Can Community-Centric Trends Be Avoided? Is Setting Up Benchmark Users Necessary in Community Operations?
From Kuaishou’s conclusions, although it initially chose an inclusive, egalitarian approach, the effectiveness of operational intervention kept declining, and it ultimately defaulted to a natural, centralized model.
Another question:
Does a community actually want to create a centralized success story? Take Douyin, for example—when people think of it, they immediately recall its top representative KOLs. This raises one idea: every community wants to push out representative KOLs who can break into the mainstream. But you can’t just manufacture that through operational intervention, which shows how formidable Douyin’s algorithm really is.
It’s all about selling the market an expectation: “If you come here, you too have a chance to make it, stand out, and make money.” That’s also why Douyin stays so wildly popular—it’s dangled a big promise in front of everyone.
Selling a product is really about selling expectation. Douyin lets everyone see there’s an opportunity to make money.
Basic requirements for content-community operations:
1. A foundational sense of content taste: being able to tell what’s good versus bad, what should be suppressed, and what can be amplified and pushed.
2. An understanding of the industry’s crowd—how seniority works, who holds authority, what the community values, who can help build the community, and who you can win over.
Further reading: Understanding communities