WeChat reading: I’m too difficult …
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “ Operational Research Agency “(ID: U_quan), author of the routine editing department.
Recently, WeChat’s “daughter son” WeChat started to engage in some “moth moths” again.
For example, a web version has been launched that allows users to read books on their computers at work.
WeChat reading web version
It also launched a campaign to “divide 1 million days unlimited cards”. This magnanimity is no less than Tmall’s double 11 split 2 billion. I took a look at the rankings, and some people ’s unlimited card days have been added to next year.
Unlimited Card Days Leaderboard
And just a few days ago, WeChat reading also made a “Monday’s Weekly” column to let product managers come out “online connection”. The message area under each issue looks like a trough conference … .
I wonder, isn’t WeChat’s “dry son” always very rigid? In May of this year, when WeChat banned fission fiercely, WeChat was still doing fission fiercely. Why is it so “whispering” now?
At that time, “arrogant” was doing fission WeChat reading
Through recent observations, I found that reading on WeChat today is really not easy! Users “just want to read quietly”, but WeChat reads “cannot afford to pay for electricity”.
Since this year, WeChat reading has been trying to realize money, but the results are not ideal, and even every attempt will be drowned in the user’s “spittle” …
For example, the “Story” module added earlier, and the “Duration of Book Currency” feature canceled in the latest version are actually trying to monetize. However, every time, users are madly talking.
Left: The slot where the duration of the book currency is canceled; Right: The slot about the story module
According to Quest Mobile’s “Autumn Report on the Mobile Internet Fall”, the online reading industry is currently growing the fastest.Of the top 10 fast apps, they are generally commercialized in paid reading or “free + advertising” mode.
So, what about WeChat reading?
1) 2 paid monetization attempts failed
Actually, as early as May 2017, WeChat had tried the “pay-to-monetize” model.
Friends who have used WeChat to read should know that WeChat has a “book coin” function, and book coins can buy books. And if you want to get book currency, you can choose to pay “soft sister coin”, or you can choose to study well and use the length of the book to exchange.
In the past, the book currency exchange rule for WeChat reading was to exchange 1 book currency every half-hour of reading time, and a maximum of 10 book currency can be collected each week.
In that revision, WeChat Reading adjusted the book currency exchange rules to a ladder system. The longer you read, the more difficult it is to get book currency …
For reading within 1 hour, exchange 1 book coin every half hour; for reading time 1-5 hours, exchange 1 book coin every 2 hours; for reading more than 5 hours, exchange 1 book coin every 3 hours .
In other words, the time it takes for a user to get 10 free book coins has increased sharply from 5 hours per week to 23 hours per week.
Obviously, WeChat is trying to increase benefits by compressing benefits, but rashly modified the rules to trigger a large number of negative reviews, and the app rating was once reduced from 4.5 to 1.5.
Under the pressure of word of mouth, WeChat reading later restored the rule to half an hour to exchange for 1 book coin on the basis of the 2nd anniversary benefit.
Although the restoration of the rules has restored word of mouth, it also means that its first attempt to monetize has failed.
In the second half of last year, WeChat began to try unlimited reading cards (membership cards), shifting the focus of cash from recharging books to purchasing members, and unlimited cards can read all books for free.
In the beginning, WeChat reading only provided 1-day or 3-day experience cards. It is estimated that users want to purchase membership after trial.
But then, the infinite card gradually became a tool for fission and recall.
Users ca n’t run out of unlimited cards through group card drawing, sharing and receiving unlimited cards. On this basis, users who read weekly can also exchange for book currency to buy books.
It can be said that users have no need to purchase unlimited cards. In this way, it seems that the mode of WeChat reading that wants to realize with infinite cards is a bit unreasonable.
At this point, WeChat’s “pay for cash” road seems to have come to an end, and book coins and unlimited cards have also become a new tool for WeChat reading and retention.
However, this is not what WeChat wants, It still did not give up the use of “book currency” and “unlimited card” to realize cash.
Just recently, a special “ghost beast” happened in WeChat reading. When you read the book, you will be forced to “sell” the unlimited card renewal. The advertisement lasts for 20 seconds.
On the listening page, a “dog skin plaster” type advertising space was added to promote unlimited cards.
The recent cancellation of the “book currency exchange” function is actually for those who have the potential to pay to recharge books.
2) Stand up to the pressure and seek advertising realisation
How can we monetize WeChat books, which have been frustrated in paying for cash? After much deliberation, it seems that the advertisement has realized.
So, in June of this year, WeChat Book launched a new feature “Story” instead of the previous “Idea” function.
The original “idea” shows the notes and thoughts of friends while reading, and the new feature “story” has become some entertainment gossip content, and some users even said that they opened today’s headlines … < / p>
Image source: Knowing @ @ 特特
Reduced reasonably, “story”The emergence of modules is an attempt to monetize information flow ads. After all, apps such as Today’s Headline and Seven Cat Novels have provided good success stories.
In the “Monday of the Week” of the previous few days, the product manager came up with a set of data, those highly influential titles and content, and many and long-lasting people watching …
Probably because of this, despite the scolding of the “story” module in the past six months, WeChat reading has never yielded. After all, as long as the click-through rate and reading time data are rising, then the “story” module has the possibility of realizing ads.
How can WeChat reading who is eager to find a breakthrough breakthrough easily give up this potential “cash machine”?
And from the “怼 or Like” polls at the bottom of “Every Monday”, you can see that the ratio of 怼 and like is actually not much different, 56% and 44%, respectively.
Although WeChat reading ended with “you (users) won”, it did not stop the “story” function completely, but added the option “close story”.
I think this is the biggest concession of the WeChat team under the pressure of liquidation.
WeChat reading is now forced to sell ads only in applets.
Can WeChat’s “Story” section really bring monetization? We don’t know yet, but what we can see is that WeChat reading has been working hard for this goal.
Fancy growth you have to do
DAU is the largest process indicator for monetization through information flow advertising. In order to allow more users to use and rely on WeChat to read books, it launched a new pattern of growth.
We also mentioned earlier that WeChat reading is very likely to grow, and each time the growth pattern is quite fun. However, objectively speaking, the growth pattern of WeChat reading “various” is also related to its current predicament.
According to the iResearch App Index, since the number of monthly independent devices reached a peak of 10.79 million in January this year, WeChat reading has entered a negative growth mode.
As a result, starting in June of this year, WeChat reading began to change and play more and more, and the number of monthly independent devices has gradually increased over the past few months.
No August and October data because T T was not found
In the past two months, WeChat Books also launched 2 new growth games, namely Daily Answer and Reading Team.
1) One answer every day
The “One Answer A Day” event was launched in October this year. As long as you answer 12 consecutive questions in succession, you can divide up to 1 million days of unlimited cards. Is this wave of operations a little familiar? It seems to be the WeChat reading version of “Double 11 to divide 2 billion” activities.
The questions of “One Answer a Day” are not difficult, most of them are the knowledge learned in nine-year compulsory education, or some common sense questions.
The meaning of drunk men is not alcohol. In fact, the purpose of setting up this game is obviously to allow users to help WeChat reading in the game to achieve new, active and retained goals.
First, let users get unlimited cards through games (and there is a chance every day), in order to keep users with unlimited cards, so that users continue to use WeChat to read and read books.
And there are 3 kinds of prop cards in this game, which are “Jump Card”, “Life Renewal Card” and “Replacement Card”. You can choose “Replace” when you encounter a question that you can’t Or “jump the question”; if you answer incorrectly, you can use the “renewal card” to renew your life.
In order to get these item cards, in addition to buying directly with book currency, there are two methods, namely “login for 3 consecutive days” and “invite a friend to participate in the game.”
Isn’t this the means of refreshing and retaining red fruit?
On the item card page, there is an entrance to the practice session “One Answer to the End”.
This module is quite a chicken thief. Although it ’s called “answer the item to win the props card”, however, I managed to succeed in the promotion. It actually required me to share in order to get the props card, and also “other users participate through the link After the game, you can get a change card! ”
Is n’t it over if I share it directly with my friends? Why spend time answering questions?
However, taking the time to answer the question does have a benefit, that is, you can get unlimited cards. However, I went through 10 levels and answered 60 questions before I got the unlimited card for 1 day …
2) Reading team
The reading team is a function launched by WeChat reading in August this year. In fact, it is a “point system”. Three people form a reading team and start to score after being full. Every 21 days is a point cycle.
In the period, when the team points reach 20 points, 60 points, and 80 points, they can get unlimited card rewards for 2 days, 5 days, and 7 days, respectively. At the same time, the points reach 60 pointsThe squad will be automatically upgraded to a 6-player squad in the next installment to get even bigger prizes.
To put it plainly, in fact, it is to allow users to continue reading, get unlimited cards, and then continue to read, thus forming a dependence on WeChat reading.
The rules for earning points are also very simple and rude, that is, login, reading, commenting and interaction, in fact, it is to improve user activity.
Interestingly, in the reading squad, the captain also has the power to remove players from the team. If some players do not contribute points for a long time, the captain can kick them directly.
WeChat reading is also “fine”. Instead of doing it yourself, you should give the “captain” the motivation to let the “captain” help them clean up those users who are not worthwhile.
As the captain, when I wrote here, I kicked a friend of our team …
In addition to the reading team, now WeChat reading has actually formed a growth combination game with “Infinite Card” as the core, such as team drawing unlimited cards, “turning over” to get unlimited cards, and collecting praise Unlimited card.
For users, this is actually a benefit. In my case, I have n’t spent any money on WeChat reading for a long time, and have already realized “Unlimited Card Reading Freedom”.
The WeChat team also said that the unlimited card is already the biggest benefit that can be given.
Conclusion
Wechat’s reading pattern has always been many and fun, but nowadays, with the rapid rise of various free reading apps, it seems that constantly changing the pattern of growth is also a must-do.
Reviewing the monetization of WeChat reading can be said to be twists and turns, making people feel sad.
In fact, the WeChat reading app is facing the bottleneck that Netease Cloud Music, QQ Music and other music apps have experienced. For them, the copyright fee is a considerable cost in the operation process, after all, content creators also have to make the right meal.
Therefore, WeChat reading must also be in order to continue to buy more book rights to “feed” users. How to read from “free” to let users accept “paid” is exactly what it needs to solve now.
At the same time, the establishment of a more comprehensive copyright barrier can also help WeChat to read books more confidently.
Like Tencent Music (including QQ Music, Cool Me Music, and Cool Dog Music), apart from that, the copyright of “Say No Cry” just made it make more than 20 million in less than 24 hours.