Experience and tips on how to increase followers and monetize on Toutiao!

In mid-September 2016, I registered a Toutiao account and started writing articles. At that time, I wrote for fun and updated it irregularly, and my followers were slowly increasing.

In early April 2017, I began to fully operate Toutiao. Because I had just passed the original creation and was certified as a yellow V at that time, and I also joined a health 100 V group, which consisted of yellow Vs in the health field with tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of fans. We encouraged each other and forwarded to each other, which gave me more motivation to write.

By July, I had nearly 10,000 followers. I was just happy at the time and didn’t think about making much money.

During that period, people always sent me private messages, asking me to help them publish promotional articles. I disagreed at first, but later I agreed because I was short of money and still looking for a job.

Some friends may be interested in how to accept orders on Toutiao? Where to take orders?

It’s actually very simple. Once you have 10,000 fans and are a yellow V, many people will privately message you to send you advertisements.

It was from that time that I became addicted to the feeling of making money. After all, my previous monthly salary was only 7,000 at most, and I could make 300 a day by posting soft articles, which is close to 10,000 a month!

But the good times didn’t last long. I posted soft-text advertisements for more than two months and earned 20,000 yuan, but the traffic of my articles was restricted and I was deducted nearly 30 points. I had no choice but to stop advertising and work hard on updating my articles.

Until a while ago, my traffic slowly recovered and people started to approach me to advertise. I tried very cautiously a few times, but I didn’t expect that on April 1st, my Toutiao account was blocked for malicious promotion, and no matter how many times I appealed, it could not be unblocked.

This made me very upset because I lost a source of passive income.

During the one year I worked on Toutiao, I gained a lot, but also suffered setbacks.

To be honest, I don’t regret it. I would rather share with everyone some of my experiences in operating the Toutiao account, so that everyone can increase their followers and monetize them without following my path.

1. Patience is a virtue

Don’t rush to cash out if you have less than 10,000 fans

After many friends knew that I made some money from Toutiao, they asked me how to make money through Toutiao.

I told him honestly that it was very simple. Just write one article every day, 5-10 articles on Weibo Headlines and 2 articles on Wukong Q&A. After one year, you will basically have 10,000 fans, and then you can start making money.

Many people were curious after hearing this: “Why does it take so long to publish so much content every day? Isn’t there a faster and more labor-saving method?”

I'm sorry, this is really out of stock. One year is a fast way to cash in. If you find it troublesome to wait and pay for one year, how can you make money?

I remember an entrepreneur once said, "I won't do anything that can make money right away."

It’s the same with being a Toutiao account. It requires accumulation and perseverance, and this is also its threshold, filtering out most of the people who don’t want to persevere and work hard.

I know a friend who works for Wukong Q&A and earns 300-400 yuan a day. He has been doing this for 2 years and has answered more than 2,000 questions, including more than 100 questions with over a million views. He himself is a veteran football fan with 40 years' experience.

He endured this for more than a year. When he had no fans in the beginning, he only earned a few cents a day by answering questions, but it took him 3-4 hours.

Until the beginning of this year, the number of fans exceeded 20,000, and the daily income gradually exceeded 100, and then slowly reached 300 or 400.

From this example we can see that nothing can be achieved overnight. Having skills and direction is not enough. The most important thing is patience and persistence.

2. The differences between Weitou.com, articles and Wukong Q&A

If most people want to make money from Toutiao, they need to understand the differences between Weitou, articles and Wukong Q&A. Weitao increases fans, articles increase stickiness, and Wukong Q&A makes money.

1. Weitou.com has a high inclination in traffic

Weitao is simple to understand and can easily reach thousands or tens of thousands of views. As long as you keep writing, constantly improve it according to your fans’ tastes, and occasionally take advantage of hot topics, it’s easy to increase your fans.

Last year, a movie called "Dying to Survive" became popular and sparked heated discussions. A doctor friend in our group immediately caught on to this hot topic.

She posted a Weibo headline with the hashtag #我不是药神#. The picture below listed the prices of all cancer drugs and the best hospitals for treating this type of cancer.

This was a huge event. The number of readers of Weitou Toutiao exploded, rising from 600,000 to more than 30 million, and the number of followers increased by more than 60,000. This is also the fastest case of increasing followers that I have seen so far.

The reason why this went viral is, first, that she took advantage of this hot topic very well; second, this kind of micro headlines, when others forward it, is expressing their own opinions, helping others, and providing a strong social force.

2. The fans attracted by the articles are particularly sticky

Writing an article is actually a very comprehensive matter. From the selection of topics to the logic of writing, from the title to the content, everything needs to be carefully considered.

If you write a good article, it will express the readers' thoughts, solve other people's questions and provide new value.

Readers will trust you from the bottom of their hearts. Weibo Toutiao cannot write much due to the word limit, and Wukong Q&A is not as good as articles in this respect because the topics are controlled when answering.

This is also the thing I do worst. In fact, most of my fans are gained through my articles. Logically speaking, the stickiness is stronger and monetization is easier.

However, because I took too many advertisements, many of my die-hard fans unfollowed me. At my peak, my articles would be read by 500-1000 fans, but later on, the number of fans read was less than 50, which made my subsequent development difficult.

3. Wukong Q&A is the fastest and easiest place to make money in Toutiao

If you want to make money quickly, you might as well stick to doing Wukong Q&A first, and then slowly increase your followers after you start earning income.

Many friends have been unable to activate their income on Wuguoqia. In fact, it is not because of the quality of the answers, but because they chose the wrong questions.

Regarding how to increase readership and revenue on Wuguoqia, I will write an article to share with you later. Today, I will just talk to you about how to choose a good topic.

There are actually 3 tips on how to choose a topic:

① Follow the big names

You should answer the same questions he answers. Follow a few big names who are particularly good in your field on Wukong Q&A, and follow them to answer questions every day.

Because big names have their own traffic, sometimes when they answer a question, it will be read by millions of people, and you can just answer it and get tens of thousands of reads.

② Select at least 5 favorites and 5-10 questions to answer

Too few collections means that other people are not interested in this issue.

Too few answers means that the system rarely pushes this question and there is no traffic.

But there are exceptions. I have a friend who answered a question yesterday about when is the most accurate time to weigh. When he answered it, there were only three responses. But this question may have its own popularity, and the number of reads soon exceeded one million.

③ Do not choose expired questions

In many fields such as fashion and sports, there is no recommended amount for expiration issues.

How to judge whether a question is expired? It’s very simple. Just click on the answer with the highest number of views to see when it was posted. Or when answering a question, first check whether the question was pushed today and you will know.

3. Create content and create hits

Actually, I got the inspiration for this question from an article I read on a public account today.

To put it bluntly, one focuses on quality while the other focuses on quantity. Your Toutiao account should decide which path to take.

1. If your account wants to go the quality route, it’s very simple. You don’t have to consider this issue or whether the topic is liked by people or whether it stimulates everyone’s pain points.

As long as the article is well written, provides new knowledge, creates value, has strict logic and is well-founded, it will be fine. If you write a long article of more than 2,000 words like this and activate the original version, if it is well written, there is a high probability that you will be selected for the Qingyun Program and receive a bonus.

After you have won the Qingyun Plan bonus many times, a V will be added to show that you are a Qingyun Plan winner. Officials may ask you to sign a contract, so you will definitely get monthly income.

But this path is more difficult, because it is too difficult to write good articles without accumulation and deep thinking ability.

2. Then you can consider writing some popular articles. Popular articles can increase followers very quickly and bring good returns.

The main difficulty lies in that your topic and title must meet the public's expectations, stimulate readers' underlying desire to read, and make them involuntarily click, read, and forward.

The article with the highest number of readers is about 500,000, and the average number of readers of my articles is generally around 20,000. I later summarized that popular article and found that the title aroused readers' fear very well, forcing others to click to read it.

4. Summary

During the one year I've been running Toutiao, I've come to understand three things: the need to be patient and persistent, to differentiate clearly between Weitou, articles and Wukong Q&A , to be targeted, and to decide whether to go the content route or the hit route.

Here I also wish that everyone’s Toutiao account fans will exceed one million in minutes, and that everyone can successfully monetize and obtain good profits. I hope this article will encourage us all.

Author: Operation Publicity Xiao Leilei

Source: Operation Publicity Xiao Leilei