Three elements of social products： relationship chain, interaction and content.

No matter what kind of social product it is, its ultimate goal is to help users build links. Since the development of social products, the form has matured. Among them, relationship chain, interaction and content are the core elements of social products. This paper analyzes these three key elements, hoping to bring you some inspiration.

After working in an outsourcing company for more than two years, I joined a startup company and started my own exploration in the social field as the head of its overseas social application. In the following time, I will summarize my exploration experience in writing regularly and share it with you.

I’m not very knowledgeable. I hope everyone can learn something from it.

If we want to make a good social product, there is no doubt that the first thing we need to know is: What is social?

According to the definition of Baidu Encyclopedia, socialization (that is, social communication) refers to the social activities in which individuals communicate with each other for material and spiritual exchanges under certain historical conditions.Because the essence of animal society is the sum of all social relations formed on the basis of material production and labor, social communication is the inherent requirement of animal nature to a certain extent.

In the past, people’s social activities included offline salons, blind dates and even chatting among friends, and the Internet brought new social ways, and social products such as WeChat, Soup and soul emerged one after another. People have met their needs for material, information and spiritual communication in various ways.

However, just as a successful person owns a house and a car, we cannot define that success equals a house and a car.Whether it is the exchange of materials or the exchange of information and spirit, it is only the appearance of social interaction to a certain extent. I think the essence of social interaction is linking.. Based on the link, one person, a group of people, established contact with each other, thus having the possibility of exchange.

At the same time,The formation of links is limited and influenced by time and space. Based on different link subjects, media and forms, various types of social products that we are familiar with have emerged.

For example, distinguished by the main body of the link, it links the social application WeChat of acquaintances of relatives and friends, and links the social product soul； of strangers who have no contact with strangers; Differentiated by link media, there are interest-based social applications and LBS social products based on geographical location. In terms of form, there are audio social products Hertz, video social products HOLLA, cat call and so on.

butNo matter what kind of social product it is, its ultimate goal is to help users build links.

Relationship chain is one of the core elements of social products, which refers to the connection between people. The network formed by the combination of multiple relationship chains is what people often call relationship network.What is human nature? Marx concluded that "the essence of human beings is not an abstract thing inherent in a single person, but in reality, it is the sum of all social relations". In our daily life, no one can get rid of "relationships". Relatives, friends, classmates and partners have various relationships, strong and weak.

Different types of social products often have different entry points for the relationship chain.

Cut in with a strong relationshipWechat, which everyone is very familiar with, is a social product based on strong acquaintances, not only WeChat, but also most IM products such as WeChat and QQ. The key to acquaintances’ socialization lies in whether they can successfully transfer the offline relationship chain of users to online, thus making the communication between acquaintances more convenient. Once the relationship chain is successfully migrated online,The strong relationship between acquaintances is itself a very powerful moat for acquaintances’ social products.In my opinion, this is why it is difficult for new acquaintance social products such as Duoshan to shake the dominance of WeChat in the social field of acquaintances.

At present, there are still new social products coming into the market, such as soda and other products that I brushed recently when I brushed Tik Tok. Most of them areCut in from the perspective of weak relationshipSocial networking products for strangers. At present, the more successful social products for strangers in the market include Momo based on LBS, soul with three views matching as the selling point, Hertz with the main voice socialization, Douban with interest dimension, Post Bar and so on.Weak relationship is the starting point of strong relationship. Compared with strong relationship, the establishment cost and migration cost of weak relationship are much lower.This is why it is difficult for a monopoly giant like WeChat to appear in the field of strangers’ social interaction, and why there are always new products coming into the track of strangers’ social interaction.

butDue to the low credibility of weak relationships, most social products of strangers have to improve their credibility through various channels to realize the core value of the products.For example, social products with heavy value such as Momo and exploration will require users to authenticate with real people, while soul, which focuses on soul socialization, provides users with psychological test questions.

The strength of all relationship chains may fluctuate with time. For the same relationship, such as partnership, the feelings of couples who stay together every day may continue to heat up, and couples who have been separated from each other for a long time may become unfamiliar. The fluctuation of relationship strength is inseparable from the interaction between them.

Interaction is also the core element of social products.

Interaction refers to the process of interdependent behavior between individuals, groups and groups in society through language or other means to spread information.It takes two hands to clap, and one person can’t interact.

Users who establish relationships can interact, and the interaction between users in turn affects the stability and strength of the relationship chain. The key is thatInteractive mode, intensity, frequency and value..

Taking the common Internet social products as an example, in most products,Common interactive behaviors include chatting, liking, commenting and forwarding.And different interaction modes correspond to different interaction intensities. For example, the interactive intensity of comments is greater than that of likes. And the same is chat, the interactive intensity of video chat is generally greater than that of text chat.Under normal circumstances, the greater the intensity of interactive behavior, the easier it is to enhance the closeness of the relationship between users.

For the same kind of interaction, the higher the interaction frequency, the closer the general relationship. But this is not absolute, because whether user interaction is effective or not, there is also a very important key point, that is, the value of interaction.

There are a thousand cups of wine for every bosom friend, and more than half a sentence for lovers. In our daily life, we may encounter such a situation. For example, at work, some colleagues have worked with you for a long time, and you are still familiar strangers after work for a long time, while some people have become friends through a few supper after work, even though they have not known each other for a long time.The reason for this difference lies in the difference of interactive value.The communication with old colleagues may stop at work. These exchanges are conducive to the smooth development of work, but they can’t make you know each other better. However, chatting in different places during the string talks makes you have a basic understanding of each other’s hobbies and values, thus becoming friends.

Interaction is the key to the generation and change of the relationship chain between users, but a good interaction can’t happen out of thin air.When posting a comment, there must always be someone to comment on and chat with others. The key is to talk about what won’t lead to embarrassing chat.The key auxiliary information is the content.

Content is auxiliary information to help users interact, which refers to the information that users disclose to others.In the early days of the Internet, limited by the network technology and network speed, the content display among users was mainly in words, resulting in pure text social products such as BBS, blogs and IM tools. With the maturity of the processing technology of pictures and audio and video, various types of content such as pictures, audio and video began to participate in social activities in a richer form.

For any social product, the content supply chain is basically composed of three main links: content production, content distribution and content consumption, and how to optimize the content supply chain is particularly important for all social products.

To guide users to output valuable content, we can refer to the concept of value proposition in economics and encourage users to output content with internal or external value, which can be in the form of spatial dynamics, photo wall and so on.For products with sliding pairs such as tinder or Explore, they encourage users to upload more personal photos and update more real personal information, which belongs to the content produced by users. Of course, how to recommend suitable users to each other is what tinder and explorers need to consider in the content distribution. For products such as Tik Tok, Yikan and Weibo, which focus more on content socialization, besides personal data, they will try their best to let users publish more dynamic content, such as providing them with tools for editing pictures and videos, lowering the threshold for dynamic publishing, and providing material or spiritual incentives for high-quality content, thus encouraging users to produce content. With sufficient content sources, content distribution has become a top priority. For example, Tik Tok is famous in the Internet circle for its extremely powerful content recommendation algorithm.

Of course, we can’t be anticlimactic. On the consumption side of content, how to help users consume content better and encourage users to interact with content producers based on content is the key ending to complete the whole social closed loop.

In subsequent articles, I will further discuss the content supply chain, so I won’t expand it here for the time being.

This is the end of the article, hoping to play a role in attracting jade.

Aaron, WeChat official account: In Aaron’s cabin, everyone is a product manager columnist. Head of social products at sea, an internet observer who is keen on sharing.

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