How did those unpopular music "explode" on Netease Cloud Music?
On the social networks where Zhihu, Douban and other young artists gather, there has never been a lack of such topics as "XX absolutely beautiful unpopular songs" and "Recommend some popular music that is nice but not popular". There is no distinction between the public and the minority in the genre of music. The so-called minority or unpopular music is mostly defined according to the amount of play or the audience.
Van adib, CEO of eCast, discovered the famous "98 Rule" in his research on digital music, that is, the audience has unlimited demand for 98% of non-popular music, and the market for non-popular music collections is enormous and boundless.
On the one hand, there is a strong user demand, and on the other hand, there is a huge market prospect. How to recommend these 98% unpopular songs to the audience has been tried by music service providers all over the world, as has the domestic online music platform, and Netease Cloud Music, which stands out by virtue of the unique positioning of the music community, is one of the best. Compared with the average utilization rate of music libraries below 20% in the industry, Netease Cloud Music has reached 80% of "going against the sky". In addition to the ingenuity of products, Netease Cloud Music has mainly done two things right.
1. Reconstruct the music recommendation method.
Netease Cloud Music was launched in April 2013. At that time, most of the music software on the market was "music library+player", which played the role of listening to songs. It is not difficult to understand the phenomenon mentioned at the beginning of this article. Users can’t find their favorite music in the music player, and interest-oriented online communities have become a natural medium for discovering and sharing music.
The appearance of Netease Cloud Music has changed the traditional music recommendation method, mainly in two aspects, one is song list, and the other is personalized recommendation.
Let’s start with the song list, which is similar to the song sharing article on Douban, but it is transferred from a third-party social platform to a music APP, which is also in line with the positioning of Netease Cloud Music Music Community. The song list has realized two direct functions. In the past, the chaotic song collection was solved after joining the song list. In the past, users had a strong dependence on various lists to find songs, which actually accelerated the difference between popular and non-popular. Songs appearing on the list will be heard by more people, while music outside the list may become a long tail. On Netease Cloud Music, song list has replaced the list as a popular listening behavior.
Up to now, the number of high-quality song lists created by users on Netease Cloud Music has exceeded 200 million, with an average of 420,000 song lists created every day. This figure far exceeds the posts recommended by music on social platforms. Through the song list, users can find the music they listen to at work, the lullaby they listen to when they are insomnia, the unpopular music they can’t miss, and even the background music of PPT. Not only has it solved the pain points of users, but for Netease Cloud Music itself, the song list has become a "trump card" to maintain the stickiness of users.
Personalized recommendation is another initiative to solve the problem that users find good music, so Netease Cloud Music is also called a music player that "knows you better than your mother".
The great god in Zhihu has a professional explanation for the recommendation mechanism of Netease Cloud Music, which is mainly divided into two parts in algorithm, the recommendation of similar people and the recommendation of similar songs. As the name implies, similar songs mainly Tag songs in the music library, and push music with similar tags or the same tags according to users’ listening habits. The recommendation of similar people refers to modeling according to users’ listening habits, and screening out people with similar tastes. For example, A and B belong to the same kind of people, and the songs that A likes are probably the ones that B is willing to listen to.
Through song list and personalized recommendation, Netease Cloud Music has established a recommendation mechanism of "algorithm+labor +UGC", which not only satisfies the interest of users, but also ensures the quality of products.
There is a "story from Netease cloud music to the real world" circulating on the Internet. GalenCrew is a relatively small singer in both China and the United States, but his single Sleepyhead has tens of thousands of comments on Netease cloud music. Finally, Galen began to tour in China, and the venue was full.
2. Break the barriers of music sharing
Music sharing in the traditional sense is mostly word of mouth or shared on social networking platforms. After all, it is still the active sharing of users. Especially for minority music, many listeners have a mentality of "like it but don’t want it to be popular", and it is difficult for traditional sharing methods to break this boundary.
In essence, the song list and personalized recommendation on Netease Cloud Music also belong to the category of sharing. The song list was created spontaneously by users and found and collected by "music friends" with similar interests, among which there were many song lists with hundreds of thousands or even millions of listeners. According to the personalized recommendation of similar people, the sharing process was imperceptibly completed.
However, what Netease Cloud Music enjoys in sharing is the positioning and comment mechanism of the music community. The former meets the needs of users to share good music, so that good music can be shared with like-minded people, which is in line with the behavior habits of minority music lovers. Many listeners of minority music have their own circles. They recognize each other’s identity and values and enjoy the sense of security that this group gives them. And this kind of people in the hope of independence and eager to communicate, we strive to expand the small circle, while trying to control the small circle in the illusion of independence. Compared with popular social channels, Netease Cloud Music’s vertical socialization is just what it wants.
But music itself is also a commodity, and it is bound to be tagged. When we listen to songs, the background data of online music is constantly tagging us. The so-called niche only exists in data algorithms. This kind of label is a good thing for the promotion of minority music. Compared with the promotion for individuals, the label-oriented group has more advantages in both accuracy and cost. How to recommend minority music to more people’s ears according to this feature? Netease Cloud Music chose the comment mechanism.
The Indonesian song "Bila" has 25,000 comments on Netease Cloud Music, and the most praised comments are 46,000.
Yes, it’s a comment, not a grade. According to the rules of scoring, users score their favorite or disliked music, and then find out similar user groups on the difference of scoring. However, if there is a score, there will be a brush score, which will lead to irrational behavior of the user group and even cause the loss of users in a large area. In addition, letting users rate songs that have been listened to for a few minutes increases the cognitive cost of users, and it is also a kind of harm to music itself. Music has no advantages or disadvantages, only likes and dislikes.
Netease Cloud Music’s comment mechanism has achieved results. At present, it has generated 400 million comments, and users have generated 640,000 music comments every day. More than 50% of users have developed the habit of commenting while listening to songs. Compared with the digital rating, this kind of comment entrusts users with more emotional factors, such as excellent comments will be praised at the top. Moreover, music criticism itself is a kind of sharing, and it is a way for users to express their love for works. Even some relatively unpopular music still gets tens of thousands of comments.
Almost all fields are looking for explosions, such as e-commerce, IP, and even music. But distributing pop music to more people is an ability to bring more fans to minority music or unpopular songs. This is feelings.
Source: China Network