This article is from the WeChat public account: social product notes (id: shejiao321), author: nkl Ning Karen, head image from: Visual China
Boredom, loneliness, hormones
First of all, let me ask the question: What is the ultimate goal of making a product for the user? If not, then what is the original intention of making a product?
When we make products, we definitely have a core link that guides or explores the deepest part of the user's heart.
In fact, this is also what social product notes often say: the essence of a product is to take the user into the deepest dream, stimulate the deepest desire in the user's mind, and release it in the product. Speaking of which, although the goal of the product has been clearly defined, is the product form also going to go in this direction?
At present, the stranger social products on the market are basically solving the pain points of users in three directions: boredom, loneliness and hormones. Specific to the form, after 1v1 and the show, the language chat room has risen again. We all know that the language chat room is a product of the beginning of 2000, and it has long been eliminated until 2016, when it began to rise gradually. This is obviously not that the product form is regressing, but that we know more about the user.
Today, the product form is basically fixed in the existing model, most of which does not rely on product strength, and the market has begun to turn to channels and delivery. Domestic and foreign are no longer incremental markets (do not consider the overseas incremental regional low-value users), in the stock market to buy more and more expensive, product forms more and more similar, stranger social has been fiercely involuted.
Returning to the original question, is the original intention of the product and the user experience compatible? In the end, did it solve the user's needs?
The first thing that can be affirmed is that stranger social networking definitely solves the needs of users. But have we tapped into the deep needs of our users? I think most products only think of solving the user's superficial needs, and do not dig and solve deep problems.
The social product notes further understand the "user model" proposed by Yu Jun: test the user's behavior and preferences to understand "what the value is".
Reality transformation and dream transformation
The "social dream implantation theory" is divided into two levels: the first layer is from reality to dream, and the deeper layer is from the inside of the dream to the "dream that is completely detached from reality".
The originator of "behavioral design", Stanford University professor Fogg once pointed out: Human nature determines that we can't insist on doing things that make us miserable for a long time, but if we start with easy things, we can do almost anything you want to do.
From reality to dream is a very simple reason for users, "a week cp, pretend couples, Tao male network" and other platforms, as well as "soul social", Momo, etc. are creating a simple dream channel for users. In the view of social notes, this simple dream is just a psychological hint that the user is giving himself, which is essentially the user's fantasy that strangers have always had different degrees of social interaction.
Dream transformation is the transformation from a shallow dream to a deeper dream. Users may come to the stranger social platform just to find a companion, relieve, vent, or find a place to have a temporary companionship, but in the continuous product experience, there is another place where they can temporarily forget their "original purpose of using the product".
Dream ≠ add meaningless scenes
When social product notes first proposed "The Dream Transplant Theory of Social", some people misunderstood and some people questioned. The original intention of our stranger social products is not to let users lose themselves, but to make up for the shortcomings of users in reality, so we need to continue to create dreams for users.
Users behave in various ways on the stranger social platform, step by step, tend to the truest state of their hearts, which is contrary to reality. Based on this, stranger social needs to be far superior to other industries in terms of user cognition, but obviously most social companies are not aware of this problem and are still addicted to the level of data indicators. Of course, this is not to say that data indicators are not important, we have to see whether the "icing on the cake" solves the problem of user needs.
Let's go on with the example of "square". Now many voice rooms, 1v1, etc., have added "square" scenes. As mentioned earlier, some apps carry the banner of "soul socialization", but put the "square" scene on it. I believe that users have stayed longer in their products, and the chances of increasing exposure have increased, and Jimu has encountered the same problem.
What is the point of adding "square"? Obviously, the original intention of the product is not to allow users to increase their stay time, but to solve the real needs of users. Whether it is a chat room, 1v1, or a live show, "square" is a place to show, and some people go to use the voice room but will not go to the square to show themselves. The strength of these users is not in appearance, but in voice or eloquence.
Therefore, the square is prepared for those who "can quickly attract people of the opposite sex through appearance", increasing their chances of reaching the opposite sex, meeting the needs of a group of people, rather than increasing the length of stay.
This is just a simple example, but many people don't understand why they want to do "squares".
How social products build dreams
Products with deep dreams are conducive to the growth of LTV, but such products on the market are very homogeneous. The main reason is that the reasons for being able to keep users in deep dreams are similar – addiction. In the first social dream implantation theory, I mentioned "Hooked" by Nir Eyal.
A trigger is an inducement for a user to make a certain move. There are two ways to trigger: external trigger and internal trigger. For example, the external trigger is the UI design of a certain app, like to make a style with message prompts; the internal trigger is in the product's chat dialog box, suddenly appearing a beautiful and exquisite opposite sex and active greeting.
An action is a move made in anticipation of some kind of return. For example, when a user sees someone else's greeting, clicks on a dialog box to show how the product drives specific user behavior. In order to increase the frequency of people's behavior or cultivate habits, product designers make full use of two basic motives of human behavior: one is that the behavior is simple and easy, and the other is that the actor has this subjective will.
The difference between the addiction model and the ordinary feedback loop is that it can inspire a strong desire for something.
Scientific studies have shown that when people expect rewards, the amount of dopamine secreted in the brain rises sharply. Variable reward means that the greater the variable and gap of reward, the richer the dopamine secreted by the human brain, and it enters a state of concentration, the system responsible for reason and judgment in the brain is suppressed, and the part responsible for needs and desires is activated.
Engagement is when a user is willing to give their time, effort, and money to a product.
In fact, "addiction" is simply a phenomenon of how a product guides or influences a user's behavior patterns. But there are places where it's not very thorough, or maybe it doesn't apply to some products, such as social products.
Human social behavior is inherently natural and does not rely on addiction to address this social need. I think the "variable rewards" in this addiction mechanism are used by most social companies, and these can indeed be used in the second half of the dream implantation, dream transformation.
Aside from this addictive mechanism, what could forge deeper dreams?
Social product notes are considered to be elongating the chain of relationships.
In the industry, the effective call time of users like 1v1 products (total call market / total number of calls) is basically maintained at 4 to 5 minutes, which will inevitably lead to low user LTV. How can you do the same image slg game, the user is willing to pay more time, more money?
Obviously, the answer is not the user, but the anchor side. The quality of the anchor side determines the revenue curve of the entire product. What is more interesting is that the vast majority of operations measure the quality of anchors through the benefits brought in the short term. However, this method has a more fatal drawback, the long-chain relationship between the anchor and the user has not been established successfully, and the "high-quality" anchor who cannot bring good benefits in the short term will be eliminated by the platform.
As far as the current overseas relatively large 1v1 companies - Altran, lbe, Laixi, the past 1 to 2 years have not made further progress, in fact, they have reached their own income ceiling early. The reason for the delay is that the relationship chain between the previous user and the anchor is too short, and the harvest wave is counted as a wave.
Here we can mention a bit of AZAR's strategy on the supply side, and the revenue has broken through the existing bottlenecks of Altran, LBE and Laixi. However, the atmosphere of the scenes of Altran, lbe and Leping has been formed, and it is impossible to imitate azar.
As for why, you can ask me to continue to discuss.
This article is from the WeChat public account: social product notes (id: shejiao321), author: nkl Ning Karen
This content is the author's independent view and does not represent the position of Tiger Sniff. Unauthorized reproduction is not permitted, please contact [email protected] for authorization matters
People who are changing and want to change the world are all sniffing