Study Of User Increasing Strategy In Internet Platform

The Internet is changing the world, as well as business models and personal value. Nowadays, Internet companies shoot up. Internet titans like Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu shared their success to the public while companies like eTang, Jieku and Kaixin001 – just like a flash in the pan- are in a dilemma with setbacks and difficulties. Moreover, countless Internet start-ups experienced hardship and run into bankrupt eventually. In this situation, how should internet companies grow? What rules should they follow to increase user scales? What kind of strategies should enterprises adopt in order to upgrade to the next phase? What consequences might occur if they are not able to upgrade to next phase? This paper attempts to look into these questions and try to provide proper answers.Researching on more than 20 Internet companies such as Taobao, Wechat, Kaixin001, Weibo, Didi taxi, Dianping and Renren, this paper explores their rules of growth – factors of success, as well as lessons from their failures. Generally, the overall development of an Internet platform can be divided into the following phases: user accumulation phase, explosive growth phase, steady growth phase and active user recession phase. This paper defines the main characteristics for each phase and analyzes its key factors and influencing factors on overall development. Based on several cases, it puts forward not only operation strategies that improve the increase of user scale, but also reasons that hamper the increase.After a series of analysis and research, this paper draws the conclusion: compared with traditional companies, Internet companies have some typical problems and characteristics during their growth lifecycle. Here are three examples: first, it’s more difficult for Internet companies to move to the next phase. During the initial phase, those companies have to start from scratch, and it’s hard for them to take advantage of their competitors’ experience to build their own. Second, the network externality of Internet platforms always brings users a cross-network effect, which can, on one hand, facilitate platforms-during their explosive growth phase – by increasing their user scales through viral marketing, however, on the other hand, it will accelerate the loss of active users during platforms’ user recession phase. Third, user traffic and platform content should be harmonized. Platforms should ensure that contents are constantly updated and meet the requirements from users during the explosive growth phase; otherwise, they will lose users. On the contrary, the income and profitability of a platform at the user accumulation phase are limited. If a company over-invests in platform development without paying attention to user scales and incomes, it will ultimately head to failure. In this case, the topic- how to become a large Internet platform from accumulation phase to explosive growth phase while successfully implement a continuous growth in the steady growth phase- is of significance. To ensure continuous and health growth of user scale, specific strategies need to be adopted targeting at different development phases of the Internet platform. Strategies for user accumulation phase include: free of charge strategy, user experience of freshness, powerful marketing promotion, as well as user import from other platforms and products; Strategies for explosive growth phase include: powerful marketing promotion, ultimate user experience, precise market position, and integration with super platforms; strategies for steady growth phase include: mobile Internet, open platform, super platform integration and business expansion; strategies for active user recession phase include: adjust positions of product and target user, seek growth engine through innovation, establish a larger ecosystem circle by opening the platform, follow Internet trend and integrate into super platforms. Last but not least, one thing needs to be mentioned is that it does not always mean the larger user scale the better. When the number of users reaches a critical mass, companies should also pay attention to user’s quality.