How should we play “local self-media”?

The rise of local self-media is something that is expected, and it can be said to be an inevitable trend in the development of the industry. Just like: after the mainstream market has been divided up, more and more Internet companies will inevitably choose to enter from the vertical field of the niche market; and it is our instinct to be curious and gossipy about the people and things around us and to want to know more. These two factors determine that local self-media will inevitably have a specific soil in which to take root, sprout and grow.

So, when self-media is labeled as "local", how is its operation different from regular self-media operations ? Today, let’s talk about this issue from the perspective of its content tone and operational ideas.

1. Content Tone

Since it is a "local self-media", there is no doubt that its tone is naturally based on its local characteristics. Here, the author divides its output content into three categories: information, public services, and social media.

1.1 Information

The information output by local self-media can generally be divided into two categories: local entertainment and local news.

Local entertainment mainly includes local delicious food, fun places, unique shops, etc., basically the six major modules of "food, accommodation, travel, shopping and entertainment".

The target audience of this type of information is mainly young people who don’t know where to spend their free time, as well as foreign tourists who are interested in the local area and want to come and visit.

Local news refers to some hot news in the local area, and of course it can also involve hot topics in other places that have attracted national attention.

1.2 Public Services

This is a bit similar to the city services in WeChat wallet. It’s just that what is included in WeChat is the actual service, while self-media may focus more on policy adjustments and related information of such services.

Of course, if local self-media wants to focus on producing this type of content, it will definitely be difficult to do so. The main reason is that this type of service information is not very high-frequency, and the information itself is not very interesting, so it is difficult for self-media to generate high stickiness with users. Therefore, it is more appropriate to use it as one of the content modules of self-media operations.

“City Services” in WeChat Wallet

1.3 Social Media

The localized nature, people's natural sense of trust in people in the same circle, and the convenience of offline meetings together determine the unique means of promoting activation and attracting new customers of this "local self-media" - organizing offline dating activities. The marriage pressure of older youth, the social enthusiasm of activists, and the increasingly common situation where young people like those who move to Beijing and Shanghai have no relatives or friends in a foreign land and don't know how to spend their spare time, means that there will always be a market for such offline activities .

Compared with other self-media, the unique advantages of local self-media can be roughly summarized as follows:

• The target users are more precise - mainly local users;
• The content has a clearer tone—strong local attributes;
• The user portrait is clearer - offline activities are a powerful tool for screening users.

2. Operational ideas

In fact, for this kind of formulaic article, the author has to admit that all he can share with you are some universal theories. As for how to implement it, it still depends on everyone to make continuous adjustments in practice.

"Local self-media" is essentially self-media, so its operating ideas are not much different from conventional self-media operations. It is just that the local attributes make its operating methods slightly different.

2.1 Clear positioning

Finding the right direction is always the most important thing, whether it is event planning or self-media operation. After all, "goal orientation" is the most basic idea of ​​operation. I will not elaborate on this old-fashioned issue; you just need to think about two points clearly.

1. What are you good at?
2. Who are the target users?
3. What kind of content to output

There is no order of precedence among these three, and it does not mean that you should determine your target users based entirely on what you are good at. After all, if you are not good at anything, or you are not good at the direction of operations, do you give up? Of course not, it's just that we need to find a balance between these two issues.

Simply put: if you are targeting young users aged 18-25, and the content they are interested in happens to be what you are currently good at (this is the best), or what you can become good at through learning (which can be understood as you are very talented), then your positioning is reliable and worth trying.

Choosing what you are good at can make your journey less difficult. The right target users can give this "local self-media" enough room for imagination in its development. There are only two criteria for judging whether a person is suitable:

1. There is a high probability that your target users are interested in your content and have sufficient stickiness. This depends on whether your target users and the content you output are well matched (in addition to your early positioning, this also depends to a large extent on your choice of distribution channels in the later stage, which we will discuss below);
2. There is a large enough user group of this type where you are. You should know that user scale is always the pain point of operating to C products .

2.2 Content Planning

In the first step we have determined what kind of content we want to output. This step is to plan our content well and give it a preliminary structure. The reason why it is preliminary is that the only constant in the Internet is change. We do not rule out the possibility that the content direction may be adjusted due to misjudgment of market demand in the early stage.

However, in order to ensure that there is sufficient high-quality content output during the trial operation phase, it is necessary for us to plan the general content framework in advance, which will allow us to leave a deeper and more professional impression in the minds of users. For example, we may follow the hot topics today, write about special snacks tomorrow, and send out information about merchant coupons the day after tomorrow; or we may do a series of food recommendation columns in the early stage, and then do columns on streets and alleys with unique local characteristics, or we may regularly intersperse the two. Which one is more likely to leave a deep impression on users? Obviously the latter.

Therefore, structured content can help us establish a unique positioning in the minds of users in the early stages and facilitate word-of-mouth communication.

2.3 Content Distribution

"The purpose of content distribution is to reach our target users." Although there are many self-media channels with the function of content distribution, such as Toutiao, Yidian Zixun, and NetEase News, most self-media people are still accustomed to using WeChat public accounts as their main battlefield. However, this positioning does not affect our use of those distribution platforms as our traffic channels.

Unlike WeChat public accounts , you need to start from scratch step by step. Platforms like Toutiao have their own traffic , saving us the trouble of finding traffic for promotion ourselves. All we have to do is produce high-quality content and make good use of platform rules.

In this link, the core work of operators is distribution and traffic diversion.

Regarding distribution, please note:

1. Choose a platform with high user matching. A high user match means a higher conversion rate . If you are creating "fun" content, you might as well make good use of Zhihu's related question and answer module.
2. Choose to cooperate with leading platforms. As a local self-media, if the local area happens to have tourism features, then if you submit articles to major tourism accounts, as long as the content is high-quality enough, other public accounts will definitely ask to reprint them and help you promote them. The same principle applies to platform cooperation.
3. It goes without saying that you should carefully study the characteristics of the distribution platform . Since you want to make a living in someone else's territory, it is inevitable to follow the rules. Users of each platform have their own characteristics. The content they are interested in, their browsing habits, and their preferred styles will be different. It is necessary for us to adjust the style of articles for different platforms. For example, there are the clickbait titles on Toutiao and UC. However, from the perspective of brand building, the author does not recommend clickbait titles . If you choose a title that has nothing to do with the content of the article just to get a few clicks , it will easily cause users to be disgusted.

In addition to this online distribution, I think the organization of offline activities is also a special way of content distribution. Operators of local self-media must make good use of this advantage.

Regarding traffic diversion, it refers to how those self-media people who use public accounts as their main battlefield can divert readers from other platforms to their public accounts.

This is just an example for your reference. As a platform for outputting local relevant information, when it comes to entertainment, local self-media will inevitably attract some local businesses to seek cooperation. Users will naturally benefit from it. This eliminates the need to set up similar words on other platforms such as "Reply [××] to the official account to get a coupon". This can not only help attract traffic, but also help monitor channel conversion rates (setting different reply commands based on different distribution platforms).

2.4 Continuously output high-quality content

This is actually the basic skill for any content creator. Only by continuously outputting content that users are interested in can we reduce user churn and increase user stickiness.

From my own experience in writing these days, I think the most difficult part of continuous output is not writing, but what to write. Inspiration is always the biggest headache for creators. The method of obtaining inspiration is actually very stupid but very effective. It's nothing more than reading and accumulating materials from daily life.

As an operator of a local self-media, it’s not excessive to understand the local customs, culture and history, right? And basically all of these can be learned by wandering around, listening to local gossips and reading local chronicles. So does this mean that otakus and housegirls are not suitable for this kind of operation? I can’t really say for sure, but having strong social attributes might be more advantageous.

Routines are ultimately just talk, especially for "local self-media" with strong personalities. What determines its ultimate success or failure is the three words "locality", which is difficult to explain clearly through this kind of universal article. The purpose of this article is to provide you with a general idea.

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