The effect of traffic is overestimated

The change in the mechanism of public accounts has also made our traffic effect unpredictable. The author shared his ideas on writing and content push, let's take a look.

Today, the first account with over 100,000 followers appeared in the public account list.

I should have been happy, but I wasn't. Because if you carefully compare the number of views of other articles, you will know that this is an accident and the traffic is given by the platform👇.

What worries me even more is that the opening rate of articles that are not favored by traffic is getting lower and lower, even to only around 3%, which is a significant decrease compared to the average of 7%-8% in the past.

I know that writing quality is the key, but the changes in the push mechanism are really confusing. For example, after posting an article every day, I have to scroll through a lot of subscription lists with messy timelines for a long time before I can see the article I wrote (even if it has been starred).

Under this mechanism, the title becomes particularly important. And the article I was selected by traffic may be just because of the title.

The backend shows that the average completion rate is only 20%, far lower than the past average of 50%, and the average stay time is less than 1 minute, lower than the average of 2.5 minutes. And behind the 100,000+ pageviews, there are only 50 readers who follow the page.

Compared to the big reposts in the past, it’s just a small fraction. What bothers me more is that I received a lot of strange comments because of this article, even sarcastic and abusive. I also understand the feelings of the people who were pushed, “Why did you push this kind of article to me?…” The feeling should be the same as receiving harassing phone calls. They are also innocent and just blame the inaccurate traffic. However, I still quietly changed the setting to “Only users who follow can leave comments”…

I think that now the platforms expect readers to read the content they push, and don’t want us to subscribe freely. In this way, public accounts will become more and more “headline-oriented”, and video accounts will become more and more “TikTok-like”…

This is a great challenge for those who work hard to create content and hope to establish long-term communication with readers. First of all, you have to balance the proportion of what you want to write, what readers like to read, and the platform preference. Traffic is like an invisible hand, which makes creators feel a little "resigned to fate". No one can guess when "good luck" will come to you.

Second, the requirements for content are higher. Readers are increasingly fond of content that is easy to think about and is fun to read, which is very painful for writers in professional fields. To write complex issues in a simple, specific, and easy-to-understand way requires data, examples, and stories... The difficulty of creation is not lower, but higher. Third, it is becoming increasingly difficult to communicate deeply with readers.

Less content worth thinking about means less interaction. This is a fatal blow to original authors. Without communication between each other, there is less inspiration and even motivation for creation. But should we still write?

I have been writing more recently. Careful readers will notice that I have started to try different directions and even different time points to post articles. To my surprise, as my thoughts become more open, I am now writing more and more smoothly.

In the past few days, the platform has started to push my other articles. It has become smarter and more accurate. This made me think deeply again, what does traffic bring?

At first, I felt uncomfortable with the change. I saw a lot of negative effects. But from another perspective, this change is irreversible, so I actively try it and maybe there will be new breakthroughs. For example, I started using AI to help write drafts, write articles that highlight the advantages of pictures and texts and broaden readers' horizons, and even try to write about marketing workplaces in the way of novels...

These changes have allowed me to see more possibilities, and I have more inspiration. I am grateful for my persistence in in-depth reading, independent thinking, and continuous writing day after day...

A few months ago, my friend Yang Feiduo, a photographer, wrote this in her WeChat Moments:

"When I came back from taking out the trash at night, I saw a kitten standing by the window waiting for me. There was a beautiful moonlight in the sky. So, I took out my phone out of habit and took the last photo of the day. In my phone album, the last number is 383053. Yes, you read that right. This is the number of my photos. Most of them are the trivial life recorded by my phone in daily life. This number is updated every day. This is such practice, unswerving practice."

No wonder the records behind 380,000 photos are more wonderful than 10,000 random photos. This is not just true for photography and writing, but perhaps for many things.