Liang Xu's ups and downs in 2021

Hello everyone, I am Liang Xu, a former code farmer, and a current entrepreneur.

Time flies, and in a blink of an eye, the end of 2021, I would like to report to you "shareholders" the year of 2021.

Since the official account has been in operation, I will write a year-end summary every year. The first three summaries have been put below for everyone. Everyone will help me slap my face.

2018 year-end summary: Looking back on 2018 and looking forward to 2019
2019 year-end summary: income from sideline business exceeds income from main business, how did I do it?
2020 year-end summary: never expected, Liang Xu also opened

Since its opening in 2018, the official account has been in operation for three and a half years. The development of the public account in the first three years has been advancing smoothly and smoothly. And this year, due to the sudden change in the market, the momentum of development has slowed down.

It is precisely because the development of the official account has encountered some setbacks that forced me to start exploring new development directions, so I discovered a new world! Below I will start a review of several modules of my business.

How much did I earn in 2021?

Let me start with the conclusion that revenue in 2021 will be almost the same as in 2020, and the specific figures will not be disclosed.

The economic downturn in 2021 will be a very difficult year for all walks of life. This year I have met many bosses or entrepreneurs, but it was not easy this year.

The bad environment is superimposed by other well-known factors. The market for official accounts this year is very poor, and the owners of official accounts have not had a good time. Even many official accounts have been suspended and stopped.

Therefore, although the number of readers of my official account has been increasing, due to the decline in business volume, the income has not increased much compared to last year.

Although the environment is like this, no progress is a step backward for me, so I am also trying to adjust my strategy and start to increase some income from other aspects. And these miscellaneous incomes have just filled the loopholes in the decline of the official account.

the public

The official account is my basic disk, and most of my energy this year is still on the operation of the official account.

Previously, a large part of the readers of my official account came from mutual push, but the mutual push experience is very bad for readers, so this year, I changed my strategy and the frequency of mutual push was greatly reduced (at most once a month).

After giving up mutual push, the growth of my official account readers immediately slowed down, and even the official account has a negative growth for a long period of time! At the beginning of the year, the number of readers of my official account was about 14W, but this number has been maintained for 9 months!

The poor market conditions, coupled with the slowdown in growth, and double pressure made me very anxious, and I even became anxious to insomnia at night! You know, my sleep has always been very good, and I basically fall asleep as soon as I lie down!

Please note that I used several exclamation marks in these two paragraphs, which is enough to show how surging my heart is at this time!

So I explored many projects, took some detours, and gradually focused on content creation. After a period of practice, slowly re-entering the right track.

After the National Day, I began to write a lot of originals, submit articles, and distribute them across the Internet. With the short video I made recently, my official account finally turned from negative to positive, and I re-entered the fast lane at a speed visible to the naked eye!

Although this speed is not as good as mutual push, it is great for the reader experience! Therefore, for the reader's experience, I will gradually reduce the mutual push until I give up the mutual push completely.

Short video

At the end of 2019, I started to enter the video field. At that time, I was engaged in Chinese video, which was mainly released on station B. After seven or eight months of operation, fans at station B have also reached 1.7 W.

But in addition to the increase in the number of fans, station B has not brought me good positive feedback, so I stopped. And this stoppage is more than a year.

I have always been optimistic about the video field, but because I didn't think about the business model, I was anxious about the growth of the official account, so I paused my exploration in the video field.

Nevertheless, I never gave up the exploration and research in the video field, and silently paid attention to the dynamics of the video direction, and at the same time asked some video leaders for their operational experience.

After fully understanding the video gameplay, in November, I started to return to the video field again! This time, I started with short videos and distributed the videos to video accounts, Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, Station B, Weibo, YouTube, etc., and published them on the whole network.

My nickname on the entire network is "Programmer Liang Xu", and you are welcome to search and pay attention~

The strategy of video distribution throughout the network is correct. It is often the case that a video is not popular on Douyin, but it is popular in Kuaishou or Xiaohongshu, and the East is not bright and the West is bright!

Friends who come through the short video platform, please clap your hands in the comment area and let me see you!

My videos are all original releases. The planning, copywriting, shooting and editing are all done by myself. So I have been working on video for these two months, I am also very hard... (Yes, I am asking for attention!)

Since my videos are dry and well edited, there are currently several works that have exploded on different platforms. I believe they will get better and better.

Next, short videos are my focus on development, which is the current trend after all. In the future, I will continue to update the topics related to high-quality programmers, and at the same time I will update the Linux series from entry to soil (continue to pay attention!).

live streaming

Starting in May, I basically kept live broadcast once a week, mainly sharing topics related to sideline and programmers, and teaching everyone the methodology and tools for making money.

In addition to short videos, live broadcasting is also the general trend. So next, my development strategy is video + live broadcast, conforming to the trend of the times.

For each live broadcast, I will make sufficient preparations in advance, prepare PPT or mind maps, write verbatim drafts, and take every opportunity seriously. Therefore, every time I have a good reputation in the live broadcast, I welcome everyone to pay attention to my video number, enter my live broadcast room and chat with me.

Good side business

This year I also put a large part of my energy into the operation of the sideline Youdao Knowledge Planet. This planet is jointly operated by me, Peter and Tao. It is currently the only planet in China that is jointly operated by three programmers.

Many big bosses on the planet have been invited to share their side business-related ways to make money, including methodology, project practical experience sharing, project key points, etc., all of which are shared by big bosses who have achieved results on the project.

At the same time, we invited the big guys to take the ball friends to the training camp, including Xianyu, Xiaohongshu, Zhihuhaowu, Douyin, Toutiao, etc. Each project lasted for one month, and there are currently 3 training camps that have achieved remarkable results.

Delivered the most results, and the price is the lowest on the entire network (face-covering expression), so our planet’s reputation has always been very good, ranking in the top 10 active lists several times.

The planet is currently in a state of not making money. It is more of a sentiment, wanting to help more people earn the first pot of gold outside of their sideline business.

Other failure exploration (yes, just to show everyone Liang Xu's failure experience)

The first two years were the last golden period of the programmer's official account. The development was good and the income was fair. All my energy is put on the operation of the official account, and I haven't explored other platforms too much.

(This is also a wake-up call for myself. It is necessary to do self-media to follow the trend and prepare with multiple hands. It cannot satisfy my current results)

The sudden change in the market this year has reduced my income, and I have also been forced to jump out of my comfort zone to unlock more earning possibilities.

Exploring the main flow of gameplay, failed. At the beginning of the year, I started to learn how to play traffic master from a big guy. After a month of exploring, I found that this direction is not suitable for me at all. Because this project requires a lot of funds, the current success rate is very low. The reason why the big guy was able to do it was because he did it early, so he confirmed the sentence: Early is the advantage!

After exploring the good things, the results are not significant. In order to alleviate the anxiety of lower income, I had to start entering the Zhihu Haowu project. Although I know that the bonus period of good things has passed.

After doing it for a month, I can basically make a steady income of about 3,000 to 4,000. I heard from the big guys that with the current market conditions, it would take at least three months or more to achieve more than 10,000 yuan a month.

And this project, in my opinion, is not accumulative, and many of them are "cloud evaluations". I don’t know how to talk about high-commission products, while low-commission products are degraded. So I don’t like this project. I did it for three months. Left and right gave up.

Until now, I still have a passive income of tens of yuan a day, so Zhihu's long tail effect is still very good.

Then they explored the gameplay of Xianyu and Weitooutiao respectively. These projects are also not accumulative, input and output are not proportional, and they are not very helpful to the creation of personal IP, so I gave up and started to concentrate on building projects that can be done for a long time and are cumulative.

Therefore, what I have to do in the future is to build around personal IP, including: public account + Zhihu + video + live broadcast, and no more time wasting.

Write at the end

If one word must be used to describe my 2021, it must be: ups and downs .

Sudden changes in the market → start to go downhill → anxiety → try more realization possibilities → find a new growth method for the official account → short video has a gratifying development momentum → found a new opportunity that suits you

During this year, I was anxious and took detours, but I did not give up. Instead, I kept exploring and tried bravely, and finally found a development direction that suits me.

In the future, I will continue to move in this direction and move forward courageously!

Hello, 2022, I believe this year will be even better!

This article participates in the SegmentFault "2021 Summary" essay , and you are welcome to join us if you are reading.