WeChat Product Manager: Spring Festival Gala Shake Project Experience Summary (Product Edition)

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I was fortunate to participate in the Spring Festival Gala Shake Project and recorded some interesting stories and useful experiences. I summarized a few key words for easy memorization.

[Keyword 1: Let the product speak for itself]

Although the ratings of the Spring Festival Gala have been declining every year, its 30% ratings are still the dominant one in the TV industry compared to the 1-2% ratings of other evening parties or TV dramas. What does WeChat want to do with this media? Hard advertising? Implant soft advertising? None of them. In the words of the TV industry, it is a second-screen interaction of deep cooperation; in the words of the Internet, it is a preliminary attempt of WeChat to connect with TV in t2o; in the words of WeChat, it is shaking the TV to interact; in the words of public opinion, it is grabbing red envelopes during the Spring Festival Gala. Judging from these jargons, WeChat has won not only the brand through this cooperation, but also the WeChat product. WeChat itself also looks at this cooperation from the perspective of products, connecting the TV industry and fulfilling WeChat's product positioning of connecting everything. WeChat does things very purely, and everything starts from the product. Just like a colleague accidentally mentioned a sentence "WeChat does not have an advertising department" (because the advertising department is often mentioned during the cooperation process, referring to CCTV's advertising department), WeChat speaks with products.

[Keyword 2: Cooperation without losing one's own product style]

In the cooperation with the Spring Festival Gala, the product plan was first proposed by WeChat, and then selected after CCTV participated in the discussion. WeChat retains a great deal of autonomy, because it is WeChat itself that proposes the plan. Even if the plan is rejected by CCTV for some reason, WeChat will re-propose it. CCTV will also put forward its own opinions, but WeChat will guide and persuade CCTV based on its judgment of the product. Throughout the cooperation process, CCTV still maintains a relatively high degree of trust in WeChat, because WeChat thinks very carefully before making a proposal on the product plan, and fully considers the needs of TV viewers when proposing. For example, the star's New Year's greeting is a product plan that is completely synchronized with TV in real time. The combination of TV and mobile phones is very close, and the interests of CCTV and WeChat can be taken into account. CCTV is mainly concerned about the interactive methods that are most closely related to the Spring Festival Gala, such as sending red envelopes, family portraits, unforgettable tonight, and star New Year's greetings. WeChat will also put forward some fun requirements based on its own characteristics, such as friends' greeting cards, close friends' red envelope New Year's greetings, short videos, etc. As long as these plans meet user needs, CCTV also appreciates them very much. For example, the short video session after the Spring Festival Gala was very popular with CCTV people, "It's like watching the year of the people on their mobile phones, just like their own Spring Festival Gala." During the whole collision process, CCTV also put forward some good product insights and suggestions, which some WeChat friends thought were great and incorporated into the product. For example, a user may shake to the page of "Take a break, hug for love", the source of which is that the director of CCTV suggested "If the audience shakes too many times, remind the audience to take a break and chat with their family". WeChat cooperated and executed well with the emotional product sense shown by the CCTV director.

[Keyword three: rigid demand, fun, sentiment]

In addition to the popular “grab red envelopes” feature, WeChat’s Spring Festival Gala Shake function actually includes eight other interactive methods: celebrity New Year greetings, uploading family photos, friends’ red envelopes, friends’ greeting cards, short videos, Easter egg red envelopes, Easter egg pages, and real-time program list. These nine interactive methods constitute WeChat’s “Spring Festival Gala”.

"Grab the red envelope" is the most popular one, because everyone wants a free lunch, and this is the biggest rigid demand. Facts have proved that during the period of grabbing red envelopes, the user activity is also the highest. This is also the experience accumulated in the early stage of shaking TV. As long as the TV station's interaction has a lottery or red envelopes, the interaction will be better. There is a detailed experience for grabbing red envelopes. Users who can't grab red envelopes can see how many red envelopes are left to grab. This detailed experience was later praised by many people because it just answered the doubts of those who can't grab red envelopes who are anxious to shake but don't know if they can still shake. I like the friend who first proposed this experience.

It is important to close the product path loop.

However, if the Spring Festival Gala Shake function only stops at "grabbing red envelopes", then this "Spring Festival Gala" on WeChat will be like a skit with only a certain performance but no other singing and dancing programs. The reason why the Spring Festival Gala is called the Spring Festival Gala is that it is a New Year's Eve dinner, not a fast food meal. It lasts for a long time, many people enjoy it, and the ingredients must be diversified. Therefore, the same is true for WeChat's Shake product. If there is only one interactive method for an interactive program that spans nearly 5 hours, it will lack expectations and fun; on the contrary, more interactive methods are needed to participate, and the interactive methods cannot be consistent all the time, because users will not keep shaking to watch the same page. Therefore, the star's New Year's greetings play a very key role in the entire interaction. Users can shake out the star corresponding to the program they watch. In this way, users are constantly surprised throughout the process. The star's New Year's greetings are the program list that connects the WeChat "Spring Festival Gala".

When making Internet products, what matters is immediacy and freshness, and information must be fresh at all times.

CCTV is optimistic about the interactive method of uploading family photos, because it can mobilize user participation, truly reflect the interaction between mobile phones and TVs, and allow content on mobile phones to be broadcast on TV, making users feel that they are part of this big movement. Facts have proved that the participation rate of uploading family photos is very high, and nearly 40 million family photos were uploaded in 40 minutes. A month before the Spring Festival Gala, an activity was held to collect family photos in advance, but the effect was average. The main reason was the timing of taking family photos. During the Chinese New Year, everyone takes family photos, so the threshold for uploading is much lower.

When making products, especially products with a certain threshold, timing is important.

Greeting friends with red envelopes and greeting cards means shaking out a friend and sending him a greeting card or red envelope. The starting point of this function is fun, changing the way of greeting the New Year, and greeting in the form of red envelopes and electronic greeting cards. But because the threshold is relatively high, the effect is not satisfactory. But it is worth noting that the friends shaken out are intelligently recommended (friends who have been in frequent contact recently, etc.). This not only lowers the threshold for selecting friends, but also lowers the psychological threshold for sending. It should be pointed out here that the amount of the red envelope for New Year greetings is given by the system, not by the user, which once again lowers the threshold for users. Moreover, the amounts given are small and fun numbers, coupled with fun blessings, which increases the user's desire to send.

When making a product, every detail of each step should bring the product one step closer to the users.

Easter egg red envelopes and Easter egg pages, have you ever seen these two kinds of Easter eggs? Easter egg red envelopes refer to the red envelopes that lucky people will shake out during the non-centralized red envelope grabbing stage. Easter egg pages refer to the funny pages with comics that occasionally appear. You may not understand them and think they are bugs, haha. The first Easter egg is a surprise for users. Only with surprises can the entire product come alive. The second Easter egg is the feelings given to users. With feelings, this living person will be warm, even if sometimes you don’t understand this funny person.

Another feature that better reflects feelings is the short video. When the Spring Festival Gala comes to an end, some users can start to shake out the short video, and after the Spring Festival Gala is over, users will definitely shake out the short video. The short video will gather together the short videos that you and your friends have posted in the past year, and play them back in reverse chronological order. The background music is Xu Wei's "We". After the Spring Festival Gala, after the hustle and bustle, Xu Wei's music sounded, and the past year was played back scene by scene. At this time, no matter how noisy the outside world is, no matter how noisy the outside world is, the heart only feels the exciting sound caused by these short videos, which may be heavy, may be in tears, may be laughing, or may be lonely. The past is over, make a New Year's wish, and lie down. The more noisy, the more lonely, the more lonely, the deeper, the deeper, the more emotional.

With so many users on such a big WeChat Spring Festival Gala, what should we do if something goes wrong? Display a 404 page. How can a 404 page be displayed without being abrupt? There are some rules to this. Some people may see a page with a computer host hanging under a string of firecrackers. The meaning is: there are too many people during the Chinese New Year, and the server is down, just like too many firecrackers blew up the server. Zhang Xiaolong said, do you understand this kind of programmer humor? There are two other 404 pages, one is a family watching TV, and the other is a couple watching TV, with the title "Take a break and embrace for love." It's amazing that a 404 page can be made like this.

What is sentiment? Using unique ideas to carefully carve out ordinary things is sentiment.

[Keyword 4: grasp the timing]

Shake now has two functions: shake people and shake songs. In the past, the shake TV borrowed the entrance of shaking songs, but because of the special national event of the Spring Festival Gala, the shaking people and shaking songs were cancelled, and the only entrance became shaking the Spring Festival Gala. The only entrance simplifies many steps and is suitable for a wider range of users, because the users covered by the Spring Festival Gala include second-, third-, and fourth-tier cities, and older users who don’t usually use WeChat. Turning the shake entrance into the only entrance is thinking about the problem from the product strategy level. Many grassroots product managers will guard their own small piece of land and not let go. But in fact, any grassroots product manager should have a bigger strategic vision and use all resources for their own use.

WeChat has never had the habit of promoting red dots, but this time it promoted red dots for the Spring Festival Gala, and it was very restrained, with a time limit of a few minutes. If the user does not click on the red dot within these few minutes, the red dot will automatically disappear. The effect of the red dot is not as great as imagined. After promoting the red dot, the amount of shaking increased, but not very much. However, as soon as the red envelopes were issued, the amount increased. Therefore, the product is still greater than the operation. The operation plays a notification function, and the product is what really makes users play.

In addition to the red dot, there is also a red envelope countdown bar. This bar appears on all pages that are shaken out within a certain period of time, building momentum for grabbing red envelopes. This is also a good function in the product to grasp the timing and build expectations. Its effect is no worse than the red dot. The red dot only allows people to come in, but people will always go out again. The countdown bar tells users when to come back after they go out.

[Keyword 5: target]

Many people think that the Spring Festival Gala shake function is a red envelope war between WeChat and Alipay, and WeChat won. But WeChat's goal is not only to win the red envelope war, but to connect. Connect the TV industry, connect more users who have not used WeChat before, and connect user payment scenarios. Red envelopes are just a fuse full of gunpowder, allowing users to bind their wallets and connect users' payment first step. But red envelopes are just a way of interaction in the TV scene. WeChat uses the Spring Festival Gala shake function to let users know that TV can also be played in this way, and there will be new things to watch TV later. The Spring Festival Gala is also a very good stage to connect second, third, and fourth-tier cities. Through the Spring Festival Gala shake function, uncles and aunts learned to shake and bind bank cards overnight. After the Spring Festival Gala, this trend will allow those who play to bring their relatives and friends, bringing about a wider connection.

Different goals determine different product forms and different choices of partners. Some people say "Only WeChat can do this." In addition to product and technical capabilities, the goal of connection determines that they will attach great importance to the Spring Festival Gala and will play along even if it is difficult.

What I learned about product lines through this project can be summed up in one sentence: Standing on the top of the earth, everything is at my disposal and transformed into the shape in my mind. This is a good product.