Operation is the Achilles' heel of WeChat Video Account at this stage

WeChat Video Account has achieved certain results in the past few years. While being closely integrated with the WeChat ecosystem, it has also attracted a large number of creators to join. However, at present, if WeChat Video Account wants to achieve longer-term development, it still needs to work harder on operations. How to understand it specifically? Let's take a look at the author's interpretation.

The 2023 WeChat Open Class live broadcast event was held on WeChat Video Account from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm on January 10. This time period was chosen very badly: on weekday mornings, most workers would not have time to watch. There might be a little more viewers during lunch time, but it is still far less than the prime time in the evening.

What is puzzling is that this year's WeChat Open Class is actually a recorded broadcast. Since it is a recorded broadcast, there is no need to consider the time of the guests or the venue, and a more suitable time period can be arranged. In addition, the preheating of the WeChat Open Class is better than nothing, and only some previews were made on WeChat's official media matrix account. During the open class, the people who forwarded the live broadcast link in my circle of friends were either Tencent employees or video account self-media; the forwarding and attention from "passers-by" were almost zero.

Some people may say: "WeChat Open Class is mainly for Internet professionals, so it doesn't need to be put in prime time, it's fine to hold it in the morning on weekdays!" - This is totally wrong. An important mission of this open class is to convince thousands of creators to join the WeChat ecosystem, especially amateur creators; the emerging WeChat video account especially needs these amateur or semi-professional creators to contribute content. However, when the open class was held, a large number of amateur creators didn't even know it was being held, and even if they knew it, they didn't have time to watch it.

Some people will say: "At this stage, WeChat Video Account should keep a low profile. There is a reason not to hold events during prime time and not to conduct large-scale preheating!" - Wrong again. Last year's Central Economic Work Conference has already loosened the "platform economy", and recently major Internet companies are competing for market public relations activities. It is understandable to keep a low profile in early 2022, but it is unnecessary to keep a low profile in early 2023. If it continues to be "low-key" like this, WeChat Video Account will never be able to convince millions of passers-by creators to make up their minds to join.

There is only one fundamental reason for the failure of this WeChat Open Class: the WeChat team has not paid enough attention to operations and has not invested enough operational resources. This is also the Achilles' heel of WeChat Video Account at this stage. If Video Account wants to go further than its current level and truly challenge Douyin's dominance in short videos, it must strive to improve its operations by one or two levels; even if it does not want to challenge Douyin, but only wants to realize efficient monetization on the current basis, operations must also be improved.

Zhang Xiaolong is a successful product manager with a "product first" mentality. The WeChat business group is almost entirely based on product logic. Strictly speaking, the entire Tencent company is permeated with the "product manager culture", hoping to solve problems at the product function and design level as much as possible, rather than relying on operations. Therefore, most of Tencent's businesses show a "strong product, weak operation" trend (the game business is the only exception). When it comes to e-commerce and local life businesses that require heavy operations, Tencent often has no choice but to raise the white flag.

To be fair, in the past three years, the product iteration of WeChat Video Account has been remarkable. The product has been getting better and better overall, and it has indeed solved many problems by relying on product logic. The current Video Account has become a perfect match with public accounts, mini-programs, WeChat groups, etc. The only reason many creators choose Video Account is that it is closely integrated with the WeChat ecosystem.

However, short videos (including live broadcasts) are also an operations-intensive business: What activities should be held? How much resources should be invested in the activities? What content should be prioritized for traffic? How to maintain a balance between user experience and monetization? These problems cannot be solved by pure product logic. A strong content operations team, coupled with a commercialization team that is deeply involved in operations, can solve the problem.

In 2021-2022, Video Account also held some successful events, the most prestigious of which was the Video Account Concert, which won many awards within Tencent. Inviting "classic artists" with a broad mass base such as Westlife, Mayday, Cui Jian, and Luo Dayou to hold online concerts is a very cost-effective event operation strategy.

However, the effect of such activities is limited. During the same period, Douyin paid a large sum of money to acquire the copyright of the World Cup, while Kuaishou acquired the copyright of the Tokyo Olympics and the Winter Olympics. Both of them made great efforts to make a big splash. Moreover, after seeing the huge out-of-circle effect of the concert, Douyin and Kuaishou began to follow suit and even played against the activities of the video account. In this case, it is very difficult to continue to rely on activities such as concerts to "use a little to achieve a great result".

Anyone who has seen the movie "Moneyball" will remember: the protagonist's data team successfully discovered a group of underrated players, and played a performance far beyond the expectations of the outside world at a relatively low cost, but they still did not win the playoffs. The reason is simple: the cost-effective strategy of "four ounces to move a thousand pounds" is only applicable to improving regular season results, not to elimination games where a winner must be decided.

In the knockout rounds, only with absolute strength and resource advantages can victory be ensured. This is why championship teams must sign superstars at extremely high premiums - superstars may not be worth the price, but superstars can bring you championships.

In fact, this year's WeChat Open Class reflected the contradiction in the WeChat team's operational thinking; in short, when it had to invest resources in a high-profile manner, it still wanted to win by relying on the "four ounces to achieve a great result" model of "Moneyball":

• The content of the WeChat Open Class focuses on attracting casual creators, service providers, and brands to join, and spares no effort to emphasize the huge potential of the WeChat ecosystem (especially the video account). There are also a large number of entry-level video account tutorials in the open class, which is undoubtedly prepared for "going out of the circle".
• The operation of WeChat Open Class is still based on the idea of ​​"elitism", with promotional warm-up for senior creators, geeks and big brands, and the timing is also very awkward. As of 12:00 noon on January 10 (when this article was written), the total number of views across all channels was only a few hundred thousand, which is far from being "out of the circle".

In my opinion, rather than saying that WeChat has not considered the operation ideas well, it is better to say that the WeChat team still lacks sufficient attention and experience in operation. The WeChat team certainly wants to do a good job with the video account and wants it to go viral, otherwise they would not invite so many mainstream media to settle in, nor would they hold concert activities. However, due to the limited size of the operation team and the lack of much resource support, it has become a neither high nor low. Don't forget that the largest event that WeChat Video Account has operated in the past three years is just a concert watched by tens of millions of people - such events are held almost every week on Douyin and Kuaishou.

I can understand the WeChat team and Zhang Xiaolong's caution about the video account's "out-of-circle" strategy. This caution has also been reflected in the development history of official accounts and mini-programs. Short videos and live broadcasts are a bizarre and mixed track, full of "shocking" and even legal content. Allowing such content to flood the WeChat ecosystem will not only arouse users' disgust, but also cause endless regulatory issues. In short: if you let it go, it will be chaotic, and if you control it, it will die. This is the fundamental reason why the video account has been "about to go out of the circle" and "promising" in the past three years, but has not met the high expectations of the outside world.

To solve the problem of "chaos if left alone, death if controlled" and to achieve "smart out of the circle", the answer is to rely on strong operations. In the past few years, the two pioneers in the short and medium video track, Douyin and Bilibili, have provided the best positive and negative examples on this issue:

Bilibili has always been an organization with low operational efficiency and poor management. Chen Rui's "out-of-the-box" strategy is essentially possible to execute well, but Bilibili's weak operation team, algorithms that are better than nothing, and a mentality of quick success and instant benefits have led to endless conflicts between the original core users and new users, and also caused a series of vicious operational accidents represented by the "Re:Zero" incident. The "out-of-the-box" strategy may not be a mistake, but the execution process has turned into a disaster. The key is that Bilibili has failed to cultivate a strong, efficient, and experienced operation team.

Douyin has quietly expanded its circle of influence. Today, few people remember that Douyin was just a music short video platform. In just six years, Douyin first occupied the sinking market, posing a threat to Kuaishou, the original overlord of this market; then occupied the vertical market, forming an influence among the middle and high-end population; and even had a certain share in the horizontal screen market.

Rather than saying that this is because Douyin is a good product, it is better to say that it has high operational efficiency and a good combination of algorithm technology and content operation. Kuaishou and Xiaohongshu also hope to emulate this "operation-led out-of-circle strategy", but they are not as successful as Douyin.

Don't get me wrong, I am still optimistic about the future of WeChat Video Account. I think the future of the domestic short video industry has been determined, that is, Douyin and WeChat Video Account will occupy the top two platforms, and other platforms will become vertical categories. Video Account has disproven many bearish statements and allowed millions of creators (including me) to find a suitable creation platform. No one can deny the great achievements of Video Account in the past three years, and this achievement was achieved when Douyin and Kuaishou were already deeply rooted, which is particularly valuable.

However, at this moment, if Video Account wants to go further - either challenge Douyin's dominance or improve monetization based on its existing user base, it must solve its own operational Achilles' heel. It must significantly expand its operation team (whether relying on internal or outsourced), invest more operational resources, and develop the habit of "solving problems with operations."

It is not easy to do this, because WeChat is a team that puts product thinking first, and Tencent is a company that puts product managers first. If you can do this, there will be great potential to be unleashed in the future; if you can't do this, then now may be the peak of the stage.

What will be the answer in the future? We will have to wait and see.

Author: Pei Pei, leader of the Phantom Thieves

WeChat public account: Internet Phantom Thieves (ID: TMTphantom), Internet industry observer and researcher.