I have been in operation for 14 years! I finally understand the skills and analysis methods of finding "benchmark accounts" on all platforms! For the first time, I will disclose them completely without reservation!

As a practitioner in the Internet industry, I believe you will encounter many problems regarding account operations. This article shares the search and analysis methods for "benchmark accounts" to help everyone do "benchmark analysis" on the Internet. Let's take a look.

This article is very suitable for authors of self-media content, entrepreneurs who generate traffic and sideline businesses, and operators of Internet projects. Next, I will summarize my 14 years of operating experience and the experience of communicating and learning with the big guys. This article will explain all the methods of finding and analyzing "benchmark accounts"!

Confucius said: "When three people walk together, there must be one who can be my teacher. I will choose the good ones and follow them, and change the bad ones."

In the current era of advanced network information, many new projects and new ideas have also been derived! Whether you are an Internet industry practitioner or not, you must have experienced the following situations:

• This TikTok account has millions of fans, but the content is so low, I can do it!
• This project is awesome! No one has done this online. I'm going to be rich!
• As soon as a piece of content is published, it is subject to risk control (delisting/limited traffic/account blocking). This method will definitely not work!
• I am doing XX traditional project and want to make Tik Tok. What kind of video should I shoot?
• I post content every day and have gained so many followers, so why can’t I make any money?

…

The reason for these problems is actually very simple. It is nothing more than missing or doing one thing wrong, that is: either you did not analyze the benchmark account! Or you did not find the right benchmark account!

Benchmarking analysis is also called benchmarking management or benchmark management. It is a scientific research method proposed by Xerox in the late 1970s. Its definition refers to the process in which an organization compares itself with an organization with higher performance in order to achieve better performance, constantly surpass itself, surpass the benchmark, pursue excellence, organizational innovation and process reengineering.

Of course, in order to better help everyone understand the "benchmark analysis" on the Internet, you can look at the following picture:

Why do we need to find a benchmark? There are four main purposes:

• New project needs to verify market feasibility?
• Don’t know how to operate a new project?
• The current project has unresolved problems
• Uncover the real needs or pain points of target users!

To sum it up in one sentence, it is: "Test the market, find methods, solve problems, and identify needs."

1. Tips for finding benchmarks correctly

1. Preparation for finding a benchmark

Before you start looking for a benchmark, you need to prepare for it. There are three main points:

1. Who is the target user group?
2. Choose which platform you need to find benchmarks for?
3. Understand the underlying logic and basic rules of the platform?

Why? To identify the target users is to know what kind of people are the real users of your product. Only in this way can you know which Internet platforms this group of users often use. It's like, your target user group is people born in the 1960s and 1970s. But after you go to Xiaohongshu, you will find that you have tried your best but can't find any benchmarks at all!

Based on the target users’ online habits, it is easy to infer which platform they will stay on! At this time, we only need to understand the underlying logic and basic rules of these platforms, and you will easily find the matching accounts.

For example: We can use the recommendation mechanism of Douyin to select benchmarks. First, use Douyin to actively search for your industry keywords, then watch more videos in the search results, like the ones that should be liked, and comment on the ones that should be commented on. Secondly, simulate normal users using Douyin. You will see some videos related to or irrelevant to your product in the recommendation list. For irrelevant videos, long press the video and click "not interested". For videos of related products, you can stay longer and interact more. After 1 hour, you will find that the videos pushed to you by the system are all related to your product. At this time, you only need to click on the main business of the video one by one and analyze whether the account has the potential to become a benchmark!

2. Find the right way to benchmark

Here, we provide four techniques and methods for finding benchmark accounts that are "fast, ruthless and stable", they are:

1. Keyword search method;
2. Platform tools approach;
3. Third-party tool method;
4. Utilize the platform algorithm mechanism method;

Next, we will take the Douyin platform as an example to demonstrate in detail the process of finding the benchmark!

Keyword search method: As the name implies, it is to select relevant keywords based on your own products. It can be core keywords or long-tail keywords. After determining the keywords, directly open a platform, enter the keywords, search, and filter in the search results.

It should be noted that the search results must be filtered, and it is best to filter the latest releases, works within a day or a week. In this way, the benchmark accounts found will be more valuable for reference!

Platform tool method: Use the tools that come with the platform to search for benchmarks. This requires you to have a clear understanding of each tool on the platform, what it is used for, and how to use it.

Taking Douyin as an example, there are differences between the hotspot treasures on the APP side and the hotspot treasures on the PC side. In addition, Juliang Baiying, Juliang Xingtu, and Juliang Suanshu can also be used to search for benchmarks and analyze benchmark data.

Third-party tool method: In addition to the tools that come with the platform, some third-party tools can also be used to find and analyze benchmarks. This article does not explain in detail what third-party tools are available, and you can search for them on your own. After all, advertising costs money!

Utilize platform algorithm pricing: In the previous article, we have mentioned that we can use Douyin’s recommendation mechanism to find benchmarks. In addition, we can also use Douyin’s attention mechanism to find benchmarks, as shown in the following figure:

When you have nothing to do, try to understand and learn more about the underlying logic and basic rules of the platform, which will be of great help to you in attracting traffic!

3. Which accounts are worth benchmarking?

Generally speaking, we divide the benchmark accounts into three categories:

1. Big V benchmarking;
2. Horizontal benchmarking;
3. Dark horse benchmarking;

Of course, here we also need to make it clear that any type of benchmarking has corresponding analytical value!

Big V benchmarking refers to the top-level accounts in the same field. For this type of account, the significance of our benchmarking is to analyze their popular content and monetization methods, and pay attention to their latest content to grasp the new trends in the field.

Horizontal benchmarking refers to accounts of the same level in the same field. For this type of account, the significance of our benchmarking is to analyze their user needs, operating methods, and compare the advantages and disadvantages of both parties to find our own shortcomings.

Dark horse benchmarking refers to accounts in the same field that have been launched within the past 1-3 months but have an extremely fast growth rate. For this type of account, the significance of our benchmarking is to analyze its content structure and differentiation, and compare the advantages and disadvantages of both parties, so as to find areas where we can learn from each other.

In addition, cross-domain benchmarking is also extremely valuable! This will be explained in detail in a separate article later. I won’t go into details here. You just need to know the significance of cross-domain benchmarking, and the essence of it is “copying”!

2. Benchmarking Analysis Process

Again, let’s take Douyin as an example. The analysis of the benchmark account mainly analyzes the following points:

• Monetization Path Analysis
• Account packaging analysis
• Content level analysis
• Analysis of popular comments

Analysis of monetization path: Remember this sentence: "What is the monetization product determines the account scope; what is the monetization method determines the content selection; what is the monetization path determines the operation method."

How to understand it? Let's take a simple example: Take agricultural products as an example. Live streaming is the sales method. There are big differences in the operation methods and content levels between IP personality accounts and pure e-commerce accounts. In other words, a local restaurant, is it a franchise? Or offline customer acquisition? There are huge differences in the account areas, content selection, operation methods, etc.!

In addition, analyzing the monetization path of the benchmark is more important, which is to disassemble its operating methods! As shown in the following figure:

Account packaging analysis: Many people have a certain deviation in their understanding of the importance of account packaging. An excellent account packaging can at least increase the account's conversion rate by 10-30% (attention/inquiry/laying the foundation for trust in closing deals, etc.). In simple terms, whether an account packaging is marketing-oriented is like what kind of clothes a salesperson should wear to meet a client!

Therefore, it is particularly important to improve the conversion rate of your own account by disassembling the packaging of the account! This is also true for traffic generation.

Content level analysis: There are many things that need to be analyzed, including: "disassembling content selection, content title, content topic, copywriting framework, content keywords and word frequency, content script, etc." Even if the content is a video, it will be analyzed in detail in 5-second segments, including pictures, text, music, scenes, etc.

What is the use of such a disassembly? Without saying too much, if you can calm down and analyze and disassemble the content of 100 accounts, then you will be "far ahead" in terms of content operation.

Hot Comments Analysis: It is no exaggeration to say that 80% of operators will not analyze the comments section of the benchmark account! What do hot comments mean? They represent the real needs or pain points of most users! They are more accurate than the results you can guess and get through tool analysis!

As shown above, this small hit video was created by analyzing the popular comments of the benchmark account content. It has 249,000 views, and nearly a hundred customers were sold in a single month just by this content! Do you think it’s difficult to have a hit? If you have a problem with the topic, no matter how good the content is, it won’t have a good number of views!

3. Key points and core summary

1. No matter what you are doing on any Internet platform, or whether your current project is in the start-up stage or the operation stage, finding and analyzing benchmarks will help you solve various problems and safeguard your project operations! Therefore, develop the habit of collecting and analyzing benchmarks, and you will benefit from it for life!

2. You can find the benchmarking accounts you want on any platform. But you must learn how to manage them in a hierarchical manner, conduct long-term monitoring, and conduct regular analysis and summarization.

3. When analyzing benchmark accounts, don’t just focus on the surface! Taking the essence and discarding the dross is the core purpose of benchmark analysis. However, you should also pay attention to the comment section of the benchmark account, which will definitely become a guiding light for your content operation!

Author: Xie Yuxuan; Official Account: Lao Xie Operation Notes