The operation of content platform products from Kuaishou

But a product with more than 200 million DAU can definitely be interpreted from multiple perspectives and has multiple attributes. This time the perspective is: Kuaishou also has platform attributes.

What is a platform product? At least it has massive amounts of data, whether it’s DAU or GMV. Products with small scale don’t have the nerve to call themselves platforms.

A product that can be called a platform is one that solves the closed loop of an ecosystem, such as upstream and downstream, B-end and C-end, or production and consumption. Therefore, the order of magnitude is definitely very large, and the types of users that the product supports are also diverse.

1. Platform products have the following characteristics

1. The platform is bilateral or multilateral, and supply and demand are dynamically unbalanced.

In fact, this view comes from an article by Zhang Chuan, senior vice president of Meituan. I learned from it and mixed it with my own thoughts.

A platform is only one with a closed ecological loop, so there must be diverse roles, such as the B-end and C-end mentioned above, production and consumption, etc.

For example, Taobao is an enormous ecosystem that includes not only buyers and sellers, but also operation service providers, advertising agencies, logistics companies, etc. These are the multilateral roles of the platform. Based on this logic, we can also conclude that products like Kuaishou have platform attributes.

Supply and demand are dynamically unbalanced, and that’s why the platform is valuable. In response to this point, Brother Chuan gave an example: when users make transactions, they rarely buy a fixed product from a fixed store at a fixed time, and users rarely take the same car driven by the same driver at the same time and place.

In other words, if bilateral or multilateral parties can get rid of the platform and operate on their own, then the platform has no value. The dynamic imbalance of the platform is not a goal to be pursued, but a characteristic and a result to be presented.

Kuaishou's "dynamic imbalance" is reflected in the degree of match between supply and demand in terms of content categories. For example, during a period of rapid growth, the content supply in many subcategories is always less than the content consumption; the same is true in reverse.

This is the norm and a normal phenomenon. What operations need to do is to continuously optimize content categories and fill in the gaps.

2. Supply is the core, and it only works when supply exceeds demand.

I often give an example: if you want to build a recruitment website from scratch, should you focus on the B-end or the C-end first, that is, the recruiter or the job seeker first? You can only choose one of the two, theoretically you can't do both at the same time.

It seems like a chicken and egg problem, but it is not. The answer is definitely to deal with the B-side recruitment first and the supply side first.

According to the law of conduct, when faced with such a choice between supply and demand, supply should be the first priority. From a specific perspective, B-side recruiters are easier to deal with because they are right there and you can approach them one by one. The identity of a job seeker is hidden and will not be written on his face.

Similarly, Kuaishou’s operations should also focus on supply first, and the reason is similar to the recruitment websites mentioned above.

To what extent is the supply? From a qualitative rather than quantitative perspective, the supply is far greater than the demand. Because it is necessary to provide users with space to choose, such a platform can only be established, otherwise the platform will die.

Meituan Takeout first secured the supply, which was the merchants. As long as there are enough merchants, consumers will have room to choose and their satisfaction will be improved.

The same goes for feed products. Everyone is competing on CTR. First of all, there must be enough and rich supply, only then will this "CTR" be valuable.

Therefore, oversupply is the norm that operators need to pursue. Content providers on Kuaishou work hard to create quality content and study rules and gameplay in order to gain better consumption. More importantly, there must be many content providers on the platform who are having a hard time, which is normal.

3. The platform is prosperous, and efforts from all sides have paid off.

On the Kuaishou platform, there are many types of content providers, including UGC, PGC, celebrities, government accounts, media accounts, corporate accounts, etc., as well as MCN agencies, advertising agencies, service providers, etc. These roles must be able to grow well on Kuaishou.

"Platform prosperity" is not the goal pursued by the platform, but the result. To put it simply: being able to feed so many people proves that you are awesome.

Each role relies on this platform to survive and make money, and the platform can also bring more social value. You say how stable such a platform must be, it must not collapse so easily, but everyone disagrees.

2. How to operate platform products

1. What is Operation?

I was wondering why this topic, which has been talked about so much, is always brought up. It may be determined by the characteristics of operations. It is neither development, product, nor design. The output is invisible, so it is difficult to define and measure.

But why are peers still struggling to pursue it? In fact, it is because of human fear of uncertainty. You do this thing, but you don’t know how to define it, and you don’t know what you will be like in five years. This uncertainty is unacceptable to people, so you have to go looking for it.

There are many definitions of operations in the industry, but I think they are all limited to one's own understanding. I have worked in operations for several different types of products. Looking back now, I find that my previous definition was relatively narrow and was always limited to the situation of the previous company.

If I had to define operations in one sentence, it would be: connection.

2. How to operate platform products

The above picture is my complete understanding of operations, but it only represents the current stage and integrates my experience at Baidu, Meituan, NetEase, and Kuaishou.

To explain operation in one sentence: Operation is to connect users and products. The method of connection is manual intervention. The target of intervention is the head group, and suppliers are selected from the head to intervene.

① The explanation of the connection is relatively simple. After the product is launched, if there is no operation promotion and guidance for user use, theoretically no user will know about this product.

Therefore, operations must push products to users and let users use the product the way we want. User operation, event operation, content operation, etc. are just specific means and do not need to be limited in themselves.

②Intervention is similar to "macro-control" in economics, which is the invisible hand. This is too abstract. You will understand it by looking at the example in the picture above.

One day when I came home, I found that I could no longer park on the roadside near my house because a railing had been installed, as shown on the right side of the picture above. So I thought, if I want to prevent drivers from parking randomly on this road, there are two ways.

The first method is to stick a strip, as shown on the left side of the picture above. Let a few auxiliary police officers put tickets on a few cars every day, and after a few days no one will park here anymore.

The second method is to erect railings, resulting in no parking space on the roadside and no parking conditions.

Of these two methods, "sticking tickets" is an operational means, which only involves formulating rules and making manual interventions. It does not cover all situations, but it can still achieve its goal through demonstration effect; "railways" are a product means, which means that there is no parking space on that road to ensure the normal operation of bicycles.

③The head has a driving effect on the whole. This is not only true for a certain product, but also for human society.

Human groups are driven by the demonstration and guidance of their leaders, which drives the development of history and also affects the details of life. As long as we can handle the head, we don't need to cover the whole thing, and we can achieve the effect of leading the whole by the point.

The above picture takes Zhihu as an example. I looked through the earliest top users of Zhihu, including Kai-Fu Lee, Abei, Keso, Lei Jun, etc., and basically they have not been active in recent years. But they played a decisive role in the early days of Zhihu.

It is because of the entry of these top users and the publication of high-quality content that the Internet/technology community has become aware of and stayed on Zhihu. For example, Zhihu doesn’t need to mess with me. With the people mentioned above, I can just get by happily.

This logic is applicable to current platform products. We must firmly grasp the leading position with the aim of achieving a leading effect.

④The value of supply has been mentioned above, so I will not elaborate on it here.

In short, operation depends on both "leverage" and "cleverness", because after all, it is not based on covering everything, but on the drive of key factors.

The basic work has to be done; it is practical and part of one's job. But doing only these things is worthless and will not drive the product. It can only play a maintenance role and make people feel that it is dispensable.

Author: Han Xu

Source: Operation Dog Work Diary