Editor's introduction: Social networks need a large number of users to form a network of relationships, and many of the various products we use at present must be passed out of the scope of social networks because of this factor, including WeChat, which has a huge user volume. Based on this, the author of this article believes that there is no social network in China, and there may be, and there is no need to have a social network, do you agree with this view?
Before we get into that, we first need to figure out two concepts: social media and social network service.
The scope of social media or social media is very broad, and currently includes (social networking sites, Microblogs, WeChat, blogs, forums, podcasts, etc.). For traditional media, it is the subject of new media. Compared with the traditional newspapers, periodicals, publishing, film and television, and broadcasting, new media is also known as the fifth media. Social networks (social networks) are fully known as social network services, according to Chinese customs, referred to as social networks or social networks. The original meaning refers to the current network node structure on the new media, and now refers to various applications and services on the network. - Spread your wings in the morning (Zhihu)
Leaving this definition aside, we try to describe the difference between the two in one sentence: social networks are content because of relationships, and social media is related to content.
What does that mean?
Let me elaborate on my own insights.
Social network is a service platform that connects people and people, the center lies in the construction of the relationship between people, content is an accessory, the consumption value of content is attached to the relationship chain, taken apart and viewed separately, content may not have the universal sense of the consumable attributes. Social media is just the opposite, it constructs the relationship between people and content, the relationship between people is incidental, and its purpose is still to generate high-consumption value content and spread it quickly.
Social networks are more networked, each person is a node, in this dense network structure, some nodes are larger, more because they have more connections with other nodes. Social media is a tree structure, whether it is Weibo or Twitter, celebrities + Internet celebrities control the vast majority of the platform's traffic, and the dissemination and distribution of information is carried out from high to low through the tree structure.
The social network, to use the analogy of Zacker Burke, is a square in the commons where all people can play, socialize, and exchange information together. Social media is more like a performance platform, stars and Internet celebrities as performers, hard performance, the people at the bottom get information from the stage, get emotional value, and from the top down to the information for secondary processing and dissemination. ps: I know that there will definitely be people who question the first three: For example, I obviously play with my friends on Weibo, Weibo is also a typical social media, why is social media a performance stage?
To explain here, what I am discussing today is the main functions carried by these two platform forms, because of their wide range of influence and high penetration rate, their carrying role must be mixed, but Weibo (especially after embracing entertainment) shows the characteristics of social media platforms more obviously, which is beyond doubt.
Besides, there are still people making friends on idle fish, you can't always say that idle fish is a social platform, right?
As soon as this sentence is said, many people must say that it is pure nonsense, but don't worry, let's see how to understand this sentence. To illustrate this problem, we must first give a big background, because of the particularity of social networks, it requires a large number of users to build a network of relationships, and it is impossible to form a social network at a single point, so from the number of users, the threshold of social networks has cut 99.9% of the products.
Under this premise, you must still find an example to refute me, yes, yes, WeChat. To build relationships between people and spread information through a network structure, is WeChat not a social network?
The answer is no.
WeChat is instant messaging (im), not a social network, perhaps WeChat is a part of the social network. In addition to the above-mentioned characteristics of "building relationships between people" and "network structure information transmission methods", social networks should not forget that it should have the function of connecting nodes according to nodes, that is, the function of cross-point connection, and should also have the function of connecting users by keywords, interests and so on. What makes this feature so important is because it's one of the most important ways social networks build relationships.
On the other hand, WeChat, to today WeChat as a platform product, has long been all-encompassing, the main body is the address book, the public number and the video number is a social media platform, the circle of friends is the living room, the mini program and mini games are the ability to distribute tools, payment is our wallet, the reason why we say weChat today is not a social network, mainly because of its "instant messaging + living room" main model, can not support the relationship development needs of social networks.
Think about it, how do we expand the relationship between people on WeChat?
Mapping of offline relationships: offline recognition, scanning QR codes/ adding through mobile phone numbers, etc.;
Matching method addition: shake a shake (early), group addition, friend business card forwarding;
It can be seen that WeChat itself is weak in expanding new relationships, shaking has long been yesterday's yellow flower, group additions and friend business card forwarding are cross-node connections, which means that user expansion relationships, especially offline relationships, it is very difficult to rely only on WeChat, after all, not everyone will add n groups, and there is a willingness to find interested users in the group one by one to establish a relationship connection.
Circle of friends, a representative of the information flow in WeChat, is more of a "private living room" form, as a place for information transmission and information exchange between users and circled friends, its greater role is to consolidate the connection strength of the existing relationship, and does not carry the responsibility of expanding the relationship, which is significantly different from the home page information flow of the recognized social networking platform Facebook.
The difference between WeChat and Facebook is also intuitively reflected in the way of revenue, the vast majority of Facebook revenue still relies on online advertising, through the personalized distribution of advertisements in the information flow to obtain profits, while WeChat relies more on the platform's own traffic and relationship chain to empower other products and other functions to extract platform fees.
WeChat and Facebook are actually very different
Through the previous laying, if we have reached a consensus that "China has no social network", we may wish to think about another question: Why does China have no social network, is the time machine theory invalid on this track? I have three points on this:
Social networks are extremely dangerous, its "public domain attributes + relationship chain dissemination" product form, naturally carry the responsibilities of the social public issues discussion field, countless points converge to make supervision extremely difficult, the platform relies on the information flow sorting energy, it is easy to form a control over public opinion and people's psychology, Facebook has been caught in the election for many times is the best proof.
Instant messaging coverage of social networks is strong enough, WeChat as an im tool, in fact, through the form of "address book + group" to portray the social relationship of people seven seven eight eight, and as the last link of the formation of a private relationship chain, the missing relationship expansion, ice-breaking function can also be made up by stranger social software, grasping the last link of the closed loop, the most terminal of traffic, on the lifeblood of social networks.
Chinese is more restrained and implicit than Europeans and Americans, and the expression willingness and ability of the common domain are weaker, so the form of social networks is not the most suitable for national conditions, and there is a mutually exclusive role between IM and social networks, and the rise of WeChat has cut off the possibility of the development of domestic social networks.
Based on these three reasons, I am more inclined to think that the reason why China does not have social networks is that it neither needs nor has the soil to grow.
Social networking is a very sexy concept, because the relationship chain is the most valuable asset for people, especially ordinary people. This can be seen in the fact that almost all products want to acquire users' social relationships.
Compared with the concept, the social network track is so boring, there are cases of "three stinky cobblers who failed to challenge WeChat one day later", and there is also the painstaking loneliness of Weibo to nurture "oasis", but there has never been a challenger who can break the im hegemony, the channel has been closed, and the opportunity may only exist in the next innovation of the media of human and network interaction.
Compared with the immutability of social networks, social media is unpredictable, from the era of graphics to the era of video, Weibo from the sun in the sky to the sunset of the West Mountain, vibrato has grown rapidly, and gradually replaced Weibo as the center of the social media platform for information distribution, the story here is also worth playing, we have the opportunity to talk again.
Casual night, WeChat public number : Internet rookie products to advance the road, everyone is a product manager columnist. Focus on social tracks and community development, good at analyzing industry trends.
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