In the next ten years, what kind of operation does the Internet industry need? (Turn)
Text / Huang Youchan
Introduction: In the past ten years, everyone has relied on product experience and technology to win, so operations in many companies often only need to be executed.
Today, various emerging products emerge in an endless stream. The gameplay of many products has begun to undergo earth-shaking changes. There are more and more homogeneous products. Product experience and technology are no longer absolutely important. The importance of "operation" suddenly began to highlight .
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I have a feeling that in the next 10 years from 2016, the value and role of operations will become more and more important in the entire Internet industry.
This trend has now been reflected - almost every week, I receive a large number of friends sending me messages asking me to recommend reliable operations for them, all complaining that a good operation cannot be found, or even like a drop First-tier giant companies like Didi are no exception.
The logic of this is actually very simple - in the past ten years, everyone has relied on product experience and technology to win, so operations in many companies often only need to be executed. In the previous era, Internet companies either did not operate (for example, the earliest portal websites did not have the concept of "operation"), or they operated but had a low status, and basically did some physical work (such as posting, deleting, etc.). post, moderation, promotion, etc.).
Today, various emerging products emerge in an endless stream. The gameplay of many products has begun to undergo earth-shaking changes. There are more and more homogeneous products. Product experience and technology are no longer absolutely important. The importance of "operation" suddenly began to highlight , CEOs increasingly need an operation team that can formulate different operation strategies and means according to market dynamics, product attributes and competitors, so as to better interact with users and allow their products to grow and develop.
At the same time, few operations in the industry are ready for this change. Judging from the situation we have encountered so far, objectively speaking, more than 85% of the operations in the Internet industry are still in the stage of "single-point execution", which cannot yet meet the requirements.
Against such a background, a predictable thing is that in the next 2-3 years, aside from the primary operation that is partial to execution, the demand for middle and senior operation positions will be greater, and their salaries will also receive a larger increase. increase.
Then, the next unavoidable topic must be: what kind of operation will the Internet need in the next 10 years? In other words, what should an operation that will be madly robbed in the market look like?
I think there are 4 points, in order.
1. The Internet in the next ten years will need more operations that "understand business"
The Internet world before 2014 was more a world of a large number of online tools, online communities, e-commerce and content information platforms.
After entering the "Internet +" era in 2014, the Internet began to sink into traditional industries in large numbers, becoming an important link for various traditional industries to provide services to users.
In the previous Internet world, most operations only needed to focus on a few established sectors of online promotion, content maintenance, and online activities. But since then, people have gradually discovered that in the process of combining with many traditional industries and many traditional industries, the Internet does not have to play a subversive role, but based on the business logic of traditional industries, better Improve the efficiency of the entire industry more efficiently.
Typically, finance and education are the leading factors. When I communicate with some friends, I will find that the so-called "Internet finance" and "Internet education" are not the Internet in essence, but are still finance and education. Taking education as an example, the Internet at this time may need to do more to provide services in one or more of the aspects of teaching and research, educational administration, enrollment, organization and presentation of learning materials, after-school social interaction, etc. To improve its efficiency, it is definitely not to overturn traditional education by making something online all at once.
The Internet in the next ten years will be an Internet that is more deeply integrated with more fields like "education". Operating in such a field is almost unimaginable if you don’t understand the business.
For example, a person who does not understand education, does not understand teaching and research does not understand the logic of traditional education and training institutions and school operations, it is basically impossible to do well in the operation of three courses. And a person who does not understand the moving and decoration industry at all, does not know the specific profit space of each piece and cannot sort out the industrial chain behind it, it is basically difficult to be responsible for the operation of such products as 58 Daojia.
Only by understanding the industry and business can you combine your product features and advantages to formulate more effective strategies for your products, or optimize and adjust existing key business processes in a more targeted manner.
2. The Internet in the next ten years needs more operations with a macro perspective and responsible for the growth of products
If you have never been independently responsible for the development of a product, then basically in an operational position, your thinking and vision will naturally be limited. For example, you may only focus more on how your boss’s KPIs are achieved. .
An operation that can truly be "responsible for the product" should at least fully experience every link on the picture below around the growth of a product, and continue to optimize and adjust its specific operation strategies and means to obtain Had a good output. Even the product you are in charge of is actually just a QQ-group or a Douban group.
At this level, I suggest that everyone who wants to become an excellent operator must find ways to create or find some practical opportunities for themselves to be "responsible for products", which can be to run a group or a WeChat public account by themselves. It can be an obligation to help some communities to manage and maintain the work, it can be to find potential opportunities to independently take charge of projects at work, and it can be to participate in other people's projects in their spare time, and so on.
3. The Internet in the next ten years will require more operations that "know products"
Understanding the product here means "being able to provide reliable requirements for the product based on the actual needs of the operator" and "being able to participate in product discussions and revise the product from an operational standpoint".
In the process of designing and improving a product, some requirements start from the product side, such as the design of the core functional modules of the product; while other requirements start from the operation side, the purpose is to better assist the product For example, in order to standardize and modularize the production of some topics and content to improve the efficiency of the CMS system, such as the user incentive system and points system, or some data buried points required by the operation side, and so on. If you want to make a good product, these two types of needs are actually indispensable.
But the problem is that many product managers may not have participated in or been responsible for operations, so they may not consider the requirements of the operation side in the process of product design and development, including even if they do, when do these requirements need to be considered? To what extent, etc., is not clear to them either.
At this time, if the operation can understand the product, can communicate with the product classmates without obstacles, and correct the demand of some products from the operation side, it will be very valuable for the development and growth of the product.
Therefore, an excellent operation definitely does not just need to know how to write soft articles and how to engage in activities. He also needs to understand some products, at least he must be able to understand "users, needs, scenarios", and he must be able to start from specific usage scenarios. Discuss with the product classmates whether many requirements are established or not. It is necessary to understand the links in the whole process of each product function from conception to launch. It is necessary to generally know which functions and requirements have high realization costs and which requirements can be realized. It will be more convenient, and so on.
With these, your possibilities within an Internet company will become more open and you can participate in more core decisions.
Fourth, the Internet in the next ten years will need more operations that can win the hearts of C-end users
As I mentioned, with the development of social media in recent years, the logic of information dissemination in the Internet world is changing.
The direct impact of this change on operators is also huge. From 1999 to 2010, the focus of Internet operations may have been more focused on channel construction and traffic distribution. If you have built a website, if you can’t build enough friendly links, can’t find enough websites to exchange traffic with you, and don’t get enough exposure on classified navigation websites or upstream websites, and your SEO is average, It's still a bit of a hangover for this site to survive.
Since 2010, due to the rise of social media, the vitality of a product has become more and more: whether it can win users' heartfelt recognition and love, and whether it can make users willing to use social media. interact with it.
In other words, "user-spontaneous" communication has increasingly replaced the role of "channel" and has become the source of a product's vitality.
From now to the next ten years, the power of "people" and "users" in the online world will continue to return and be amplified, including the rise of "live broadcasts" and "Internet celebrities" in the last year. Therefore, I expect this trend to continue.
Therefore, a more valuable operation on the Internet in the next ten years must be an operation that is better at interacting with users and winning user recognition. For example, you must be good at winning users' favor by writing articles. Be good at being able to make users want to interact with you by planning and creating interesting activities and events, must be good at building your influence in social media, and so on.
On the contrary, the value of "channel" may be weakened.
So far, here are some of my thoughts on the future of operators. Hopefully it can also spark some of your own thinking.
In addition, frankly speaking, the above four points do not sound easy. If you want to ask me whether it is difficult to grow into such a person, the answer is no doubt: super invincible is difficult. This process is by no means easy.
But it must also be fun. This kind of fun, I believe you can already feel it in my past serialization.
This is an interesting and long road. I have been walking for 8 years without direction, and it is only a small achievement. I believe that in the next ten years, there will be more people who can walk faster and better than me.
I hope that you and I, who are both operating dogs, can live up to the future, which is likely to belong to the 10 years of operation.