Analysis of Dianping's Membership Operation System

Because I got a high-quality free meal on Dianping.com, I started my review journey. At one point, I aspired to become a LV8 community expert. My current membership level is LV6. Due to professional reasons, I am very interested in how Dianping effectively operates a content community, so I wrote this article in my spare time.

The analysis ideas of this article are:

We will deconstruct and analyze Dianping's content community operation system from the perspective of membership level rules, Orange V membership system, content algorithm recommendation, medal system, member points, product visual interaction, etc. Finally, from my perspective as a loyal user and product manager, combined with product development trends, I would like to make some suggestions.

Experience analysis version: Dianping APP V10.24.10, iOS version

The date of data statistics is: February 13

Product and user analysis

1. Product positioning and core functions

Dianping.com is a local information and life service transaction platform. Dianping.com is one of the earliest independent third-party consumer review platforms, where users can freely post consumer reviews. These aggregated consumer reviews help other consumers make consumption decisions.

We will make it a core operational goal to continuously stimulate users to post consumer reviews on the review app . Because different user groups adopt different operating strategies, we will first make a simple analysis of Dianping's user groups.

2. User group analysis

We divide users in the content community into content consumers and content producers, and select two factors: the degree of liking for food and the degree of showing off, to divide the user groups.

The degree of showiness here refers to the intensity of satisfaction that users gain from publishing content.

According to the above user group classification, the user portrait is as follows :

(1) Food KOL

He is keen on discovering and trying different types of food, and is good at sharing through text, photos or videos, and motivating and influencing others. He has a certain fan base. They are willing to spend more time and money to find delicious food. Food is a very important part of their life and provides them with a lot of joy in life.

(2) Food Expert

They love to discover delicious food and also love to share it. They will actively recommend delicious restaurants to their friends. Food is an important part of their lives and adds a lot of fun to life. But unlike KOLs, they do not have their own fan base and their sharing skills are not as mature.

(3) Foodie

They love food and every time they go out, they will carefully look for delicious restaurants. For them, food adds a lot of interest to their lives. But they are not keen on posting reviews and recommending food online.

(4) Lifestyle Expert

They will actively share and introduce good things to others around them, and are good at sharing records, but in their minds, food is as important as reading, traveling, and fitness. Therefore, they will not spend extra time looking for food like food experts or KOLs.

(5) Mass users

The sense of satisfaction they get from delicious food is not strong. For them, delicious food is just an ordinary need of life. They will not spend extra time and energy on discovering and sharing delicious food, nor will they be keen on sharing reviews and recommending delicious food to people around them.

(6) Ordinary foodie

They feel greater satisfaction from eating delicious food and will take the initiative to discover delicious food, but sharing and recording it does not give them a strong sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

3. User needs analysis

According to the user group characteristics analyzed above, if you want to touch different user groups and continue to share more food reviews on Dianping, you can operate from two aspects: strengthening the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, and profit-driven. Different user groups have different focuses.

Analysis of Dianping's membership operation strategy

How is Dianping currently operating around enhancing the sense of achievement, satisfaction and profit-driven? Through long-term use of the product and in-depth understanding of their various operational activities, the current operating strategies are as follows, among which contribution value and membership upgrades, free meals and free meal pass cards, and Orange V membership are the core of the operation.

How do these operational strategies interconnect and promote each other to create the content ecosystem of Dianping's UGC?

Please see the following relationship diagram:

It can be seen that there is a mutually reinforcing relationship between free meals and PASS cards, Orange V members, and contribution value and membership level. The three form a closed loop, allowing the Dianping UGC ecosystem to develop a positive cycle.

The following will analyze these operational strategies one by one:

1. Contribution value and membership upgrade

When a user registers as a review user, he or she becomes a Dianping member by default. Currently, there are 8 levels of membership in Dianping.com, and the higher the level, the more difficult it is to upgrade.

The upgrade difficulty diagram based on membership level and the corresponding contribution value is as follows. It can be seen that the upgrade difficulty increases after LV6.

If you want to upgrade, you first need to obtain contribution points, and contribution points are mainly obtained by contributing content.

Summary of contribution value and membership upgrade:

1. Users mainly gain contribution points by writing reviews, and their membership level can be upgraded by increasing contribution points.
2. The difficulty of member upgrade is relatively low from LV1 to LV4, and the difficulty increases exponentially from LV4 to LV8. The increase in difficulty is intended to stimulate users who gain a sense of accomplishment from the upgrade to post more reviews and satisfy users' "love of showing off" psychology. (Assuming that the user posts four high-quality reviews every month, plus other operations to obtain 300 contribution points per month. It takes 3 months to upgrade from LV1 to LV4. It takes 17 months to upgrade from LV4 to LV6, 30 months to upgrade from LV6 to LV7, and 50 months to upgrade from LV7 to LV8)
3. The benefits for members are mainly virtual goods such as discounts on purchases over a certain amount. It is inferred that these benefits will not play a big role in motivating users to continue posting reviews. It can be judged that the motivation that attracts many review players to upgrade is more driven by users' interest in sharing and their love of showing off.

Problems:

1. As users use the product for longer periods of time and become more familiar with the rules, more and more users complete high-level promotions. The platform is less and less willing to satisfy the "showiness" of high-level core users, which can easily lead to the loss of these users in the later stages.
2. The difficulty of upgrading from LV6 to LV8 is too high, which can easily make novice players give up. Because when users advance from the beginner level to the intermediate level, they begin to feel a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, but at this time the difficulty increases a lot.

2. Orange V Membership System

Orange V members, that is, members with a lighted V sign on their avatars are Orange V members, similar to VVIP members, but with a higher threshold.

Currently Orange V members have the following features:

• The barrier to entry is higher. To become an Orange V member, users need to register for more than 3 months and publish 4 comments of more than 100 words before they can be transferred from ordinary members to Orange V members - in order to prevent users from maliciously registering multiple accounts to occupy membership benefits.
• It is time-sensitive. Orange V membership is valid for one month. You must complete 4 items this month to maintain Orange V status for the next month.
• The benefits are more substantial. Orange V enjoys free meal privileges (exclusive free meals, higher winning rate), exclusive food discounts, VIP invitation cards, exclusive coupons, overseas food, drink and entertainment, exclusive coupons, and joint privileges.
• There are regional restrictions. The Orange V benefits available in different cities are different. Currently, the operation of Orange V is only carried out around large cities and is provided by the city’s cooperative merchants.

Summary of membership system and rules:

1. Compared with the benefits of ordinary members, Orange V membership benefits are more practical and attractive, but they require maintaining 4 reviews per month, which has a higher threshold. It can be inferred that Dianping is using the actual benefits of Orange V to stimulate those users who are not keen on sharing but are easily tempted by food discounts to continue to produce high-quality review content.
2. The Orange V membership system is operated with "profit-driven" as the core point to achieve the goal of stimulating users to continuously generate review content.

Problems:

1. Orange V benefits will lead to a phenomenon where a large number of members check in to the same merchant at the same time and post comments. The excessive concentration of reviews on certain stores may give ordinary users a negative impression of the objectivity and authenticity of the reviews;
2. Orange V benefits use actual benefits to stimulate more ordinary food-loving users to write reviews, and this incentive requires that the cooperation between business operators and merchants can maintain stable and friendly cooperation. Because if these users don’t see the benefits that attract them, they will easily give up writing reviews.

3. Free meals and PASS cards

A free meal refers to an opportunity for users to get free food, drinks and entertainment provided by cooperating merchants. Some free meals are restricted to Orange V users or users above a certain level, thus stimulating more users to write reviews to light up Orange V or upgrade.

The free meal PASS card means that users can use this card to directly redeem free meals without having to participate in the lottery (the chance of winning the free meal is low). The Free Meal PASS card can be obtained by accumulating free meal points by signing in to the Free Meal page, or by participating in community activities operated by Dianping.com.

Self-operated activities are usually released through the product’s community forum and the fan WeChat group of the operator.

(I was in Guangzhou, and at that time, I could get the medal of last year's meeting by writing travel guides. I added Dian Xiaomao on WeChat and joined a Guangzhou travel guide writing group. Dian Xiaomao would regularly post tasks and rewards in the group. If the task was related to the content, Dian Xiaomao would usually attach a content template to reduce the difficulty of completing the task.)

Summary of free meals and PASS cards:

1. Free meals are an important means for Dianping to maintain community activity. It meets user needs from two dimensions: "love of show" and "profit drive".
2. The reward system of King Meal can be flexibly combined with member marketing activities. For example, the reward for inviting friends to become Orange V and writing review posts can all reward users with King Meal PASS cards.

Problems:

The chance of winning a prize in the free meal offer is relatively small. Most users may not participate again after trying once or twice if they fail to win a prize. Free meals are a way for Dianping to liven up the community atmosphere, but free meals cannot be relied upon to stimulate most users to generate a large amount of review content.

4. Medal

The medal is a reward for users who have made special contributions. Some medals are divided into three levels: gold, silver and bronze, which correspond to different data indicators. The medal entrance can be entered by clicking Personal Homepage > Medal Icon. Badges are automatically obtained based on changes in user behavior data, and do not require any user action.

Medal system summary:

The entrance to the medal is very deep and not obvious. The incentive effect of medals in the entire membership system is not obvious. It is more like an auxiliary means for product and operation teams to divide product user groups.

5. Member Points

Member points are mainly obtained by posting comments or group purchasing, etc. Member points can be used to participate in the lucky draw in the points mall, and the gifts are mainly small gifts of lower value. Users can enter the lottery using very few points, but the chances of winning are not high.

Summary of the points system:

Points are used to stimulate users to post reviews from a profit-driven perspective, but in terms of product design, users do not have a strong sense of their own points. It can be inferred that points are not very attractive to users and their importance in the entire operating system is average.

Enhance members' sense of satisfaction and achievement

1. Content algorithm recommendation

High-level members of Dianping are the main force of UGC content. In order to encourage these users to continuously produce new content and satisfy their desire to show off, the content of these users will be given priority in Dianping's recommendation algorithm. What is the weight of membership level in the review recommendation algorithm? The observation and analysis will be done in the following ways.

(1) The impact of membership level on review display priority

Select 5 must-eat restaurants in Guangzhou and see the number of reviews of different membership levels in the first 20 reviews in default sorting and time sorting.

Each comment is recorded as "1".

Cumulative number of comments at different levels :

(2) The impact of membership level on the priority of home page recommendation display

Browse the posts recommended on the Guangzhou homepage and check the membership levels of the first 20 posts. Each post is recorded as "1". The cumulative statistics are as follows:

LV6-LV8 members have 10 posts, accounting for about 50%

Summarize:

1. LV6-LV8 high-level users are the main contributors to review content (after sorting the reviews by time, about 50% of the content still comes from high-level users).
2. In restaurant reviews, comments from high-level members are clearly given priority; however, in homepage recommendations, the priority advantage is not so obvious.
3. From the distribution of member levels that post comments, we can see that LV1-LV3 membership levels only account for a small part. On the one hand, this is because LV1-LV3 upgrades faster, and if users post comments, they seldom stay at a low level; but on the other hand, it also reflects that most general users do not post comments and are content consumers.

Problems:

• The content algorithm over-concentrates traffic resources on comments from high-level users (80% of comments come from high-level users), while according to the review rules, both reading and commenting on the reviews can gain contribution value. Therefore, high-level users accumulate contribution values ​​much faster than low-level users. Seeing that high levels are no longer rare will dampen the motivation of low-level users to continue to upgrade their levels, and the content published by low-level users will be more difficult to discover.
• When users browse reviews, most of the reviews that are displayed first are from high-level users (feeling like professional writers, although high-level user reviews are often of higher quality), which can easily make users doubt the authenticity of the content.

(Since this article only selects Guangzhou, must-eat restaurants, and data from a certain date as samples for analysis, the analysis results may be significantly different from the actual results, please be aware)

2. Product visual interaction

By observing the members' personal homepages, we can see many elements that can enhance members' satisfaction and sense of achievement, such as:

• Number of fans, followers, likes, views, and medals;
• Orange V logo;
• Member level logo (LV8 is the highest level, the design style is obviously different from the others, it is black, while LV1-LV7 are just different shades of orange);
• Number of countries and cities where you sign in, sign-in map, etc.

For those users who love to show off, every increase in numbers and every additional check-in point on the map is a motivation to stimulate them to continuously produce new content.

Problems:

At present, Dianping’s product design does not clearly reflect the connection between users and the community atmosphere with strong connections between experts and fans. In the minds of users, Dianping is still positioned as a tool platform, which is also the reason why the APP opening rate is limited. Because there is no strong sense of accomplishment or other benefits that platforms like Tik Tok and Zhihu bring to individuals, it can be inferred that review platforms are not very attractive to KOLs or influencers.

Suggestions for optimizing the review operation system

Before thinking about how to improve Dianping’s current operating system, we must first know the future development direction of the Dianping APP and use the future to guide the present. By using the Dianping APP for a long time and actually participating in its operational activities, we have observed that the product is currently developing and deploying in the following directions.

1. Expand online transactions in more local life service categories. This corresponds to the goal of membership operations: to encourage users to contribute more valuable and authentic reviews in new categories to help other users make consumption decisions. Reflect the core value of the product.
2. Add more content other than food to create a community atmosphere where reviews are fun to visit. (This can be seen from the revision of the information flow on the home page of the current APP) This corresponds to the goal of membership operations: to encourage users to contribute more valuable and rich content in different categories. In addition to consumer reviews, other life hobbies can also be published on the platform.
3. Support artisans and help them build brands and conduct precision marketing. (You can see some recommendations of hairstylists’ works on the homepage) This also corresponds to the membership operation goal: to encourage users to contribute more valuable and real reviews in different categories to help other users make consumption decisions.
4. Improve the efficiency of traffic distribution and provide targeted marketing for local shops. The premise of precision marketing is that the system has collected enough user behavior data to make accurate matches. Therefore, the operational goals are the same, which is to encourage users to post reviews and other content, and then attract users back through massive and rich content, thereby generating more behavioral data.
5. Carry out more offline cooperation and activities to create an online and offline platform for a better urban life. (For example, Dianping will organize offline member gatherings; some stores listed on Dianping will receive trophies, posters, etc.) This is in line with the company's operational goals: to plan a continuous stream of marketing activities, connect online and offline, and deepen the public's and businesses' awareness of Dianping as a "local life platform."
6. Expand online transactions and review businesses in popular overseas tourist cities . Operational goal: By cooperating with some travel agencies and overseas attractions, deepen users' understanding of Dianping's "Overseas Reviews", and encourage users to use reviews or post reviews more often when traveling .

The above are the goals that the operating system needs to achieve based on the future development direction of Dianping.com.

Let's review the problems to be solved in the membership operation system analyzed at the beginning:

1. How to stimulate mid-level members to continue working towards becoming high-level members; how to retain high-level members?
2. Traffic resources are overly concentrated on high-level members. How can we disperse the resources? Make competition among members fairer and discover more excellent content.
3. How to maintain an objective and fair review atmosphere? Prevent content duplication, spamming, malicious screen swiping, etc.

Here are the answers I thought of:

Goal: Retain high-level users

Specific suggestions : Add more membership categories, high-level members will be promoted to super VIP after review, and have priority in obtaining regular benefits and offline event qualifications. (VVIP is similar to a content writer who has signed a contract with Dianping. VVIP is equivalent to a review expert. It needs to be reviewed and assessed regularly by the judges. The platform will issue rewards and provide cooperation opportunities for those who become review experts.)

Goal: To encourage mid-level members to work towards high-level members

Specific suggestions: For example, when a LV6 member has not posted for more than 3 weeks, he or she can be marked as a loyal user who is easy to churn, and then the corresponding tasks and rewards can be pushed to the user. (Design some early warning mechanisms to find out which intermediate users may churn. Provide them with some additional opportunities to accelerate upgrades, such as doubling their contribution points if they persist in completing a certain contribution point)

Goal: To disperse traffic resources and make it fairer among members

Specific suggestion: In the content recommendation algorithm, reduce the priority weight of high-level membership levels. You can refer to: In the default sorting, limit the number of comments that can be pinned to the top 10 by the same user. (Most users browse no more than the first 20 comments, and high-level members post comments more frequently, so the comments posted at the top are often those of high-level users. This leads ordinary users to mistakenly believe that comments posted by high-level members are fake comments.)

Goal: Maintain an objective and fair review atmosphere

Specific suggestions: optimize algorithms, formulate rules, and increase user referees. For example, when the user enters the review page after dining, add the following question: Do you think the current restaurant's star rating is too high, too low, or just right? This is used to correct the algorithm. (Because the reviews are crowded or untrue due to platform benefits such as free meals or fake positive reviews, a review panel can be introduced to solve the problem.)

Goal: Encourage users to post different types of reviews

Specific suggestions: Design and plan more activities to encourage users to post reviews, and collect users’ future life plans in advance. For example, a user may go for a teeth cleaning or a haircut this month. Users accept the task challenge of posting reviews, and after completing the consumption, they can obtain contribution points or the opportunity to draw a pass card, scratch off points for the free meal fund, etc. (Except for catering consumption, the consumption frequency of other items is relatively low, and users have not yet formed the awareness of sharing reviews of other items, so this problem can be solved by soliciting in advance. Similar ideas can also be applied to expanding overseas travel reviews, etc.)

The above is my analysis and suggestions from the perspective of the membership system around the core goal of "how to continuously stimulate users to post consumer reviews on the APP." Everyone is welcome to pay attention to the exchanges. As a loyal user of Dianping, I hope that it can maintain its objective and fair stance, and that there are fewer recommended advertisements on the homepage. Finally, I would like to thank the book "Behind the Scenes Products" for its inspiration and I recommend it to everyone.

PS: I am currently on the job search path. If you have any C-end product recommendations, I would be very grateful.

Author: Sydney 233

Source: Sydney 233