Original title: “Crypto Growth Theory | TON Foundation Kenny: TG Ecological Traffic Gameplay Discussion”

Mentor: Kenny, TON Foundation

Editing and organizing: BeWater

Written in front: On September 21, the second phase of Growth Hacker Camp co-organized by BeWater & PANews concluded successfully in Singapore. In this event, mentors from top projects and VCs in the Web3 field discussed in depth core topics such as personal branding, growth strategies, community building, user retention and conversion, bringing valuable insights and inspiration to the audience.

This growth training camp has been well received. BeWater has compiled the content shared by the instructors into a document and created a series of “Growth” topics for the benefit of readers! The first article in this series is “Introduction to TG Ecosystem and Discussion on How to Play” by Kenny from the TON Foundation. The following is an excerpt and summary of Kenny’s speech:

1. Basic introduction to TG ecology

TG: The third largest overseas social platform and regional market distribution

TG is the absolute fastest growing social platform in the world in the future. MAU has recently exceeded 950 million, making it the “WeChat” of the CIS region with a population of 240 million.Now a billion-level APP has a target of reaching 1.5 billion in the next three years, which is an absolute growth rate of 50%. It’s hard to imagine that WeChat and Douyin will have a growth rate of 50%. Compared with the top two WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger: TG is more open and flexible, has more complete functional infrastructure, and has a tighter ecological closed loop. It can be benchmarked as the platform closest to the WeChat ecosystem overseas.

In addition to developed countries, TG is the “WeChat” of the CIS region with a population of 240 million. In addition, key markets include populous countries in third world emerging markets such as India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Iran.Telegram has close to 1 billion users, but actually the proportion of Crypto users is not that high.in many countries it is a national IM software, rather than a sideline or underground communication software.

Functional construction of TG ecology

Channel (public account), Story (moments), etc. have become important infrastructure and growth means for TG ecological developers.

It should be the most well-known Chinese project on TON. In the early days, creative short videos played a relatively good role in user stickiness and community atmosphere. From hundreds of thousands of users in March to now, one “magic” video is posted every day.MomentsAll have hundreds of thousands of views.live streamingThe function is similar to WeChat group live broadcast, and event-type projects are in the process of being tried and developed. In addition, founder Durov is the God of the TG world, and his public account channel has great reference significance for TG eco-entrepreneurs.Wallet functionIn the future, we will focus on promoting decentralized Ton Space.TG mini program ecologyIt has developed rapidly, and has basically achieved full coverage of the types of WeChat mini programs, and new categories have emerged that WeChat cannot implement. Recently popular mini programs include TADA taxi hailing, e-commerce, ticket buying, short plays, etc.

The TG advertising system has not yet developed an industrialized way to obtain traffic. Therefore, TG has also developed a private advertising system to solve the problem of the data layer.The TG advertising system is divided into official and private advertising systems. Currently, there are only editor manual selection and what’s new functions in TG App center. In addition, Appbar has personalized recommendations. At present, the official advertising system only supports the insertion of pictures and texts on public accounts. The delivery effect cannot be achieved accurately without the official collection of user information. This is in line with the product philosophy of the founder of TG. Facebook does not agree with the use of mobile phone user information to implement advertising. Therefore, private advertising systems have also emerged in TG, which are solving data layer problems through various forms such as on-chain data and group performance.

2. Discussion on traffic growth on TG

TG is a huge traffic depression for overseas small games.

TG is a huge traffic depression for overseas small games. In the future, penetration rate and users may appear Davis Double Click.The form of TG mini-games is constantly evolving. Everyone will think that mini-games are very expensive now, and the traffic cost is also very expensive. I made this chart for the development prospects of mini-games. In terms of penetration rate, it may be difficult to reach WeChat’s 45%, but I think it can exceed Facebook’s 12%.

Facebook’s problem lies in the lack of an active game ecosystem and closed business loop. Compared with the current penetration rate of TG mini-games (of course, my definition of mini-games does not include the most original pure tap type), we can predict the penetration rate of TG mini-games. It can be at least nearly doubled.

On the user growth side, the platform will have an absolute growth rate of 50% in the future. The penetration rate of small games combined with the driving force of user growth is equivalent to a Davis double-click. The second point is that the form of mini-games is still evolving, and the current form of TG mini-games is still relatively light. If you see the development history of mini-games in WeChat, there are many game forms worth looking forward to, and everyone still has to have this confidence. The third point is that TG will continue to iterate its products. Compared with domestic commercial software, the speed of official products is still relatively slow, which results in new dividends being released in each iteration.

How does the TG project party go to market?

Project developers on TG must first find out where their users are, figure out which regional market you want to expand into, and whose money you want to make. Positioning can be confirmed from two dimensions: geographical location and Web2/Web3. In the coordinate system of the figure below, the horizontal axis is the region.the relevant markets listed have hundreds of millions of TG users. A big difference between TG and WeChat is that WeChat is a unified market with the same culture and system, while TG’s market is cross-regional. There are significant differences in population and culture between regions, and there are differences in different regions. resources and play methods.The vertical axis is user portraitthat is, Web2 or Web3 users,Currently, more than 90% of projects are operated by off-chain users without wallets. They come to play not for airdrops.a typical portrait can refer to parents and elders on WeChat who usually use WeChat as a communication tool. They occasionally play a dozen casual games to earn money but are not addicted. This user circle has strong spending power and high user stickiness.

Therefore, when making small games on TG, in addition to the business model of issuing assets, you can monetize income by selecting the appropriate market and user groups. For example, there are already project parties running through the path of pure Web2 IAP (In-apps purchase), based on The time machine version of WeChat can be monetized based on its consumption power, usage duration, and usage habits. However, due to the lack of IAA,At present, the more common model is the hybrid realization model of IAP + heavy asset issuance.. TG’s customer acquisition path is different from that of traditional Douyin. It cannot be purchased through spending money, soIt relies heavily on the social fission of the core circle of seed users.this positioning should be relatively clear.

CIS market

The market high ground for the entire TG ecosystem is in the CIS region. The market “high ground” in the Russian-speaking area is not only reflected in the number of users, but also in terms of user quality, user usage time, and user commitment. This market is the most worthwhile.Star TG projects such as Notcoin, Dogs, and Hamster come from the Russian-speaking area, and Catizen has done a good job integrating into the Russian market. Although other regions such as India have the highest number of MAUs, their user value and penetration rate are not high. In addition, there are some markets such as Iran that are worthy of attention.

TG’s off-site traffic logic:TG has a lot of traffic coming from outside the site, especially large-traffic platforms in the Russian-speaking area that are worth exploring. For example, hamsters found agencies on Tik Tok and YouTube.

Some Takeaways about Growth:

1. Compared with the traditional game industry:TG has low development costs and low expectations but high ROI. At present, there is no mature and large-scale customer acquisition method. We hope that some advertising alliances can solve this problem.

2.CurrentlyThere is no mature growth path of scale and industrialization. Thinking by elimination means that the Eight Immortals will cross the sea.A very important wave of mini-games in 2022 is because WeChat and Douyin are connected. 60% of mini-games come from Douyin, and there is an internal advertising system. It is difficult for TG officials to do so because of the Web3 product concept and the founder’s decentralization concept. Propose an industrialized harvesting method. Therefore, we need to think by elimination method, and other methods need to be tried and improved continuously.

3.Products are not required to be the best, only the most suitable and matching. Many projects feel that the current product quality is average and rough compared to WeChat, but I think we need to look at how to define what “best” is. Is it a 3A masterpiece? I think there is only the most appropriate or best match, that is, the methodology that matches the current users’ usage habits, monetization methods, and traffic acquisition. Only in this way can you say ok, this product is a good product, instead of saying ok. Do you think these game products also have such simple UI and simple interaction, but matching is the most important thing.

4. Treat users as traffic – leverage users and grow together.On the fourth point, I believe I still need to change my perception.Users are not traffic, you still have to leverage them more. Many people already have a consensus in this regard. They regard users as a node and see how they can help you achieve growth together. But maybe after you have this understanding, or after you have this idea, you still need to make more attempts and actions.

5. A new type of hybrid monetization is gradually becoming clear, with the core centered on the value feedback link.WeChat mini programs and mini games are hybrid monetization of IAA + IAP. But IAA on TG is more difficult to implement. Now it is becoming increasingly clear that many domestic project parties adopt the IAP + heavy asset issuance and realization model. But now some people will ask whether the user came here just for the airdrop. It seems that no matter what, this user is just for the wool, or they all have their own agenda. But I personally thinkThe core is still around your value feedback. What can you bring to users? When you are doing growth and monetization, you have to think about what value feedback you can bring to users.Maybe the airdrop is a kind of feedback, you give him something in the game, for example, you send him some unlocked props, etc. You need to put yourself in the perspective of the user, even if you give him entertainment value. The core still revolves around what kind of value feedback you can bring to users.

6. The three-layer theory of social communication.In TG, we think there are three levels of social networking:

· First of all, the first layer is that you need to have it on the productsocial function. Many products have not yet mentioned this function. Whether you are sitting in the tunnel or standing somewhere, I think this function must be available first.

· The second is how you design the value chain. Returning to the perspective of value feedback is how to leverage this user to help you give feedback. This can also be combined with the fourth point. For example, some mini-games have copied Pinduoduo’s slashing operation. The reporter said that many domestic operations like this are now being copied by everyone.

· The third rare thing is cultural attributes. You may want to look at how to create this kind of icon, or how to enter different markets. For example, if you work in Russian, for example, I think you need to do a little research on understanding the psychology of this part of users, including their icon.

Entering Q4, we plan to tour offline communities around the world to provide more detailed sharing on traffic growth for TON developers. We will also invite a number of outstanding project parties at different development stages to do some practical sharing. Everyone is welcome then. Come and participate. Thanks

This article is from a submission and does not represent the views of BlockBeats.

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