The problem with apps: It's easy to get your business into the mire

I found an interesting phenomenon after the venture, see I am operating micro-signal, in the large Internet company to serve friends often ask, "You now to do pure content ah?" "There is also a former acquaintance (my target audience), will also ask," You this a micro-signal? "The implication is that you say entrepreneurship, the whole length of a micro-signal, some do not see."

Another group of people I contacted had the opposite view. They are individual investors and entrepreneurs. Investors and I talk, invariably asked, "How many fans of your micro-signal?" "When I quote the number of fans, I'm speechless," You have too few fans to find a way. After that, I often throw in a successful micro-letter large let me see.

Many grassroots entrepreneurs also attach great importance to micro-letter, said Earnest: "must pay attention to micro-signal operations," "app is a pit, or first to do micro-mail it."

The problem with apps: It's easy to get your business into the mire

From my actual project experience, doing the app is definitely a very troublesome thing. When we design a product, we position it as the core of the mobile end, so the Web site is very simple, mainly to provide background and interface. The development of the web was done early, and the result was a few months before the client could be linked.

How did client development get bogged down? Because I am in the "big Company" (relatively large) experience inertia to plan, but the resource investment is not keep up.

We look for a part-time, time is not enough to ensure that the client developers all seem to be in a moment of iterative products, overtime. Plus the trivia of app software development: a pixel-by-pixel style, compatible, and even more troublesome with server-side, web-interactive, and sync information.

Wait until the resolution of the time, but also to prepare for the promotion after the launch. According to the Friends of the app Channel, now a popular app user gets the cost, the line is almost 2 yuan, the cost is usually more than one time on the line. Such users, which also tend to have moisture, if the product itself is not a great attraction, the future of retention is also a problem.

Product on-line promotion, in order to improve retention, we must constantly improve the product, iterative, which also requires a lot of input.

Although I and the team are gradually overcoming the above problems, I am cautious if I am asked whether I should do the app question now. So don't do the app, just do the micro-signal line?

Four questions on the micro-letter: Risk in the deep

In my Project app development encountered the difficulties mentioned earlier, I feel that I can not wait, so this period of increased efforts to invest in micro-letter operations.

On the one hand, some micro-letter high water level to bring the user dividend, lamented their micro-letter to do too late, on the other hand, also felt the micro-letter surging in the sea of the deep deep-can achieve you, but also may drown you, lost you.

As for the former, I will not say much about the great power of micro-trust. On the one hand, the risk of the problem, I will focus on the following point to say (a glimpse of the see, but also please more correct).

Risk 1: The extinction of accounts and the pain of prison

To do the micro-credit public number, you must first have a clear understanding: This is not your full control of the territory, you have only the right to use. Your account may be temporarily or permanently banned as a result of being reported, or being deemed to be a violation by a micro-credit official.

Not long ago, a friend of mine met the problem of the account being blocked. The friend saw some account to do the new Year signing activity is very hot, so he also planned a similar activity, is lets the user reply the number to draw lots, obtains the content. He prepared for one months, as a result, soon after the launch, his account was blocked.

The first reason is that the content of pornography, obscenity and other illegal information, is permanently banned. This friend is anxious, he has been responsible for many years of content audit work in the website before, how can have pornographic or illegal information. Later after his efforts, the appeal, the reason for the change to the inducement to share, banned one months. The friend said that perhaps the first reason to write wrong, I really want to thank do not kill the grace, because the operation of the micro-signal for several months if the permanent ban, the previous efforts are all in vain.

In fact, even if sealed for one months, there is no small loss. Remember some big ones like the Elephant Guild and Titanium media have also been sealed, an article describes the Elephant Guild was sealed after the founder of Huang Zhangjin's bad mood: wandering, online look at things, stay. Titanium Media at its annual meeting in 2014 also awarded a prize-the most destructive award of the year-to the authors of their seal, an article in which the authors made the titanium media "dead" for one months.

My friend was thinking about it afterwards, looking for someone else to talk to, or not understanding the exact definition of inductive sharing, and some of the big ones that do similar activities before and after him are fine. He said that before doing the activities, he has read the "Micro-trust Platform service agreement", "micro-credit public platform operating standards", as well as the historical announcements issued. But the power of judgment is in the official Tencent, there is great uncertainty.

Risk 2: The fate of your product is tied to the platform

A few days ago, another entrepreneur friend told me that his current goal was to do the micro-mail as quickly as possible--he was based on Weibo and had tens of millions of fans. He thought it was a little late, and now it's hard. I mean, you don't have a lot of fans on Twitter? He said, the fans will be old. This sentence let me aftertaste for a long time.

If you put the treasure on a platform, the Platform Steam day, you can share the benefits of platform growth, but if the platform is not?

Many people see this sentence, certainly do not think that the micro-letter will decline, in the industry, Zhangxiaolong has been hailed as the god of product managers, can match Jobs's characters, Tencent and China's instant messaging market has been monopolized for so many years. But I would say that being strong is never a reason to be undefeated.

The world of the Internet, the pattern of change is accelerated. A foreign example, MySpace outspoken, was acquired by News Corp in 2005 at a price of $580 million. Was later replaced by Facebook. Facebook has become an old man for the past two years, and young users are choosing new products. So Facebook began a frantic takeover: A $1 billion purchase of INSTAGRAM,190 billion to buy WhatsApp.

Domestic example is Weibo, remember four years ago, Kai-Fu Lee launched the "micro-Blog Change Everything" book. Weibo was at its zenith, almost universal. Today, the landscape of micro-blogging has long been covered by micro-letters. Although the official data published by Weibo are still creating brilliance, the data can be visually impaired and can be selective. User time is limited, when you brush a large number of friends, it is obvious that the time to brush Weibo is becoming less.

Is there a potential crisis in micro-letters? I think there are:

Why do micro-letters repeatedly blow up the act of inducing content sharing? Because the load capacity of the circle of Friends is limited, the location of the circle of Friends is a social network between friends. From my personal and some of my friends around the feeling, now brush the circle of friends and less times than before. Why would it be less? Because there are more and more information in the circle of friends that is not interesting.

In my opinion, this is mainly the micro-credit product design decision:

1. The micro-letter combination of communication attributes and social attributes is a great creation, but it also creates problems

Micro-letter two core functions, one is instant messaging, one is the circle of friends interaction. These two combinations are great creations, but I ask a question: how much of the people in your micro-mail address are you really concerned about his life, what he sees and what he thinks and what he feels?

The communication attributes of micro-letters make us to make contact with people (colleagues, customers) as friends. Contemporary young people change jobs very frequently, every change of work, the Address book has increased a lot of people, so down, the circle of friends will become more and more bloated. When your circle of friends accumulates more than 1000 people, how much information can you see. Friends Circle friend Limit is 5,000 people, from time to look, everyone's friend number will be closer to the limit.

You can say, set not to look at each other's friends circle not on the line? The problem is that most users do not change their default settings; Based on face problems and some utilitarian heart, you do not let people see their friends circle is not very good, be praised by people and not praise others is not too good. Maybe you can give a few more compliments to lead a colleague's client, which will bring you a career promotion.

I have a friend in the United States said that the domestic people to work and life completely mixed together. Yes, we often have to talk about work through micro-letters in the middle of the night.

From this point of view, WhatsApp only communication, there is no circle of friends have a reason. And once in the domestic small circle has been booming foreign mobile social application path, it has a 150 people's friend limit also has its own reason.

Path can only add 150 friends, officials say, citing a study by a professor at Oxford University who believes that people can maintain a stable social relationship with about 150 people. These include 5 best friends, 15 good friends, and 50 close relatives and friends.

2, micro-letter to the content distribution and communication attributes, social attributes together, is a great creation, but also produced a bigger problem

Another core function of micro-letters-the invention of the public number is remarkable.

The successful micro-letters in instant Messaging first launched a circle of friends, then shouted "small individuals, also have their own brand" slogan, launched the micro-trust platform, creative media content distribution and instant messaging perfect integration, solve the plight of traditional content producers.

In just two years, the micro-credit public number from 0 to tens of millions of levels. It is the traditional media and the traditional media who have benefited greatly. Last year, I went back to Dalian to visit my old club, the peninsula Morning News, and found that we all attached importance to micro-signal operations and had a fruitful operation. More media individuals benefit from the operation of micro-signals, listening to a financial media person, a friend runs a financial media number, a yearly income of 800,000, which far exceeds his income in the heyday of traditional media.

But a big problem with the micro-credit public number is also apparent, which distributes content mainly through a circle of friends. According to last year's micro-letter official disclosure of data:

In the micro-mail, 20% of users go to the subscription number to pick up content, and then 80% of users in the circle of friends to read the content, micro-trust users see the article to be forwarded, 61% forwarded to the Circle of friends, 39% of the article forwarded to friends.

Micro-Credit public number content validation relies on a circle of friends to distribute, and everyone's buddy list over time to the upper limit of 5000, resulting in more serious problems, in addition:

Everyone's circle of friends are small partners to do micro-business;

Many people can not separate work and life, in the circle of friends to forward the company's related content is often a job requirements;

Micro-letter connection of all the grand ambition, countless sites are supported to share, desperately trying to get users to share the link to the circle of friends;

You can now often brush to tick a taxi to share, if one day the micro-letter really connect everything, you will even watch the fridge and color TV sharing.

......

This continues, the circle of friends will be more and more information, the Circle of Friends is becoming another microblog.

Many tech-media people keep their own micro-signals under published articles, and is no longer a micro-blog, it is also said that the circle of friends as a micro-blog: These months, more and more hot events in the circle of friends brush screen, such as Liao Beina died, Chai Jing triggered environmental hot debate.

Careful observation you will find that the presence of the public number and the spread of web links, has penetrated the circle of friends close to the closeness of friendship. Writing here, I think I understand why micro-letters are so hard to crack down on the act of inducing sharing.

Recently, the micro-credit authorities have again a hard blow to induce sharing, this time in the rare punishment of not only the public number and website, but also punish individuals. On March 15, also introduced the "micro-trust friend circle use of norms."

Risk 3: What can you do with the micro-signal?

According to my observation, there are four types of micro-credit subscriber numbers:

The first category, traditional media people, they are very good at creating a single piece of content and the overall style of the media. I do the subscription number, a lot of traditional media friends to give me advice, suggested that I focus on content theme, to have the tone, to show the charismatic personality of the editor. I also send a reference to the media number, such as the two media people do "common" and "good news", precisely have such characteristics.

The second type, the traditional media, or the paper media or the television medium, keep pushing their micro-letter two-dimensional code every day, can bring a lot of fans.

The third category, distinctive from media people or celebrities, such as doing emotional counseling "Pan", do the Heart of the "Zhang Defen", and of course, the famous selling values of the Luo thought, and so on, they are personally brand.

The fourth category, the Big One, is the group of people transferred from Sina Weibo. They are very familiar with the user's preferences, experience, the first time to find or create a suitable for the dissemination of content, and hold a group, through the mutual push quickly bigger.

I said these four categories, is their own observation, there must be more to do a good type. Just to make a move, I hope you think about it, what is your originality or resources to be able to do the public number?

A friend who worked in Phoenix and Taobao said to me, those of us who have done business in the larger web site, do micro-bo, micro-signal, really not as much as the media and the hand, which is shorter than the person's length.

The micro-signal is very narrow, the more narrow they are good at playing. Our advantage should be the regular army play, that is to do the site, do platform.

I know you will say that it is too difficult, I also think it is not easy. So look at the actual situation.

Risk 4: Have you missed the best time to run a micro-letter?

After I do the micro-signal, tried a lot of methods, such as participating in mutual push, in the other platform media number plus micro-signal promotion, but the conversion rate is relatively low. For example, an article in other media platform, reading the number of up to 200,000, brought over the number of fans less than 20, conversion rate is very low. My friend, who has been doing it for a long time, told me that a year ago the conversion rate was much higher.

The well-known micro-letter public Number Elephant Guild was launched in December 2013, is now more than a year time. Founder Huang Zhangjin also think he belongs to the late batch, missed the micro-credit of the golden window of the public number.

Suppose your micro-signal is now launched, or the fans are still very few, your micro-signal to be bigger, obviously need to pay more than the pioneer effort. Because, the content of the micro-signal has been very rich, the Matthew effect is more obvious, the user to the micro-signal more and more picky, the subscription number of the opening rate is also very low, micro-letter management is becoming strict.

How much power can you devote to micro-signal operations?

Conclusion

It was written so long. To thank you for reading here, dry goods below. My suggestions are as follows:

1, no service-side + client development of the dual-professional staff, do not easily consider doing app.

2, do not easily give up the web, the number of users of the computer Web page did not fall so miserable, at least we work still have to use the computer, as well as the search engine traffic. Conditional web to be able to fit the mobile phone, user-friendly mobile device access.

3, the earlier operation of micro-letter public number is better, other platform media number can also be considered, such as today's headlines, a little information, Sohu, NetEase, start-up costs low. is to put your ideas in a simple way to try to run, you can get the user's direct feedback. The so-called operation, but is to try to succeed in the mode of amplification, deeper, wider and more systematic.

When you have enough power to do the app, look at your product features. I think pure information content, do the app has limited meaning. Users read the information more inclined to choose Portal-type information app, such as today's headlines, NetEase news.

If you do a tool-or community-interactive type, it makes sense to do the app, because the two are small in the micro-letters, and they're dancing in chains. If you can get more users to do the app, I think it must be a high degree of loyalty and greater value. In short, choose the right way, keep correcting, an inch and a foot to walk up.