different sense of humor.

Take the comedy movie "Charlotte's Troubles" as an example. If you go to Douban to read the reviews, you will find that some people think it is very funny, while others think it is just average.

This shows one thing, that is, it is really difficult to make everyone laugh at the same time. If you’re not that good with humor, then your content might seem a bit awkward to others.

There is urgency

Next, let me talk about two more powerful points. The first is urgency. What is urgency? It is to show the latest news, grasp potential, follow hot spots, reveal certain truths, etc.

What does the spread of these contents represent? When a user shares, it shows that he is a well-informed person, that he has channels that others don’t know about and can obtain value, and that he can provide valuable content.

Remember not to use outdated content or content that has become a classic. As I said before, after a rumor has been debunked 100 times, it becomes common sense and there is no such urgency anymore.

There is a saying within Dingxiang Doctor that there are 10 hot spots to choose from, and it is normal to fail to catch 9 of them. It also depends on luck and whether the entry point captures the core issue. Therefore, it is normal to get rid of 9 of them, and it is a good deal as long as 1 of them explodes.

So don’t miss out on this hot topic, and find ways to follow it. As long as it is related to your field, you must do everything you can to find the right angle and don’t miss it.

Self-expression

And then there’s self-expression.

Many people are willing to express their resonance, express their positions, or persuade others in their circle of friends or on some social platforms. This is essentially an expression of their own values.

Dingxiang Doctor has produced a type of content in the past, one of which is "What to do if you feel motion sickness? ”, which is a solution-oriented one; the other is more interesting, which is “The Contemporary Social Incurable Disease: Motion Sickness”, which talks about the troubles that motion sickness brings to people’s lives.

Although both articles are about motion sickness, there is a big difference between sharing and opening the special edition. The reason is that we have put a lot of effort into self-expression, so we have a stronger conversion mechanism.

Our conclusion is that readers are more willing to share than to cure their diseases , so everyone can think about the point of self-expression here.

It is important to note that you should not let the reader express that I did something wrong and I admit my mistake, nor should you let him expose his privacy or shortcomings.

We have summed up a saying internally: No matter how many mistakes there are, it is not the target user’s fault. Just like gaining weight, it is definitely not because the user is too lazy, but because the food is too delicious.

You cannot ask users to admit their mistakes. Although the knowledge conveyed is consistent, the tone and attitude when conveying it must be adjusted.

3. Emotions

For readers, if they finish reading a content that meets the above requirements, one thing will definitely arise - emotion.

If we classify emotions based on their level of pleasantness and arousal , they can be divided into four quadrants.

Readers are very willing to express themselves and to talk to others. This is a high-arousal emotion, which can be positive or negative.

For example, if I am very happy and I know something particularly exciting, I must tell it to my relatives and friends. Also, I heard some extremely bad news, which was extremely infuriating, and I must tell everyone so that everyone can attack it together.

The other is low arousal emotion, which means that after reading this thing, the reader feels very sad and upset. He may want to chat with others, or leave a message in your comment area, but he will not share it.

Or after reading it, he becomes completely indifferent and doesn’t want to take the next step of sharing. He may just chat with the operator of your account and give a “like” button.

So when planning, we need to think clearly: Does our content arouse the readers' emotions? What emotion is aroused? If you were to share, were they high-arousal emotions?

Here I want to emphasize one thing again, which is that we must capture the core group of people and awaken their emotions. Because the same content can evoke completely different emotions in different readers.

As an account operator, you need to be clear about who the core group of people you want to attract with this article is. The most important thing is to capture this group of people and awaken their emotions. Don't try to take care of everyone and consider all emotions. There is no need to do that.

Once you do this and consider everything very comprehensively, it will complicate the emotion or even dilute it. Therefore, the key forwarding mechanism for the core target group must be clear and never disperse the target.

Author: Mantou Business School

Source: Mantou Business School (mantousxy)