Author | Wang Banxian
Just as water is the source of life, the power that drives micro-short dramas to start from scratch all the way and grow into a content track is innovation.
From the fragmented creation of grassroots users, to the introduction of IP adaptation scripts, to the participation of interactive technology, and then to the joining of well-known actors, every step is subverting the past market and users' cognition of micro-short dramas.
Among them, the major platforms have exerted their own strength, with an open and inclusive creative ecology, hundreds of millions of encouragement policies, and a sound and sound accounting system.
On this basis, Tencent Online Video has poured more power into the leadership of innovative content, such as the first live-action comic adaptation of "Psychic Princess", the first interactive micro-drama "Moyu Xuanqi", and then to the "Datang Snack Goods" that set a record for the highest score.
In this way, under the joint innovation of creators and platforms, after two years of blindfolded running, micro-short dramas have been in the era of the masses and heads, and the most significant feature is that the production is becoming more and more sophisticated, the volume of individual works is getting louder and louder, and the micro-short drama companies can also obtain sustained benefits.
This moment is especially important for creators who want to card slot tracks.
Yesterday, Entertainment Capital was invited to participate in the Tencent Online Video Mini-Drama Private Exchange, and in this open communication environment, I deeply felt the desire of practitioners to make more good content.
Under the guidance of the vision of "making content better", Tencent Online Video has always adhered to art leadership and technological innovation.
Li La, deputy general manager of Tencent's online video platform operation department, also expressed his attitude to all creators: "We must not let everyone step on the pit on the basis of positive values, and guide the industry to make more extremely interesting and surprising micro-short drama products." ”
At this meeting, what kind of signal did Tencent online video release, which deserves the attention of the whole industry?
"Before I came, I thought this would be a formality, but I didn't expect the content of the conversation to be so substantive." At this private exchange, the practitioners attending the meeting issued such an exclamation.
What has not been false has always been the style of Tencent's online video, not just this exchange meeting, from the past achievements, the platform from the rise of micro-short dramas, it has joined the battle, all the way to become an industry leader with innovative content.
For example, in 2019, when the market is still full of shoddy grassroots works, Tencent Weishi has introduced the IP comic adaptation "Psychic Princess" for the field of micro-short dramas, opening up the horizons of practitioners with professional production level and IP influence.
In the first year of 2020, the emergence of the first interactive micro-drama "Moyu Xuanqi" has made the market realize that the integration of interactive technology and micro-short drama can bring a new and strange audio-visual experience. Then to the "Dream Order" starring first-line film and television actor He Hongshan, "Datang Snack Goods" with a sub-account amount of more than 13 million, each step is beyond the current imagination.
Tencent's online video innovation aims to lead the industry.
"There is an unwritten rule in our studio's self-made micro-shorts, that is, not to repeat ourselves, and when we explore a model, we will pass on the methodology to the industry to reduce the risk and threshold for everyone." Li La is very sincere: "We don't want everyone to step on the pit, we want to try to guide everyone to do better content." ”
Li La, deputy general manager of Tencent's online video platform operation department
However, innovation is not a aimless exploration, but requires some directions and methods.
On the basis of past innovations, Tencent Online Video has a deeper understanding of the speed of iterative content of micro-short dramas, and constantly thinks forward-looking and multi-dimensional thinking about how to develop the innovation of micro-short dramas.
First of all, in terms of content, the volume and cycle of micro-short dramas allow it to try more open and diverse themes, and in the massive themes, the new expression of traditional culture is more worth exploring.
From the traditional cultural programs of Henan Satellite TV to the "Datang Snack Goods" backed by the history and culture of Shaanxi, which has been loved by users, it shows that the current young users' preference for traditional culture is no less than that of popular culture.
In this regard, Tencent Online Video has led the exploration of traditional culture + popular themes, for example, the "Washe Trilogy" presents puppet plays, sumo wrestling and other projects in intangible cultural heritage through "infinite streaming".
Li Haiying, founder of Tianhai Media Group, also shared the origin of the story of the first part of the "Washe Trilogy": "The female general of the Song Dynasty, Mu Guiying, was born as a female bandit, and the origin of her elite soldiers is the folk artist of Washe. ”
In addition to content, form is equally important for micro-short dramas. Technological innovation will promote formal changes and bring new experiences to the audience, just like the interactive micro-drama "Moyu Xuanqi".
"Nowadays, in addition to watching the content, the audience prefers to read reviews, likes to chat, and likes to interact outside the plot." At the meeting, Cao Rui, head of Galaxy Studio in tencent's online video platform operation department, imagined the interactive form that future micro-short dramas can achieve. Future mini-dramas may not only provide the function of watching, but also carry more communication, social, and even game functions.
Cao Rui, head of Galaxy Studio, Operation Department of Tencent's online video platform
In addition to interaction, in order to reduce the cost of micro-short dramas and meet the imagination of Pegasus Starry Sky, Tencent Online Video is also promoting the virtual shooting technology of "shed + full screen".
When the technical logic runs through, its reusability may lead to more possibilities than content patterns.
The last innovation direction lies in the user experience, micro-short dramas are close to the user's creative methods, making it more likely to be combined with the latest entertainment consumption experience, such as script killing. At present, "Gong Wangfu" developed by Tencent Online Video is a content product that combines online and offline, and users can watch short dramas or experience the content of episodes.
Content, technology, experience, here, we can better understand Tencent online video in the micro-short drama innovation of many pioneering, then go back a step, the basis of innovation, is the result of the continuation of the platform's strategy for many years.
In June this year, the integrated Tencent Online Video for the first time expounded the overall idea of creating a long-term, medium-, and short video ecosystem, and set the tone for the symbiosis and common prosperity of the platform long and short video at the Tencent Online Video Creators Ecological Conference.
This shows that the importance of micro-short dramas within the platform has been mentioned in a position that cannot be ignored. This kind of strong style, close to users, fast cycle of products in the platform to help the platform to obtain new users and new business value, has an immeasurable prospects.
Therefore, on the basis of the platform strategy, the micro-short drama products based on the overall content ecology of Tencent online video are also undergoing a new layout, and what really makes Tencent online video micro-short drama stand out from a number of long and short video platforms is the industry's first scheduling strategy.
At the 2022 Tencent Online Video V Vision Conference, the platform announced its massive reserves in micro-short drama content, and it is necessary to plan different theme products quarterly, which is divided into comedy season, national style season, interactive season, hero season, suspense season, science fiction season, blood season, etc. to provide users with more diversified good content.
Prior to this, the micro-short drama market has actually been facing the problem of homogenization, and practitioners have also deeply felt: "When we cooperate with other platforms, we feel that regardless of content or rhythm, there is a bit of homogenization, and we hope that different types of micro-short dramas can find different audiences, rather than only being placed in a pool for comparison." ”
Under Tencent's strategy of scheduling online videos in seasons, creators will have more courage to try themes that are rarely involved in micro-short dramas.
The director of "Roll, Pinion" also expressed his creative tendency to new content on the spot: "Micro-short dramas are not necessarily fast-paced and strongly reversed, and the kind of content that accompanies the whole year, based on healing and freshness, is there also a chance." ”
In the face of the creator's question, Cao Rui gave a positive reply: "We will do more work to help these new episodes do it in the future, don't think that users always watch overseas dramas, we really have such episodes to provide, users will naturally come." ”
The strategy of season-by-season scheduling throughout the year is not only at the content level, but also at the marketing level, Tencent Online Video will help micro-short dramas get centralized exposure in the form of quarterly content tags, and when a wave of good works with the same theme are online, the agglomeration effect can help platforms and creators find the most suitable user groups.
From the perspective of the platform, "season-by-season broadcasting" can also continue to cultivate users' viewing habits and form stickiness. Because the current micro-short drama products have not entered the field of vision of widely used users, when users enter the theater because of isolated works, they have the opportunity to precipitate. When "Datang Snacks" was broadcast on the platform, it attracted a large number of audiences who had not previously watched the micro-short drama.
For creators, the season schedule also finds a content target for them, and can create according to the creator's own good direction, without having to follow the popular categories in the market.
"'Datang Snacks' is rooted in Xi'an, Shaanxi, which is a place with a very thick cultural atmosphere, and our group is in Xi'an, which has a unique advantage." Cheng Hui, deputy general manager of Shaanxi Wentou Film and Television Yida, the producer of "Datang Snack Goods", said at the scene.
The stable strategic layout allows creators to trust the platform and believe in Tencent Online Video's determination to do a good job in micro-short dramas, and the next thing to be solved is the sustainable business model problem.
From the beginning of its birth, the product of micro-short drama has decided that its supporting business model is To C, which must come from users and go to users.
But in the past, in the process of entertainment capital and practitioners chatting, they generally revealed their worries, "Can micro-short dramas feed the company?" ”
When the sub-account amount of 13 million yuan + of "Datang Snack Goods" was announced, such doubts in the industry have become less and less frequent. Because Tencent's online video allows creators to see that doing micro-short dramas can not only survive, but also live very well.
It is no accident that the highest amount of account in the history of micro-short dramas appears in Tencent's online video. Under years of operation, the platform has accumulated the highest user water level in the long video platform, and the huge number of users can enable micro-short dramas to screen out the most suitable and willing audiences.
And in terms of cooperation mechanism, Tencent Online Video always has the greatest respect for creators, "We will not fail to live up to any good content creation, and we will not fail everyone." Li La emphasized this sentence.
The creators are more touched by this, and Cang Jiang, founder of Brain Tiangong, said: "The team of Tencent Online Video is very respectful and tolerant of us, and it is very professional, which can give us more perspective and inspiration. "For small teams, choosing a platform that really does things is more important than listening to the concept.
But the most important thing is to continuously improve the cooperation strategy. On the private exchange, Cao Rui once again mentioned the double upgrade of sub-account income and commercial income, and clarified the cooperation model of "member sub-account income + advertising sub-account income + single-point payment income + self-investment sub-account income".
Straightforward statements may not allow practitioners to get a clear concept, just say that in the share of independent investment revenue, partners can get up to 90% of the share, which is very rare in all platforms.
It also responded to the words that Li La said: "Our platform account sharing policy is worthy of our conscience, and I hope that everyone is good, which is really good." "We are willing to continue to invest manpower, time and resources, as a strong backing for creators, and work with everyone to achieve brilliance and brilliance on the micro-short drama track."
This has created Tencent Online Video's achievements in the micro-short drama account, "Datang Snack Goods" 13 million, "Give You My Exclusive Love" 9 million, and these amounts are still rising, creating new benchmark cases.
Driven by the platform, the industry has now bid farewell to self-generation and moved towards a sustainable direction, reasonable sub-account revenue prompts creators to continuously invest in content, and good works will continue to push up the amount of sub-accounts, which is a benign positive cycle.
From Tencent's online video support for innovation, to the adjustment of the scheduling strategy, to the continuous rise of the accounting policy, it can be seen that the layout of the platform in the field of micro-short dramas has been leading and comprehensive, and has the ability to achieve and improve.
At the end of the private exchange, when the host announced the end, the creators were still in their seats. Perhaps everyone is looking forward to the user's extensive understanding of micro-short dramas, which can be opened from Tencent online video.