Pulse VS LinkedIn—— Analysis of core functions and user experience of competing products

1, analysis purpose

2. Experience the environment

2. 1 mobile phone model

2.2 Mobile phone system

2.3 Mobile phone network

2.4 Experience time

3. Market analysis

3. 1 market size

3.2 Competition pattern

3.3 Population distribution

4, product analysis

4. 1 product positioning

4.2 Target population

5. Product structure and functional experience

5. 1 main structure

5.2 The main process of novice registration

5.3 Functional analysis

5.3. 1 core functions

Non-core function

Features and functions

Comparative analysis of 6 key points

6. 1 design

6.2 content

6.3 operation

7. Summary

7. 1 question

7.2 Suggestions

With the continuous development of mobile Internet, it has penetrated into all aspects of people's lives, and social networks have gradually become one of the main tools for people to communicate with each other. As an important part of social network, workplace socialization has also attracted much attention. This paper selects two popular mobile app——Pulse and LinkedIn in China's workplace social market, and mainly analyzes their main product functions and user experience.

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20 18/6

QuestMobile data shows that in 20 17 years, the scale of users in the mobile social industry is close to that of mobile netizens, with a penetration rate of 92.9%. By the end of 20 17, there were 30 million users in China market, and it was still on the rise. Although the demographic dividend is gradually disappearing, as a new generation of Internet aborigines, Internet awareness has become a deep-rooted nerve in the mind after 90 s, 00 s and even 10. It is expected that there will still be great development prospects for workplace socialization in the future. Workplace recruitment and workplace contacts are the focus that every young and middle-aged job seeker and future job seeker need to pay attention to. Although according to TalkingData- Insight's report on recruiting APP users, the traditional comprehensive recruitment platform is still in a leading position in the user scale, but the usage of emerging professional social apps is also rising.

? Pulse: domestic market only. According to the data of Analysys Qian Fan, the number of active users increased by 4 1.32% in 2011,and the number of active users in1February was 3,254,200, up by 2.37% from the previous month. Throughout the year of 20 17, Pulse has been ranked first in the second-level field of business social application, and its ranking has also steadily increased since the second half of 20 17 in the first-level field of social communication and business office. According to the official release of Pulse, in 20 17 years, Pulse has achieved a five-fold increase in income and monthly life of users, and the total number of users has reached 30 million, and it is still accelerating.

Changes in the scale of active users of Pulse APP in 20 17 years. According to iResearch data, as of March 20 18, the monthly pulse heat nearly doubled compared with February 20 17. In April, 20 18, the monthly number of independent equipment reached 9.87 million units, up 9% year-on-year, and the monthly total effective hours reached 5.6 million hours, down 1.8% year-on-year.

? LinkedIn: international layout. As of May 20 16, the number of LinkedIn users in China exceeded 20 million; As of May 20 18, the number of LinkedIn users worldwide exceeded 562 million. According to iResearch data, the active penetration rate of LinkedIn in April 2065438+2008 was 2.9 1%, and the average opening times were 106.67. The number of independent devices per month was 2.27 million, down 6.7% year-on-year, and the total effective time per month was 3.03 million hours, down 9.6% year-on-year (only relevant data of China market are shown here).

? Pulse: Young and middle-aged professionals in major cities of China &; In the future, there will be no obvious gender and geographical differences. The gender ratio of users is about 55:45, most users are 25-35 years old, and most cities are first-and second-tier cities. It can be seen that most of them are young people and senior intellectuals who can keep up with the development trend of the times. The following is the population distribution of Pulse APP shown by iResearch data in April 2065438+2008:

? LinkedIn: In the international market, there is no obvious gender difference between middle and high-end professionals and those who care about the workplace in first-and second-tier cities in China market. The age distribution is mostly under 35 years old, and the sex ratio is close to 54:46, which is mostly distributed in developed cities along the eastern coast. The following is the population distribution of LinkedIn APP in China according to iResearch data in April 2065438+2008:

? According to the crowd distribution map of the above two apps, it can be seen that the gender ratio of the two apps is not much different;

? In terms of age distribution, the pulse users are relatively scattered, mainly concentrated in 3 1~35 years old, among which people over 36 also occupy a certain weight in the pulse population distribution, and LinkedIn users are mainly concentrated in the age group of no more than 35 years old, which may be related to the international positioning of LinkedIn. Most users are high intellectuals and are more likely to accept foreign cultures and the concept of continuous learning.

? From the perspective of regional distribution, they are all concentrated in the central and eastern regions of China, but the order is different. LinkedIn is mostly distributed in the southeast coastal areas, mostly concentrated in relatively developed coastal cities and high-quality talent gathering areas in China; The pulse condition is relatively uniform in other areas except Guangdong, Shandong and Jiangsu, with no obvious difference.

? Pulse: Brand positioning-China's leading real-name workplace social platform, "Workplace social APP for finding work contacts". Both the mobile terminal and the PC terminal are developed, but the mobile terminal service is the main service, providing mobile workplace social services. Pulse is used to get through the five relationships of "colleagues, classmates, fellow villagers, friends at the same school and family", and to provide professionals with functions such as expanding their contacts, shaping their professional image, knowing everything about the workplace, applying for a job and communicating efficiently, so as to eliminate obstacles in business communication and enhance business mutual trust.

? LinkedIn: brand positioning-a world-renowned workplace social networking and recruitment platform, mobile phone registration can get high-quality contacts with one click, "meet better yourself on LinkedIn". LinkedIn has more than 500 million users worldwide, including 32 million members in China market. LinkedIn is used to connect professionals around the world, providing users with more career opportunities at home and abroad, and is more inclined to recruit high-end talents. LinkedIn was originally developed as a PC and positioned as a global professional social networking site. On February 25th, 20 14, LinkedIn launched a Chinese internal testing website with the Chinese name "LinkedIn". With the development of mobile terminals and mobile networks, LinkedIn began to lay out mobile terminals. However, the China version of LinkedIn (20 15 12) went online later than the pulse (20 13 12). LinkedIn is committed to helping professionals around the world build their professional image, gain business insight, expand their professional contacts and find more career opportunities.

? Pulse: Middle-and high-end professionals in China market and people about to enter the workplace, such as employees and college students, do not strictly distinguish between gender and geographical distribution. Pulse's future goal is to cover white-collar workers in the workplace all over the country. The target population is mostly concentrated in the first-and second-tier cities with relatively developed economy, numerous universities and abundant talents in the central and eastern regions. Although the proportion of registered men and women tends to be similar, according to the data of Guan Yi Qian Fan, the number of economically active men far exceeds that of women.

? LinkedIn: middle and high-end professionals in the world. The main target groups of LinkedIn in China market are middle and high-end people in the workplace and college students, and there is no obvious gender difference. However, because LinkedIn originated from abroad, before entering the China market, most domestic users were employees of foreign companies, returnees and executives of internationally renowned enterprises. At the same time, because of its profound western cultural atmosphere, LinkedIn is regarded as a social job-hunting platform for high-end workplaces, with a "tall" style. Based on the characteristics of its international products, the target users of China market are mostly economically developed cities in the eastern coastal areas, supplemented by many relatively developed cities in the central and eastern regions of universities.

? As can be seen from the above figure, pulse has four main parts and LinkedIn has five main parts, but the main functions are concentrated in the first three or four parts. As can be seen from the above figure, the functional structure of LinkedIn is clearer and simpler, so that users can see it at a glance, while some functions of the pulse need users to explore and discover step by step.

Pulse:

LinkedIn:

? As can be seen from the registration process of the above two apps, the registration process of the pulse is relatively simple and easy.

? In terms of account privacy and security:

(1) Pulse personal address book must be uploaded, otherwise it can't be used, which makes users feel uncomfortable about illegally obtaining user information. At the same time, Pulse will also send "xxx, you were rated as' XXX' by your former colleagues ..." and other information to unregistered users according to the mobile phone address book information of registered users, which will easily make users feel that the information is leaked. Of course, different people have different feelings about the same message, but according to app store's evaluation, most of them are negative comments and need to be carefully considered.

? On the other hand, it is relatively difficult to find the account cancellation function, but the user information can be deleted after three days of applying for account cancellation, but the mobile phone users who have previously registered and cancelled cannot register for the second time, which means that users need to change their mobile phone number to register again. In this regard, if users don't have to use it, they may not buy a new mobile phone number to re-register.

? (2) LinkedIn registration can only be used for work or student information, and you can skip the steps of importing email contacts and mobile phone address books. LinkedIn originated in the United States, and privacy protection abroad is very important. Therefore, LinkedIn will not easily send invitations to unregistered users with user names, which is better than pulse. In addition, the cancellation account of LinkedIn is relatively easy to find, and the email phone can be registered twice or even multiple times. However, there is a disadvantage that after applying for cancellation, the user's information will remain on LinkedIn platform for about two weeks before it will be cleared. I don't know why it takes two weeks to delete user information data.

Table showing the core functions of two apps

? As can be seen from the above table:

? 1, the core function of the pulse mainly has three parts:

? 1) social:

? (1) Real-name social networking: Making friends, discovering and applying for a job are all within the scope of real-name social networking. Users can view comments, post real-name topics and communicate with friends.

? (2) Anonymous communication: it is its most personalized function. This function has both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it can let more people know about the culture and working environment of a company, and it is also a place for employees to release pressure and spit out dissatisfaction. However, excessive spitting or even malicious dissemination of bad information can easily damage the company's image and bring adverse effects to the company. This is a point that should be paid attention to in the future development of pulse. Be sure to avoid becoming a distribution center for gossip and lose the orientation of expanding workplace contacts.

2) networking:

? (1) Network expansion: contacts in the address book are automatically added, and contacts who may know each other in the same industry, the same region, alumni, etc. Also recommended.

? (2) Job Recruitment: The platform will provide corresponding job recommendation according to the industry and personal information concerned by users. Users can also search for positions and companies themselves, and the background will record users' historical searches, thus making intelligent job recommendation and job invitation.

? (3) Pulse Class: This function of Pulse puts online courses into it, and provides some job seekers with information such as job-seeking course recommendation and course discount. Users can purchase related courses directly on Pulse and fill in their own knowledge.

? 3) Professional image: mainly the improvement of personal data. Through the improvement of data and related privacy settings, users can be easily searched by employers, thus gaining more opportunities for internal promotion.

? 2. The core functions of LinkedIn mainly include four parts:

? 1) social

? (1) Workplace News: Users can also send photos, articles and other information themselves when they find the latest news in the workplace, and view, comment and share the news of their friends.

? (2) Message notification: The original intention of LinkedIn is to build a platform for people to communicate with each other through email contacts. With the development of the times, the platform is constantly optimizing products. Contacts can be imported in a variety of ways (e-mail contacts, address book), not only for private message notification, but also for work recommendation and required reading recommendation, with more and more perfect functions.

? 2) occupation:

? (1) Job Discovery: LinkedIn will display related jobs according to the industry and search history that users pay attention to.

? (2) Work experience: At the same time, there will be work experience discussions similar to anonymous communication function, but mainly real-name discussions, with relatively few anonymous topics, which has a lot to do with LinkedIn's original thinking. Americans' concept is freedom of speech, so they can ignore other people's opinions and mostly separate "personal grievances" from work.

? 3) Network expansion:

? Guess what: LinkedIn can skip the import of email contacts and address books, so the platform will automatically push some people who are similar to users' personal information, and users can expand their contacts in this way.

? 4) Professional image: It is also the promotion of personal data and related privacy settings. By improving the professional files, you can directly submit resumes through job recommendation, and improve the competitive advantage of users in professional files.

? The functions of the product are non-core functions except core functions, such as:

? Pulse: Non-core functions are membership center and wallet.

? Member Center: Generally, there will be no big changes in the short term, and the influence of users will be enhanced mainly by paying fees.

? Wallet: Mainly used to buy pulse products, membership rights and JD.COM products. Personally, as far as its current development stage is concerned, the main purpose of wallet function is to provide advertisements and expand its influence.

? LinkedIn: Non-core functions are advertising and LinkedIn rewards.

? Advertising: it is the key to the development of an APP, but this function of LinkedIn can be turned off by users, which will be better for the user experience, but from a business perspective, LinkedIn's revenue may be reduced;

? LinkedIn Award: Generally speaking, users may not pay attention to this. Most of the rewards are personalized display functions on LinkedIn, which may not be enough to attract users' attention and get rewards for completing tasks.

Characteristic function display table of two applications

? The functions of the two apps have been introduced separately. The table only shows some small functions of the two apps that are different from each other's products and have the characteristics of this product.

? Pulse interface:

? LinkedIn interface:

? As can be seen from the interface comparison diagram of the above two apps:

? The design style of the pulse is fashionable, and the colors are more diversified. The color icons on the white background make the overall interface brighter, the effect tends to be flat, the content is more humorous, the distance between users is easy to narrow, the layout is diversified, the layout functions are clear, and the overall design is "approachable";

? LinkedIn's style is mainly business, with white and blue as the theme colors. The content belongs to the combination of Chinese and English, international, more official function display, reflecting the "high-end business model." The layout is concise, the function introduction is clear, and the overall interface design tends to be official, commercial and high-end.

? 1. The main functions of these two apps are as follows:

? Pulse:

? (1) Dynamic posting and comments+anonymous communication: let more people know about the company's culture and atmosphere. Enterprises can use topic discussion to promote their own enterprises, expand their influence, and at the same time let more users participate in the discussion and increase interaction.

? (2) Job Recruitment: When a user searches for a company or a position, the pulse will automatically show the employees in the company who can help him push, so that the user can feel more benefits brought by the platform in job hunting, seeking cooperation and expanding contacts.

? (3) Expanding contacts: As the main part of the content, job recruitment is one of the key channels for users to push inward and learn more information.

? LinkedIn:

? Career dynamics and communication: there are both Chinese and English, but most of them are in English, mainly the dynamics released by some industry giants, columnists and experienced users, as well as the global hot news information pushed by the platform.

Job recommendation: Because users can skip the import of address book and email contacts, LinkedIn background can't collect user-related information well, and only make job recommendation based on personal information provided by users, resulting in inaccurate job recommendation. Fortunately, products are constantly optimized and improved according to users' search preferences, thus achieving relatively accurate job recommendation.

Alumni and peer recommendation: According to the information provided by users, it is recommended to add friends.

? 2. The processes of the main core functions of different apps are also different:

? Job recommendation and industry information are more based on the user's address book information, industry concerns and the collection and collation of user privacy information. , conduct big data analysis to achieve accurate recommendation of content;

? LinkedIn address book import can be skipped. Content recommendation is mostly pushed by the platform according to hot events. Job recommendation and work experience are mainly pushed according to users' concerns and file settings, and the content is relatively inaccurate.

? 3. Different applications provide different user experiences:

? Generally speaking, the content of Pulse is accurate, but the collection of user data is easily unacceptable to users. Although the user's data is guaranteed not to be leaked, the official will actively send information to unregistered users according to the address book information of registered users. Isn't this information disclosure to non-pulse users?

? LinkedIn's content push can't be as accurate as the pulse, but LinkedIn has done a relatively good job in protecting users' privacy. Higher-end content push can easily give users a sense of distance. Although it maintains its high-end workplace style, it is not conducive to long-term development. After all, there are more middle and lower-level professionals. ?

? These two applications have occupied a large share in the China market, but their operational priorities are different:

? 1, pulse:

? Headline article push: update workplace information in real time, and users can learn more about the industry by reading articles.

? Anonymous community topic maintenance: Frequent topic interaction, comments and likes make users have a sense of topic identity and narrow their distance. However, community maintenance needs to be strengthened to avoid too many negative factors.

? Network expansion and job recommendation: with the help of data acquisition system, build user portraits, accurately locate users and achieve accurate push.

? 2. LinkedIn:

? Hot topic push: workplace information is fully pushed, shared by big coffee, and users can view, comment and forward it.

? Experience community sharing: most of the work experience and hot topics are pushed by some world-renowned companies, so that users can learn more about the relevant work information and experience of multinational companies and world-renowned companies. Users can also add their own internship experience to enhance the interaction between users, but the sharing community is still relatively small.

? According to the above product functions and experience analysis, both apps have shortcomings:

? 1, pulse:

? (1) Address book uploading problem

? 1) You can't use the pulse without uploading. The biggest problem with Pulse is the step of uploading the address book. When users use it for the first time, they often choose not to upload this step, but if they don't upload it, they will directly exit the pulse platform, which means that uploading the address book is an unnecessary stage, otherwise they will not be able to use Pulse. Personally, I think that the first time I use it, I don't trust the pulse enough, which will make people feel insecure and have a feeling of exchanging personal information for workplace information.

? 2) Monitor the mobile phone address book in real time. In addition, there is another problem about the address book, that is, whenever a user newly saves a mobile phone contact, logging in again will remind the user to update the address book, add more contacts, and even give the user a feeling of being monitored at all times, which will reduce the user's satisfaction.

? 3) The original contact is deleted but still exists in the pulse, that is, it cannot be deleted after friends pay attention. The third question about the address book is that after the address book is updated, the original user has been deleted in the existing address book, but it will still remain on the pulse platform and cannot be deleted.

? (2) cancel the account. Although Pulse has opened the account cancellation function, it is generally difficult to find the account cancellation function. Another problem is that the mobile phone number cannot be registered twice. In contrast, LinkedIn's experience will be much better. Its account can also be cancelled, but once the user wants to use it again, he can still register with the original mobile phone number.

? 2. LinkedIn:

? (1) localization. The biggest problem with LinkedIn is that localization is not thorough enough. Although Red Rabbit, a workplace social platform focusing on the China market, was quickly launched, its positioning was somewhat awkward between ordinary social platforms and LinkedIn. So far, the market share of Red Rabbit in China is not as big as LinkedIn. In the China version of LinkedIn, most of the workplace trends are in English, and most of the big coffee recommendations come from abroad, while big coffee is rare in China.

? (2) The positioning of users' needs is not clear, and accurate recommendation cannot be made. Because the uploading of LinkedIn contacts can be skipped, the positioning of user needs is not clear, and some positions and companies that do not match user needs are often recommended. In the long run, it is easy for users to lose interest in search.

? According to the problem analysis, I put forward some feasible suggestions:

? 1, pulse:

? (1) Give users information security. The address book uploading function can be necessary, because it is the key to accurately locate the pulse, but the pulse platform must provide users with security before uploading the address book, which can be a privacy security agreement or other ways to reassure users on the platform; When updating the address book, there may be a mechanism to ask whether to delete the contacts that were kept before but not in the updated address book, so that users can choose whether to keep them. However, in terms of contacts, Pulse is gradually improving this service, that is, in the "Me" page, "Manage Contacts" in the "Privacy Policy" can delete existing contacts. However, if the user is not familiar with the pulse, this function may not be found. Therefore, Manage Contacts can be listed on the Network Services page. At the same time, on the basis of "deleting selected contacts", the function of "importing new contacts" is added, and the initiative of expanding contacts is given to users.

? (2) The function of account cancellation is clear. Try to display the account cancellation function on the personal center page to avoid the first-time users losing confidence in the product because they can't find the account cancellation function. After canceling the account, we should also try to avoid the problem that the account cannot be registered twice. Some people may have all their contacts in the address book, or accidentally cancel their accounts. As a result, users have to buy a new mobile phone number to save their contacts, which reduces their satisfaction.

? 2. LinkedIn:

? (1) Localization can combine the advantages of Red Rabbit and LinkedIn, strengthen China version of LinkedIn, recommend as much information about China as possible, or add language selection function, so that users can choose to use China version of LinkedIn or international version of LinkedIn. Recommend big coffee, mainly from China, supplemented by foreign big coffee.

? (2) Detailed job requirements and industry concerns. More detailed job requirement setting function has been added to recommend related companies and positions according to the user's settings. At the same time, users' search preferences are collected, and then users' needs are analyzed to optimize the recommendation function.

? The above is my analysis of the product functions and experience of the two apps. Welcome to criticize and correct me.