2023 Social has entered an era of great change

Image source: @VisualChina

Text | Zero-state LT, author | Li Tang, Editor|Hu Zhanjia

There are still new stories in 2023 social networking, is the position of WeChat giant still stable?

Not long ago, Meta launched the social platform Threads, WeChat grass community "Little Green Book" to open internal beta, and ByteDance launched the overseas lifestyle community Lemon8.

Why is the social track hot again, and it seems that there is no endgame?

To put it simply, in the past few years, the social track has encountered growth difficulties - traditional IM (instant messaging) and "left-right" stranger social networking have long been unable to acquire and retain users, and the interest community for the public has gradually encountered a traffic ceiling. Whether it is an established giant or an emerging player, it is necessary to constantly break through and discover new growth points.

It can be said that social networking is gradually moving towards the stage of "meta-social", the so-called meta-social, that is, a new wave of social users are breaking boundaries, everything starts from the construction of relationship network precipitation, and continues to form a high-growth, high-sticky, high-activity ecology. In this situation, a new trend has emerged in social applications - on the one hand, focusing on the open ecosystem, the boundaries of social and community are gradually blurred, and users are retained by creation and sharing; On the other hand, focusing on the meta-universe and generative AI, technological innovation brings new gameplay and consumption scenarios.

With the help of AIGC, major players also have a common goal: to challenge WeChat, but can this unified direction be achieved, and with the help of technology, can the social track run the next super APP that surpasses WeChat?

01 

The social giants face a collective crisis

Breaking down borders is imperative

"Many social giants have recognized the essence of social networking that relies solely on tools for links, which can no longer retain users for a long time, and must give users new ways to play beyond the connection. WeChat Little Green Book is based on this kind of attempt." But breaking the boundary is not easy," Shen Wenjie, executive director of CloudNine Capital, told Zero State LT (ID:LingTai_LT). He believes that in the past, there was a natural gap between instant messaging (IM) for acquaintances, social networking (such as dating products), social media and communities that emphasized content sharing and interests.

But at present, regardless of the genes of social products, we must open up the ecology and obtain more users and traffic. As the darling of the Internet that has not changed from the PC era to the mobile era, the development of social networks to today, has experienced the change from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0, the emergence of Meta, Twitter (X), WeChat and other giants, as well as countless popular products.

At present, global social applications can be divided into four major patterns from the perspectives of social relationship closeness and openness.

The first quadrant is strong social relationships and closed communities, most represented by acquaintance instant messaging (IM) products and anonymous social products; The second quadrant is a closed community with weak social relationships, mainly Meitu and video editing tools, which occasionally explode, but due to the lack of social connections, most of them have been acquired and eliminated; The third quadrant focuses on weak social relationships and strong openness, and this category has also given birth to many giants, such as Douyin, Xiaohongshu and other products that have risen in recent years, driven by content, becoming the current social upstart, but the social attributes are weakened, and the focus is more on centralization and head KOLs. The fourth quadrant is strong social relations and strong open social software, which currently mainly includes new and old social platforms such as Meta and Soul.

It can be found that the seemingly solid social quadrant is already in crisis.

Giants and upstarts alike hope to find a breakthrough. The boundaries between the different camps are blurring. A secret contest has already begun.

▲Figure: Classification of different social quadrants (Graphic: Zero State LT)

Among them, the social entrance is a huge barrier for many traditional social platforms, including traditional instant messaging (IM), whether it is the address book directly builds a circle of friends, or based on matching and LBS location of stranger socialization, such as Momo, Tantan, etc., all have a strong user advantage, especially after the emergence of WeChat, other applications have almost no chance.

But the breakthrough has never stopped, Byte-based Douyin has launched social platforms such as Multi-flash, One Moment, and a number of internal horse racing products, trying to open the treasure of strong social relationships, but has not been able to make successful products so far.

The applications that already have a strong social foundation have also begun to take a more open path, and the social platform represented by WeChat has gradually moved from avoiding excessive openness to opening up while sitting on a huge number of users. Because of a more open environment, we can break through the ceiling, increase user time and user stickiness, and vigorously open up the possibility of video communities from Weishi to Channels. However, it is worth noting that whether it is a video account or an official account, it is more informational, and there is still a certain distance from a highly active community.

At present, with the maturity of technology and the diversified trend of mass consumption, social products must also keep pace with the times, and only by breaking through the boundaries of social and community can they gain long-term recognition.

A new round of social battles has begun, and the next super app is sprouting up.

02 

The game between social ranking and business value

The battle for young people's attention

The social field has always been the concentration of super apps, because the magnitude of social products is huge. It determines the number of users and the duration of users. This requires the platform to have strong social attributes and allow users to gain a sense of belonging, and at the same time, the platform must emphasize openness, retain users through content and gameplay, increase the user market as much as possible, and enhance user stickiness. With a two-pronged approach, the platform can win.

The core of social platforms is to allow people to discover their favorite content and people in the larger world, continue to precipitate relationships, and form an ecosystem with sustainable growth. And to grasp the long-tail effect of social, you need platforms that can tightly grasp young people,

WeChat internal test "Little Green Book", Meta launched Threads, overseas student groups, fashion buyers with fire Little Red Book, etc., are all embodiments of this concept.

Liu Min, a senior observer of the Internet, believes that an open experience is very important to stimulate the interest and participation of young people, who are more looking forward to diversified gameplay and immersive interaction, not only to meet personalized needs, but also to create a wonderful sense of experience. This is also the reason why the new gameplay of AI+ social has been favored in recent years.

Therefore, it can be said that mastering key technologies and seizing the wind is extremely important for social players. Kuaishou and Zhihu and other national-level community apps have also experienced a decline in user time this year. Whether at home or abroad, most of the emerging social apps are short-lived, and disappear after appearing on the list in a short period of time. Even Zuckerberg's favored Threads has dropped significantly after the freshness period, and a month after its launch, user usage time has dropped by more than half from the original.

This will inevitably lead to a decline in business value.

For a long time, the business model of social products has been relatively simple, mainly advertising and membership value-added services. Major players use AI to socialize, naturally also from the perspective of commercial value, this time, WeChat re-promoted the "Little Green Book", which is also a rich commercialization model. The graphic creation mode is suitable for product promotion and advertising. For WeChat creators, images can more intuitively display the characteristics of products and facilitate monetization of linked e-commerce; For advertising, the better reading experience of graphics and text optimizes the efficiency of advertising and improves the advertising loading rate and advertising payment level under the official account channel.

Xie Chen, an analyst at Zheshang Securities, analyzed that for social platforms, all this is to start from the preferences of young people, seize the current popular elements, and lead a new trend. For example, in recent years, popular KOLs with goods and virtual idols are based on traditional business and advertising models and tap the dividends of traffic monetization through innovative scenarios.

Social products are no longer just a hammer sale, or a one-time money, but a space for business potential through innovation. In the current emergence of new concepts, diversified consumer experiences can bring better commercial benefits to products, and one specialty, multiple capabilities can achieve high-quality business cycles.

Liu Mine also said that some emerging social platforms with their unique social forms and social styles loved by young people, and then with the help of young creators to develop new products and gameplay and popularize, is a sustainable route, and there are opportunities for better business monetization.

This can show that under the precipitation of strong relationship network and the formation of user stickiness, unique community culture and new consumption scenarios can be born. For some creators who do not have a natural creator ecology, but continue to acquire young users and create new consumption scenarios to stimulate the potential of users, this is also the only way for social platforms to improve user stickiness through openness and innovation.

03 

Social has entered an era of great change

Who can be the next super app

The core value and competitive barriers of social platforms lie in the establishment of social density, through diversified scenarios and rich content forms, users can establish, maintain, precipitate relationships, make real friends, continue to interact to form a high-density relationship network, a sense of belonging to a product, and then make the platform have strong anti-migration capabilities. The platform forms a user ecology with high activity and high usage time, and after diversified content and scenarios, it completes the precipitation of social assets, so that once users are integrated, they will be immersed in it.

Of course, in addition to the factors mentioned above, there is another key variable to explore – technology.

In 2023, with the popularity of large language models and generative AI, AIGC applications have become one of the most concerned outlets. For the social track, whoever can land early will be able to seize growth opportunities, and the value of the social market can be revalued.

Titan Capital partner Han Yi to zero-state LT (ID: LingTai_LT) analysis, AIGC mainly from three aspects, to bring breakthroughs for traditional social applications. First, through natural language dialogue, you can respond to the needs of users at any time according to needs, and you can focus on emotional companionship and customize personal assistants; Second, for more open social scenarios, it can generate and publish copy and pictures more quickly, helping users lower the threshold for sharing and participate more in community release and interaction; At the same time, for existing interest groups and dating groups, AIGC function can also play the role of "catfish", analyze community interests through accurate algorithms, continuously stimulate the desire for chat and discussion, and maintain the activity and freshness of the community.

Han concluded that AIGC's main opportunity is left to technology, hashrate, morphemes, scenarios, and a community with a large enough base of young users. Among them, computing power requires the blessing of large models, while morphemes and scenarios need to be continuously accumulated and built in the early stage. Because young people are willing to try new products, and only their own technology and products are hard enough.

At the same time, AIGC brings a new scene for social networking, the social field of the meta-universe, more generation methods, directly bringing users into the era of "meta-social", whether it is in social dialogue, content production monetization, or community scenarios, commercial monetization brings more diversified imagination. How to use AIGC to improve social experience and further improve platform stickiness has become the next important proposition in the industry.

At present, Musk vigorously promotes the reform of Twitter (X), WeChat research and development of Little Green Book is based on this insight, recently Baidu also in Hong Kong, Japan and other places, launched an AI social product called "SynClub", which can talk and socialize with virtual humans.

The wave of generative AI is surging, comparable to the fourth technological revolution after the steam engine, electricity, and information. AI with a higher level of ability, release or even directly replace human brain power, it is conceivable that in the near future, generative AI technology will definitely change many industries, and traditional Internet products can only follow the trend, continue to open, and integrate new technologies, change product forms, in order to absorb a wider range of user groups, in order to have long-term vitality.

For a long time, when it comes to the social track, people always think of WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Meta, WhatsApp, Instagram, X, Snapchat, it seems that the competition in the social track has entered a stable pattern, mature products have obvious advantages, and new products cannot break the game.

And the emergence of AIGC seems to pull the social track back to the same starting point, who is the final winner in the era of social change in 2023? Let's wait and see.