Read UGC in one article: Ecological secrets on the Internet

Reproduced from near:

UGC (user-generated content) is a source of content that is specific to the production of PGC (professionally-produced content), in a simple way, by professional individuals, The more authoritative content of the targeted output of the team belongs to the PGC, such as TV shows, newspaper publications, media information, and so on, and your friend circle of pictures and texts, micro-bo, the article of knowledge, singing music, the second shot of each *, mostly belong to UGC.

The UGC product (platform) is the Internet business form which is based on the spontaneous production content of the ordinary user, and the connection of people and value content , the relationship between people and people, and the relationship between human and business, and ultimately the commercial value of the UGC supplier.

Content as the main body of media communication, whether it is the traditional paper media era, PC Internet, mobile Internet, or later the IoT, VR, it still has a strong vitality, the content of the king is never outdated.

At present, Internet network products are seldom have the UGC attribute at all. So-called, there is a place where there is a river, there is the content of social places.

UGC products appear to be common, but involving multiple interests, to operate a good need for deep skills, the difficulty is far from the new media operations. Many friends often run into the following puzzles when working with UGC-like products:

• Why did the user come and go?

• Why users are reluctant to contribute content?

• Why is most content trivial?

• Why does user growth continue to decline?

......

The author of the UGC products to the core of the analysis, so that you do not be the appearance of UGC confused the direction, read the nature of UGC, less detours, more determined to operate .

First, what is the UGC platform?

If the UGC platform is to be an analogy, Li Shaoga children's shoes are so, the UGC platform is like an ecosystem, the connotation of a healthy UGC is a healthy and diversified ecosystem:

In this ecosystem, there are flowers, trees, fish and animals (content), to ensure that these lives can not be separated from the air, sunshine, rain, soil moisture (users), the various species will be both competitive (user attention), but also mutually beneficial symbiosis (content flow) , the change of topography determines the characteristics of these species (product/operational planning and Intervention), all species, resources are in accordance with the natural law (content and user life cycle); the demise of old life will produce new life (self-adaptive evolution of UGC products), cyclical and constantly changing.

Therefore, it is believed that a healthy UGC ecosystem must balance the following benefits:

• Users (consumers) are able to get the quality content they need (to solve hunger) in the first time

• Content providers (producers) can receive incentives (feeds) in a timely manner to provide quality content

• High-quality content can flow and attract more content consumers, more attention

• The core of operations and product interventions is to ensure that content is highly matched to users, picking

, the above mentioned is the core factor to ensure the balanced health of the UGC ecosystem, or it is a continuous (being) state of healthy order.

But in the process of building a UGC-based platform from scratch, it is particularly important for step by step to lay a solid foundation.

The following steps are about the core elements of the life and death of UGC-related products:

Product germination period, how to attract users?

Keyword Previews: Community tuning, home guidance, open or closed

How do content producers motivate and what do they really care?

Keyword NOTICE: The nature of recognition, vague praise, platform-side privileges

Why did the content consumer quietly leave?

Keyword preview: Information noise, content hydration, there is no return

Most people neglect the value of high-quality content flow

Key words: Traffic center, go to the center, go to Matthew Effect

How life cycle impacts policies

Keyword Previews: content lifecycle, user lifecycle

Second, the product germination period, how to attract users?

In the course of growth, the UGC-based platform will face three life-and-death barriers: Germination period, hydration (runaway) period and transition period.

The beginning of the platform, how to attract users to stay in the community, to motivate their production content is often a headache thing.

We look at it from the user's point of view: when he was vaguely aware of your new UGC platform, in his first use, his heart was a three-point, three-point, three-point question, leaving a minute to "Judge" your platform.

Imagine: When we first use Weibo, login home page, full screen is not related to the people send irrelevant text: "Today eat is green vegetables stew mushroom", brush on a few screens are a Zhang people in the instant submerged face ... And so on, is he still in the mood to continue experiencing your product?

Another situation, we first login to Weibo, Yo! angelababy! Her private life! Oh! A few days ago, I was filming near my house! *@[email protected]*

New Fan get ...

This is the reality. Therefore,UGC at the beginning of the germination, it is important to focus on the operation of the community in the adjustment of the construction, the adjustment should precede the product selling point . Do not be eager to promote the selling point of the product when the user has not yet recognized your subject content, the most popular people are to let others slowly explore.

After the direction is set, it may be helpful to mobilize the company's internal and external forces to devote themselves to content construction. The invited professionals pay the price also need to invite, in the early days must pay attention to the value of products: small and beautiful-not only can let a person understand the main content of the product, but also to impress the user with high quality .

Of course, only by the beauty of the value is insufficient, like we find the object, can not just see the eye to marry her home. Let the user feel in the shortest time: Well, you are the person I want, but also need the content and the height of matching. This is best demonstrated when the user first uses the product guidelines and the processing of the content brush selection .

For example, when you first sign in to the home page, you can prompt users to tick their area of interest, focus on the field of people, tightly around the user's identity tag (hobbies, habits, occupation, place of life, gender age, etc.) to try to let users interested in the elements forward, Through similar means to continuously improve the home page and the user's personalized needs to match the degree.

If you think that the community's tone is only to attract content consumers, then it is too underestimated its value.

In fact, for potential content producer users, the content of community tuning is a living scenario demo and Vision : see those elegant photo video show, that countless praise ... Well, I can produce these things, fans, and so on.

It is worth mentioning that, in addition to content as a link (video sharing, photo sharing, knowledge sharing, music sharing) of the open UGC platform, but also part of the tool or relationship as a cut-in, the subsequent conversion to UGC semi-closed platform.

The latter such as a variety of vertical professional (games, medical, sports, legal) community, e-commerce Shopping guide, the circle of friends, such as the public, for such products, the initial stage of the UGC's ideas and the above is common .

The early adjustment of the construction is very good: many common problems in the Internet circle, the professional answer of celebrities in the circle, immediately attracted the attention of a large number of users, the early invitation registration system to further ensure the accuracy and purity of the community problem, in addition to more or less has produced a certain degree of hunger marketing effect . You must know that.

Third, the core elements of stimulating content producers

According to rough statistics, most of the UGC products (platforms), content producers and consumers ratio of about 1:100, the real situation I think will be lower.

According to the author observes, in the high quality content level, the producer and the consumer's ratio estimate is below 1:1000, the visible content producer to the platform influence big, many UGC platforms at the expense of the money to support the high quality content also in the cleanup.

So how exactly is the right incentive for content producers? (Note: This article refers to quality content producers)

Let's start with an example, and we'll assume that there are two beauty apps:

The first filter function is very beautiful, the product interface and hair graph experience are very fast app, but no praise and comment function, sent out on the hair, in addition to see the volume of nothing;

The second kind of experience is poor, the interface is poor, but a plot, basically can see some people's praise and comments.

Which app are you saying is more popular? The answer is clearly the latter.

For content producers, we are so hard to consume their precious time on your platform is also the dance of the text, but also the publicity to sell the United States singing, figure is what? Not just a crowd, for Bo audience a "smile".

This smile, full of recognition and appreciation of your ability, deeply fills your desire for social needs, attribution, self-fulfillment needs , please allow me to use the word hunger to express the strong demand.

Therefore, the way of encouragement (spiritual or material) is not the most important. The concrete realization form, "rewards" or "likes", "Praise", "gift" are OK. (Well, no, as a content producer, we must speak for the broad masses of colleagues: material incentive is very important, can be rewarded I try not to just praise ($ _ $)

At present, the industry in order to "praise" is also a brain-racking, such as the same picture, video support repeated praise, even burning money to inspire praise ... To tell you the truth, these fancy things are just gadgets, and you can understand the essence of the following incentives , completely ignoring the form:

Instant feedback of "likes"

Once content is finished, it should be delivered to users who need it or who likes it (for example, knowing that Weibo is achieved by focusing on someone, or a problem), maximizing the content to reach the audience's recognized feedback rate and expand coverage. After the audience likes can be the first time explicit reminder (everyone loves the digital small red circle).

The weight of "like"

I believe that the same content, you in the circle of friends, on Weibo, in the knowledge of the praise, your degree of joy is certainly different .

Circle of friends, we all know that there is a word called "praise", Weibo, after all, strangers more, by the recognition of strangers is naturally more weight, and know, go further, get praise, not only means highly recognized, but also improve your order in all the answers (meet the comparison Heart), And the flow of content has spread a layer (substantial benefit) ...

Therefore, in the UGC platform design, it is important to pay attention to the "likes" of the weight. As mentioned earlier, accidentally point to the screen can trigger the likes ... After the excitement, numb before, long but a day ~ ~ Let human favor.

The implicit "likes" of dominance

In planning a UGC product, I have been thinking, since "like" (audience recognition) so important, how should we maximize the recognition of the audience?

Li Shaoga one day when chewing an apple suddenly an epiphany: in some way, the reader's vague praise to show out ! As far as the current situation is concerned, the industry has a rare view.

A lot of people in the crowd have a habit, the heart is actually very appreciative of something, but do not express , as if there is a word called "stuffy sao" ... So what we're going to do is to make this kind of cryptic praise explicit through a variety of available parameters.

Which product can be very good to dig out this 50[[[%]] "vague praise, I believe this product is half the success."

These are incentives for producers from the perspective of content consumers.

Also,what incentives does the UGC platform have to further stimulate the content producers ' Hi-point?

The following measures are also very effective for a certain period of time:

Threshold authentication, plus v privileges, contract author, etc...

For example, the original certification of the public, the Orange V of Weibo, the column of the Pinterest, the author of the contract and so on. The purpose of the privilege is to let the other person perceive that he is different. Then, there is a natural problem with setting the privilege below: How do I set the threshold condition ?

Registration time, number of fans, output content, frequency?

I think that these can be used as one of the parameters, but not the most important.

The most important thing is: the quality of content, quality, quality , important things to say three times. The quality of content after the measurement of the indicator is the core! A man dies as a confidant.

What are the metrics that reflect the quality of the content? The ratio of reading to the number of likes (not the number of readings), the amount of collection, the amount of forwarded shares, the number of prizes, and so on.

Iv. the core elements of stimulating content consumers

For content consumers, since he is willing to come to your platform, stating that some of the above value content is what he needs, whether it is knowledge, nearby people, beautiful video or music radio ... The content of the platform itself is already their requirement.

So, for the design and operational considerations of content consumers, I think reverse thinking is more effective:

How do you not let content consumers dislike your platform?

There are three factors that content consumers dislike:

Information noise

In a word, don't let me see what I don't want to see, let me get what I want to see as efficiently as possible.

For example, I am a male dick on the Mo Mo came to about Pao, the result of the people around the show is a bunch of pull the foot of the big man what does it mean? By deleting......

Quality hydration

Content quality of hydration is a lot of UGC platform after the comprehensive promotion will appear, due to the early link chain (user and user, the user and the content of the association) did not control, resulting in bad currency expulsion of good currency, or high-quality content diluted.

For example, the micro-bo, the satin, so that the serious acquisition of learning children's shoes broken heart. By deleting......

There is no return

This is a situation in the "non-equal relationship" on the open UGC platform is already the same, but the degree of severity is different.

For example:

• A question was raised seriously, and no one answered (many answer the question by the number of followers);

• Micro-Blog Private messages Some people, did not respond (the other side may be Big V);

• or in the Mo Mo, with more than 10 beautiful women to talk, no one response is normal thing (said a beautiful woman on average hundreds of people accosted);

...... These conditions for the vast number of users is also a degree of harm.

The above three issues can be remedied through some operational strategies:

Hydration for content:

• Common strategies are threshold limits, and early forums often use similar strategies, such as user registration time, active time, and content length to reach certain conditions to post

• In addition to the user base of a large platform can consider content isolation, you like two times, I love small fresh, you pay attention to my I squarely

• The re-operation strategy can also employ a machine-to-human audit of published patterns

For there is no return:

Li Shaoga gives an inspiring idea: the use of flexible feedback .

What is flexible feedback? For example, for a user who has a low response rate, the response rate may be lower, while the user's expectations will be lowered, and other users with higher response rates may be considered for selection.

It is a very practical idea to make the interests of both sides of the supply and demand be satisfied.

For information noise ... This issue will be described in detail in the "flow of quality content" below.

It must be explained that the drug is three, any resolution strategy will have a corresponding negative impact , the actual product operation design, must be combined with the characteristics of their own platform for A/B testing, the preferred to take it .

As for other activities such as incentives, points, etc., the use of good is icing on the cake, the use of improper there is the suspicion of the superfluous, the current effect has been reduced.

V. Why the need for high-quality content to flow up

High-quality content just as living water, a healthy ecology must everywhere living water, everywhere:

• The flow of high-quality content can maximize the time efficiency of content consumers;

• The probability of the incentive feedback obtained by the content producer is maximized, and the content of higher quality is stimulated;

• The UGC platform is more viscous, so it forms a virtuous circle

UGC platform users reach a certain level, with the breadth of content, the depth of the rapid expansion of the corresponding side effects: information noise, will inevitably arise.

This situation is often interpreted by many users as the "hydration" of the content. In fact, hydration is just an appearance, the essence is you want to see the content is diluted, difficult to enter your vision, so you will feel the feeling of water .

This contradiction is particularly prominent in mobile phones. Mobile phone screen small, plus other Big Mac app for many years to the user brush waterfall flow habits of cultivation , most of the UGC product app in addition to the content of the home page, the content of the other menu level is very low CTR, the menu every deep layer, the number of users entering the level is reduced exponentially . (* through top-down structured Hierarchy menu, topic, etc. is also a way to make content more exposed, but in the era of mobile Internet, its effect has been greatly discounted, so this article does not further explore.) ）

As an example of the author's article in Jane's book, I was recommended that the first page of the article and the number of articles not recommended reading is generally 300:1. Know that there are similar situations, the first page of the problem will almost become a hot issue, and the rest of the 99.9[[[%]] "problems are perennial limbo difficult to see the light of the daylight.

"Home" dominates the flow and the user's attention to the power of life and death . Obviously, the contradiction between the scarcity of the homepage resource and the content producer's mass content is very prominent, how to solve it?

The answer is: let "my home" more understand me, reduce the "centrality" of the weight, remove Matthew effect .

Any UGC platform, whether intentional or unintentional, how many users and content will have a certain degree of control, or the home page by the Big V control, whether it is operating strong intervention or "Big V brush Screen", the final result will make UGC more like a PGC (professionally-produced Content), become a minority of the broadcaster.

As to whether the content is really higher quality ... Hardly.

Everyone's appetite is different, the user does not utter a silent, he directly foot vote. Weibo is an example of a gossip.

Of course, I can see that the micro-blog has greatly reduced the impact of the Big V on the homepage of the weight.

Big V's Matthew effect does not eliminate, will greatly bruise the high quality content producer Rookie's enthusiasm , I want to black again the microblog ...

Greater damage may be "public choice" or "operational intervention" than the big V intervention.

For example, full screen is the most popular choice of popular content, or edit according to the company's operational needs recommended content, but I believe that there is still a suspicion of rape users taste, many years ago, "dynamic zone" is not all said: My site to listen to me.

So unless you're a PGC, you can do it like logic. Otherwise, please at least reduce the "centrality" impact of the weight to 50[[[%]]] [below, the other 50[[[%]]], according to the user's portrait, content tags, browse points like records, browse time, including the user's own focus on the object to achieve the content of filtering and selection purposes .

In addition, making the user "dislike" is an efficient way to identify the user's tastes .

Earlier, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there are similar features in today's headlines. However, I have experienced several discoveries, no matter how many times I "dislike", similar content is repeated. Is this function just to filter the quality of content for the product side, but completely not for the user to consider a little farther?

Weak weak say, today's headlines so no longer appear on my phone, my feelings may be biased, I think it is a gossip joke information aggregation platform, this can not blame users it ...

Vi. life cycle

I have always believed that if you can put forward a deep good question, then your question has already answered the more than half .

Sadly, the life cycle is a very important and easily overlooked issue for the platform.

The life cycle of the content

No matter how good the content, all have its timeliness, epidemic, after sinking, there is no value?

No, the operator of the UGC platform is obliged to maximize the value of the content :

On the one hand, we can consider the design of the "theme" in the UGC platform, re-editing some of the past high-quality content processing, so that the platform is interested but miss the content of users can easily see;

On the other hand, some of the essence can be packaged into e-book or other content platform to provide material, so that content creators to gain greater incentives at the same time, but also to attract more new users to their own platform, a multi-win strategy .

The user life cycle of UGC itself

Any UGC platform because of its special location, generally can not expect to accompany the user for a lifetime.

In particular, vertical classes, communities that serve specific groups, tend to have shorter life cycles. For example, dating friends, wedding photography, mother and baby, fresh students job search category. Of course, other games and entertainment communities are not spared, two of the children's paper will not be two times a lifetime ... He may be three times in the future, four yuan (. Q. )

Emphasizing the benefits of user life cycle is: pay attention to the continuous cultivation of new users, for the platform to send fresh blood. The awareness of communication operators and bank credit cards is particularly strong.

On the other hand, can we do something about the veterans who are leaving the platform?

Seal a list of gods, silently commemorate, then say goodbye, or ...?

We know that the way in which the real world is handled is "inherited" by people, so, can inheriting this thinking be used for reference in product operations ? Well, this is the last open question left by the author of this article, leaving the vast imagination space to be carried forward by our smart readers.

The healthy growth of a UGC-based platform requires a lot of things to do: User perception, drainage, La Nieu, motivation, activity, retention ... Each of these key links is interlocking and requires continuous optimization.

Read UGC in one article: Ecological secrets on the Internet