User Operations: Driving Growth Through Key Users

Micro View: Growing Through Key Users

By Li Xuehan

The image above highlights recent hot news involving Lulu and the Three-Strap Group from Penguin’s Channel, with one key takeaway being the suspicion of collusion between content platforms and article-factory operations. In its latest post, Three-Strap bluntly stated that both algorithms and platforms are purely profit-driven, adding that platforms lack both the capability and the willingness to root out Lulu—and the article-factory network behind it.

The core issue here is the apparent favoritism or even cultivation that certain content platforms extend toward these article-factory groups.

Xiaomi’s social e-commerce initiative, Yupin Pusher, partners with the Fo-style Pusher Group—the top referral team for Every-day Tao, their only strategic signing. Xiaomi hands the entire Yupin Pusher operation over to this group.

Those are the two recent news items. The interests of content platforms and article-factory groups align perfectly. Platforms need traffic and massive content volume to fill their feeds. Handing that out to ordinary users means splitting profits among many small contributors, which keeps active content creation low and doesn’t guarantee good results. Many article-factory operators have experienced rates dropping until earnings vanished entirely, while others always made solid money. The pool of content creators is huge, but quality varies wildly. To put it bluntly: if I’m under KPI pressure to grow, why not partner with article-factory teams? They can churn out scraped and spun content in bulk, I’ll pour traffic and subsidies their way, harvest users through that content, and advertisers will follow the traffic—creating a four-way win.

So who are the key users for a content platform? Article-factory operators. Advertisers provide cash flow; reader users provide traffic.

(Supposedly, these are the membership perks for Yupin Pusher.)

Social e-commerce currently has many models in play, but the core difference lies in who they treat as their key users.

One model is represented by Yupin Pusher and traditional WeChat merchants. As I often say, most social e-commerce simply copies the multi-tier hierarchy of WeChat selling. To earn distribution commissions, you first become a “paying user”—either by buying products or purchasing a “membership status.” Only then do commissions kick in. Based on volume or membership tier, you’re placed into different stepped payout levels. These platforms primarily target experienced sales teams or individual influencers. There are quite a few such platforms.

This resembles a distributor hierarchy similar to sales teams, with roles like national distributors. Platforms need to scale user numbers and transaction volume rapidly. WeChat merchants bring enormous existing networks within their circles, so borrowing their proven model lets platforms grow far faster than trying to acquire everyday consumers from scratch. Distributor teams want to make money; the platforms want growth—interests align.

For Yupin Pusher specifically, the true key user is the Fo-style Pusher Group, because only they can drive the fastest growth.

Another model is represented by Taobao affiliates, JD Alliance, Flower Daily Records, and similar platforms. Their core strategy is to encourage ordinary users to “share,” thereby driving both user growth and sales. Flower Daily Records has likely already shifted to a membership-tier system as well… (after all, direct membership purchases already generate significant transaction volume and profit, and paying members will naturally push hard to recoup their investment).

So I believe the essence of social e-commerce is operating through “people”—that is, running user programs. And at the heart of user operations is identifying and nurturing the key users who can drive your growth. For content platforms, those key users are article-factory operators. VIPKid discovered by chance that organic growth and conversion rates from its own users far outweigh paid advertising, so it focused entirely on super users who actively use its product. Yupin Pusher signed a top-tier “sales team” (a WeChat merchant group) during its beta phase precisely because of their existing resource network. Flower Daily Records and Taobao affiliates bet on the traffic growth that comes when every individual shares. Even when running ads, platforms choose high-traffic, high-visibility media—because that’s what actually moves the needle on growth.

I see user operations as finding your key users and then concentrating your efforts on them. Key users are simply the core users who can deliver growth.

Originally published at: Article-Factory Groups, Social E-Commerce, and User Operations