How does Toutiao build the user life cycle?

I have met some friends who can talk eloquently about the "user life cycle", but when asked how to use the user life cycle to improve the value of each user, they are completely confused. Some said that the user life cycle has not been specifically defined, while others said that it is impossible to implement the improvement of the value of a single user. In these two situations, the final result is that either the theory cannot be put into practice, or there are many loopholes in practice, and it is impossible to use this model to guide one's practical work well.

Why build a user lifecycle

Any product that wants to use the user life cycle model to guide its practical work to enhance the value of individual users. Then you must use data and labels to define the user life cycle of the product, that is, build the user life cycle.

I believe that those who have read my previous article ("Why don't traffic pioneers care about user retention?") already have a preliminary understanding of the user life cycle, but what is the value of a single user? Let me explain briefly here.

We can look at this through a formula: Product value = User unit value * User scale. From this we can see that to increase the value of the product is to increase the value of the average single user. So how do we increase it?

There are two methods:

Method 1: Allow users in low-value areas (introduction period, decline period, and churn period) to return to high-value areas (growth period and maturity period).

Method 2: Try to extend the user's stay time in high-value areas.

However, no matter which method is used to increase the average value of a single user, it is necessary to first clearly construct the user's life cycle before the average value of a single user can be increased.

How to build a user life cycle

So, how do we use data and labels to build definitions of the various stages of the user life cycle?

Let’s take Toutiao as an example to build a user life cycle.

1. Sort out the business logic of the product

Let's first sort out the business logic diagram of Toutiao, as follows:

2. Summarize product paths through business logic

Core Path

Content producers: publish articles, videos, and withdraw cash

Content consumers: browsing articles, videos

Non-core path

Content Producers: Reply to Comments

Content consumers: like, follow, comment

Extend Path

Content producers: invitation, complete personal information

Content consumers: invitation, complete personal data

3. Identify key user behaviors

Key behavior items of the core path

Content producers: complete article and video publishing, apply for cash withdrawal

Content consumers: complete article browsing and video watching behaviors

Key behaviors of the core path

Content Producer: Complete Reply

Content consumers: Complete likes, following and comments

Key Behaviors for Extending Paths

Content Producer: Complete the invitation

Content Consumer: Complete the Invitation

4. Confirm the frequency of product use

4.1 Qualitative analysis

According to external research data, the average user usage frequency of information products is N times per week. Therefore, it can be inferred that the usage frequency of Toutiao's products is likely to fluctuate around this value.

4.2 Quantitative analysis

Assume that by collecting usage frequency data from most active old users of the product, we can determine that the usage frequency of most users is N times/week. On this basis, we can roughly confirm that the ideal frequency of the product is N+1 times/week (the ideal frequency should be slightly higher than the actual usage frequency of most people).

(PS: The two methods for confirming the frequency of product use are only for the purpose of thinking path deduction. The specific numbers are fictitious. Please do not use them rigidly .)

5. Define the stages of the user life cycle

At this point, we can build the user life cycle of the product. The data is hypothetical, so do not nest it rigidly . As shown below:

6. Formulate operational strategies and guide practice

Then we provide guidance based on the expected value and expected growth path of each stage.

6.1. How to guide to achieve the expected value

For example, one definition for content consumer users in the introduction period is "daily online time less than 30 minutes". For users who have not yet reached this standard, we will try our best to guide them to reach "daily online time greater than or equal to 30 minutes".

6.2 How to guide the expected growth path

For example, content consumers in the introduction stage “have not read the article after registration”, and the sign of entering the growth stage is “have completed reading the article”. So if we want users in the introduction stage to enter the growth stage, we should guide them to read the article.

At this point, we have sorted out the complete operational path for building the user life cycle. On this basis, we can start to improve the average value of a single user.

Author: Qingfeng

Source: Qingfeng