Learning from Zhang Yiming's "New Social Product": Dissecting the Full Value Chain of SocialFi's Self-Sustaining Capabilities
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Learning from Zhang Yiming's "New Social Product": Dissecting the Full Value Chain of SocialFi's Self-Sustaining Capabilities
SocialFi projects have a long way to go, emphasizing financial aspects while neglecting social elements.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily
Whether the SocialFi sector can overcome its "growth困境" (growth dilemma) may depend on sufficient validation of the monetization capabilities within the "Fi" component. In our previous article "Has SocialFi Lost Its Narrative? Is There a Future for Crypto Social?", we briefly analyzed key issues currently facing SocialFi projects. To solve these problems, and leveraging the core characteristics and advantages of crypto-native projects, SocialFi initiatives might also need to draw partial inspiration from the development strategies of traditional mobile internet hit applications.
Odaily Planet Daily will dissect both traditional social products and SocialFi projects' "Fi" components in this article, while analyzing the development journey of Lemon 8—a ByteDance-developed app recently gaining traction and often dubbed the "overseas version of Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book)"—to provide actionable insights for players in the SocialFi space.
The "Fi" Chain in Traditional Social Products: From Free Access to Subscriptions, Then Value-Added Services
Beyond the distinct account management systems and login mechanisms that differentiate them from SocialFi apps, traditional social platforms have highly refined "Fi" (financial) chains where every step is precisely designed with specific goals and functional considerations. Below is a breakdown of how these financial models operate in traditional social products:
Paid Products / Subscription Models – Niche Social Apps
In traditional social applications, the "paywall" serves as the first cashflow-generating mechanism.
For niche social apps with limited user bases, charging entry fees or requiring subscriptions acts as a primary filter to distinguish genuine users from fake accounts.
These apps typically serve specific demographics or interest-based communities, such as music lovers, LGBTQ+ groups, or entertainment-focused audiences.
Free Product + Value-Added Services – Gaming-Oriented Social Apps
For most social apps, the "freemium model"—free access combined with premium in-app services—is the preferred revenue strategy.
Early-stage launches usually adopt an invite-only or completely free model to bootstrap growth. Once a critical user base is established, developers introduce in-app purchases—such as extra match attempts, customizable avatars, advanced audience targeting, and socially interactive virtual items—to generate income.
Such apps often incorporate gamified elements like swipe mechanics ("swipe left/right") or sentiment scoring systems to enhance user engagement and retention.
Free Product + Points-Based Incentives – Crowdsourced Social Platforms
Besides value-added services, another category of social apps uses point-based incentive systems to boost user interaction frequency, partnering with B2B enterprises or merchants to monetize activity.
To some extent, current crowdsourced review platforms can be considered a form of social product. Their operational model works as follows: users earn points by checking in at locations or completing certain actions; these points can later be redeemed for discounts, physical goods, or promotional vouchers.
These platforms heavily rely on real-world behavioral interactions, leveraging crowd-sourced evaluation mechanisms to achieve both social connectivity and marketing objectives.
Free Product + Advertising Medium – Entertainment-Focused Social Apps
For many social platforms, entertainment content forms a core component because it attracts attention—the very resource advertisers seek.
Many influencers, KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders), and internet celebrities broadly fall into the category of entertainment creators. Both individuals and platforms benefit financially through ad placements and brand collaborations.
These apps tend to be highly diverse in content. After initial growth phases, they often experience rapid user expansion, laying a solid foundation for attention monetization.
Free Product + E-commerce Monetization – Consumer-Oriented Social Apps
As the saying goes: “All commercial roads lead to e-commerce, and all e-commerce roads lead to live-stream shopping.”
For consumer-centric social apps, e-commerce integration—especially live-stream selling—is among the most efficient, shortest-loop, highest-margin, and most stable monetization models. Platforms can collect fees across multiple touchpoints including advertising, transactions, traffic promotion, and content moderation—a true case of “eating fish from multiple angles.”
These apps maintain close ties with supply chains and cultivate a loyal customer base. Social attributes manifest primarily through product reviews, shared shopping experiences, and community discussions.
Paths to Breakthrough for SocialFi Projects: From Marginal to Mainstream, From Niche to Mass Market
Looking back at past breakout social platforms—Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WeChat, TikTok—they all underwent a transformation from niche to mainstream, from fringe to dominant. This evolution represents an inevitable and necessary challenge for today’s SocialFi projects.
The crux lies in the fact that most current SocialFi initiatives overemphasize the "Fi" while neglecting the "Social." When a project's ultimate goal isn't to facilitate authentic human interaction, build meaningful relationships, or foster lasting social connections—but instead focuses solely on quick wins like "social monetization," quantifying relationships into financial metrics, or commissioning token airdrops based on social graphs—then such a product becomes merely a financial instrument, bearing no real connection to social interaction.
Specifically, if SocialFi projects hope to have a future, they may need to make changes and experiments in the following areas:
Anchoring the Core User Base: Crypto-Natives or Other Niche Communities?
All social products—including SocialFi apps—are fundamentally centered around people, who are the sole source of value.
Thus, the primary question SocialFi projects must answer is: Who exactly is the intended user base? Crypto-natives, or some other niche group?
As previously discussed in our article "Has SocialFi Lost Its Narrative?", defining your target audience as "everyone" effectively means you haven’t clearly defined your target audience at all. This is a strategic failure, not just a tactical oversight.
If targeting crypto users, then the platform should revolve around discussions about crypto markets. If starting from another niche—like Facebook did among Harvard alumni, or TikTok did among artists, dancers, and early adopters—you must identify those communities and say: “Here’s a product made for you—want to try it?”
Offering an Irresistible Reason to Use: Money or Something Else?
After establishing positioning, the next question for SocialFi projects becomes: What makes users choose our platform over traditional social networks? Can we offer an “irresistible reason” to join and stay?
In the past, SocialFi apps could attract users with promises of token airdrops, decentralized governance rights, or niche interests—essentially speculative incentives. But now, amid tightening crypto liquidity and fading wealth-generation hype, the prospect of earning an airdrop via app usage pales in comparison to chasing meme coins or engaging in high-stakes PVP games.
Hence, beyond monetary incentives, SocialFi projects must find other compelling reasons for users to engage, join, and spread virally: Is it uniquely entertaining content? Fresh news and insights? Unusual trends or novel social mechanics?
This is precisely why breakout hits like Lemon 8 initially focus on attracting well-known influencers and KOLs—they are content creators whose presence draws followers and triggers network effects, spreading from one person to many.
Building an Internal Ecosystem of Roles: Who Creates vs. Who Pays?
In most current SocialFi projects, the majority of users act more like “product locusts”—generating spam and low-quality content—while there remains a severe shortage of users willing to pay for high-quality content or information.
Typically, social platforms host three types of relational dynamics: high-tier producers and low-tier producers; producers and consumers; and low-tier producers interacting with mass consumers. High-tier producers create sophisticated content that requires simplification by low-tier producers before reaching general audiences. Consumers can choose between consuming original high-tier content or simplified versions. Only when this dynamic exists can a self-sustaining internal ecosystem emerge.
Therefore, SocialFi platforms must either encourage more low-tier producers to generate easily digestible content—or attract elite high-tier creators whose complex output can be repurposed by intermediaries for broader consumption.
Well-funded projects often resort to paying top creators large sums to onboard, adopting a “go big or go home” strategy. Meanwhile, resource-constrained teams must prioritize deep user understanding and community immersion to gain traction during cold starts.
Conclusion: SocialFi Still Has a Long Way to Go—There’s No Web3 Version of Facebook Yet
To date, the SocialFi space has yet to produce breakout hits comparable to Axie Infinity or STEPN in the GameFi sector, nor have we seen SocialFi projects drawing widespread adoption from celebrities in mainstream culture, sports, or entertainment as certain NFT projects once did.
Most SocialFi projects set their ambitions too narrowly, slicing ever-smaller segments from an already limited pool of active crypto users. As a result, their actual user bases remain extremely niche—lacking both the grassroots campus appeal of early Facebook and the passionate hobbyist communities of interest-driven apps. It's fair to say the SocialFi sector remains far from being validated as successful.
Perhaps more SocialFi projects should consider first building a Web2-style account-based social app, then gradually integrating Web3 wallet logins and decentralized data ownership models—pursuing a “Web 2.5 path” toward SocialFi breakthrough.
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