Text/Meng Qian
"On the top, I don't know what I'm watching, but it's very uncomfortable if I don't read it", many netizens left a message for Zhang.
Professional shooting techniques, with a sense of editing rhythm, exquisitely show the rough bachelor life in the countryside. In the last three months of this year, Mr. Zhang successfully won 16 million fans with the "earthy taste" video in the northeast countryside.
After Li Ziqi and Ding Zhen, Zhang became the third "top stream" in the countryside, but his way of going out of the circle was not much the same as the first two. The shots of cats and dogs, raising chickens and feeding geese and eating meat and drinking wine from the same village are considered daily, and even less advanced content such as going to the toilet, wearing socks and pulling curtains has attracted the attention of netizens. Mr. Zhang told the rural life of tuweier in a high-level way that people had never thought of.
After Zhang's explosion, some people questioned that he had a team behind him, saying that he smeared the countryside, the photos were dirty and messy, and even felt that he might "overturn", and it is difficult to say how much space for the commercial development of Zhang students will be in the future. But lately he's started picking up ads. After the first step of realization, it remains to be seen whether Mr. Zhang is short-lived or can grow red.
"Strange" earthy life
"Rough version of Li Ziqi", this is the word that has been most commented on the Internet recently.
Li Ziqi's label is pastoral style, and Zhang is also a "pastoral style", but the painting style and personality of the two are far from each other, one is a woman with an ancient temperament, and the other is a rural bachelor who lives roughly.
Screenshots of some of Mr. Zhang's works
IP expert Chen Gray pointed out that if Li Ziqi is the "wind and grace", then Zhang is the "wind" of "wind and grace", Li Ziqi is not a real countryside, it is elegant and cultured, and the countryside after being beautified, Zhang ziqi represents the popular, folk customs, and is familiar with the countryside of the general public.
What the two have in common is professionalism. Li Ziqi can shoot 200 pieces of material for a ramen shot, and Zhang's high-frequency quick cut has also become a highlight. According to the statistics of a blogger in Douyin, Mr. Zhang contains nearly 200 sub-shots per video on average, and the average length of each shot is 2.27 seconds.
During the field visit of the media, Mr. Zhang demonstrated how to shoot and edit videos on the spot, and said that he had the ability to make the camera look better. Zhang also specially updated a video to personally restore the shooting process and show how to shoot different shots with mobile phone brackets of different lengths... Short video practitioners told China News Weekly that the first reaction after seeing the video was "professional".
Chen Gray told China News Weekly that Zhang's method of creating content is very professional, and the content material he shows is particularly real and earthy, and the contrast between the two will form a different experience and give the possibility of account development.
In Zhang's video, an old rural house with a history of more than 40 years has become the core material for shooting, cooking in this house, watching old-fashioned television sets, and gathering with friends in the village to drink. This kind of grounded content makes people feel "real", and many people feel decompressed after watching it and express envy.
"Mr. Zhang's videos give people a different experience, in the state of excessive flooding of pan-entertainment content, rural themes and 'clean' videos, it is easy to bring unique visual impact and emotional stimulation in positioning." He has a rustic aesthetic and a higher definition of restoration, and there are not many videos of the same kind, which is particularly easy to form a sense of substitution," Zhang Shule, an Internet analyst, told China Newsweek.
However, Zhang, who exploded, was successively named by the fire and traffic police. In the video he took, the relevant departments pointed out that the charred plug board had fire hazards, and the use of agricultural tricycles was also involved in violations, and some media commented that this was a friendly reminder and a hope for the traffic anchor to do a good job. In fact, many netizens also said that Zhang took pictures of the dirty and messy side of the countryside, and even "smeared the countryside".
In this regard, Professor Kong Xiangzhi of the College of Agriculture and Rural Development of Chinese Min University told China News Weekly: "Now that China's urbanization rate has reached 60%, many young people in cities actually do not know what the real countryside is like, showing the real life in the countryside is not a bad thing, the countryside also has more than a good side, to engage in rural revitalization, is to govern the countryside well." ”
Can 16 million followers lie and earn?
According to the third-party platform, Zhang's advertising quotation on the official platform of Douyin has reached 500,000. In the exchange with China News Weekly, Zhang has always stressed that although the account has been done, but now he has not earned a penny, he does not reject receiving advertisements and live streaming, or to provide better content as the priority.
Just yesterday, in a video updated by Zhang, he has received an advertisement, and this advertisement still has more than one million likes, and even many people feel that he has finally "opened". When Mr. Zhang embarked on the road of realization, how much space did he have for money?
In Chen Gray's view, Zhang has become a phenomenon-level event, entering the top pop column in a short period of time, and his content uniqueness and growth rate determine that his fans will sooner or later exceed 20 or 30 million. According to the third-party platform, in the past week, Zhang ranked first in the Douyin fan list, increasing by more than 5 million fans, and the second-ranked account rose by only more than one million fans.
"The monetization method of Zhang is the monetization method of Internet celebrities, and some advertising implants plus certain sales are solved." It's not a big problem for him to make money, at least it can make life better, and his cost is not high, so the price-performance ratio will be very high." Chen Gray added that he should indeed be careful, and it is more common to roll over such as live streaming with goods.
Zhang Shule believes that at present, Zhang students are easy to give people a sense of hard implantation through content. But there are many ways to monetize, similar to the model of Zhang Classmate, only by the title and end of the film patch can also get a good income. Zhang Shule further analyzed China News Weekly, "Once the content is shaped in order to monetize, the original ecological record is easy to change the flavor and become a consumer fan."
As we all know, Li Ziqi does not bring goods through live broadcasting. In Li Ziqi's video, it is a pure pastoral pastoral enjoyment: "Lanzhou beef noodles", "swing sofa bed" and "peach blossom wine", etc., but now that she has not updated for five months, her dispute with the MCN agency behind the micro-concept seems to have embarked on an irreconcilable road, which also makes countless people think about what is the best way to monetize Internet celebrities. According to public reports, the income of li ziqi snail powder and other related brands li ziqi has a share of accounts with institutions, but in the end, it is still due to equity and other issues that make the two sides turn against each other.
Kong Xiangzhi pointed out that the business model of these rural bloggers is still groping, and they can connect urban consumers with agricultural products through information, including live streaming with goods, etc. If they want to become bigger in the later stage, they are likely to need to borrow capital.
Cui Lili, a researcher at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, told China News Weekly that the business model of Internet celebrities is divided into two stages, one is drainage, the other is monetization, Zhang has achieved the first stage, and the next realization is very technical and exquisite. "Like Li Ziqi, Zhang students rely purely on content to win, and the interaction or social link between traffic is not enough, monetization is not so easy, advertising needs to be more public welfare and social value." Doing live streaming with goods requires him to communicate personally, and also needs to combine his content scenes, but the probability of overturning without a professional team is indeed very large. ”
"It's best to be able to hold your breath and attract people who have feelings and trust each other to work with, but it's very difficult." Cui Lili said that capital often wants to make quick money, which often hurts the content.
Zhang told China News Weekly very directly that he would not accept investment, did not want to amplify the commercialization of his body, and did not want to let people be destroyed. However, he is also very clear that "professional people do professional things". If there is a plan for carrying goods in the future, it is bound to involve a series of complex and professional issues such as supply chains. At that time, I am afraid that it will be the real test for Mr. Zhang.
Where is the next Student Zhang?
Business monetization is only a difficult problem, as Zhang students have begun to become the object of learning and imitation, especially many network anchors come to study, where is the next Student Zhang? How long can Zhang be on fire?
Public data shows that the domestic mobile Internet sinking market user scale of more than 600 million, and short video on the user time squeeze further intensified, in March this year, short video per capita single day use time of 125 minutes, 27 minutes higher than long video. But at the same time, the growth rate of short video users is slowing down, as of June 2021, the scale of short video users in China reached 888 million, an increase of 14 million over December 2020, and an increase of about 60 million in the previous six months.
The wrestling of short video platforms is becoming more and more obvious, especially in the fourth and fifth tier cities and below to accelerate penetration. Zhang's fire in Douyin, rather than the fast hand of the old iron, seems to confirm the intensification of competition. "Douyin is vigorously digging into this kind of new star in the station, and The explosion of Classmate Zhang is inseparable from the traffic given by the platform," an anonymous short video practitioner told China News Weekly.
Since the beginning of this year, Douyin has been increasing the creation of rural themes, and Kuaishou has always been a distribution center for rural users in the sinking market. Unnamed people revealed that on the one hand, the platform responds to the general direction policy of the country, on the other hand, the platform focuses on pushing the flow, and both sides are seizing the sinking market and trying to create a new traffic highland.
In fact, Zhang students have released videos on Kuaishou and video numbers, but there is no sound. This also means that rural themes such as Douyin and Zhang are relatively blank. "To some extent, Douyin has also made an exploration, at least to show that its own platform can also push such content, but it will not affect the large market of Kuaishou," Chen Gray analyzed.
Zhang Shule believes that the content on Kuaishou is now homogenized as a whole, and Zhang is easy to be submerged in Kuaishou due to too many of the same themes, and it is more unusual on Douyin. But this does not mean that Kuaishou can not produce Zhang Classmate, Kuaishou's rural themes are still not exquisite enough, and creators can find differentiation. "Whoever can jump out of the simple pan-entertainment scene and give the public the opportunity to see the accurate content that they are really interested in, such a platform is more rich," Zhang Shule said.
At present, netizens from all over the world are imitating Zhang in their videos, and the number of topics read by Zhang in various places has reached 1.38 billion.
"Now the outbreak of Zhang Students, if you exclude the technical components of lens use and editing, the threshold is actually not high, it is easy to be imitated, and the homogeneous content will soon follow the trend", Zhang Shule added, "If Zhang Students cannot have further in-depth content and iterate, they may gradually be overwhelmed." ”
Kong Xiangzhi believes that there are many rural areas in China, and there are many talents, and now a mobile phone, young and old, can do short videos and live broadcasts, connecting the city and the countryside together. "The content creation in the field of three rural areas is promising, and the innovative model like Zhang Students belongs to the process of exploration, and it will continue to be iterated in the future."
From Li Ziqi to Ding Zhen to Zhang, Zhang Shule said that they have differences in lenses and techniques, but they all have a documentary flavor, real and natural. "In the future short videos, there will be independent production for the sake of feelings and pursuits, and content that does not rely too much on business models and commercial monetization will appear, similar to independent movies and independent games, and the next Student Zhang may be on the road."