UP main follows the trend of "exploring the store": eating and broadcasting to earn millions, short video traffic and monetization temptation

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A cappuccino, a piece of cake. Simple food is introduced by Yue Yue (pseudonym) as if it is a top food, and it provokes the impulse of the netizens in front of the camera to punch the card.

As a member of the UP owners of thousands of shops, Yue Yue can't remember how many stores she has visited and how many kinds of delicacies she has tasted. Every store will order special food, show and share with netizens one by one, in order to help the store promote the effect. Under each short video in the account, countless netizens liked the message, and the huge traffic brought her an olive branch of business cooperation.

In recent years, with the platform's pursuit and attention to the content of the store, UP owners and MCN institutions have poured in, and the store market has also become a mixture of dragons and snakes with the help of the rise.

"I feel that the speed of merchants opening stores can't catch up with the publicity of shopkeepers." Netizens complained, the same action and exaggerated expressions, making people gradually feel tired.

In order to stand out in the competition, many UP masters are becoming more and more exaggerated when explaining, and the content is also questioned whether it is sincerely recommended or whether it is a "just meal" behavior for interests. In addition, the behavior of "carrying private goods" and "holding one step on one" is not uncommon.

"The lure of traffic and monetization attracts countless people who are eager to profit from it. Some of them are obsessed with polishing the content, and some are eager to make quick profits. It may take time to go through a large-scale shuffle before it can truly achieve orderly development. Zhang Fan (pseudonym), who runs the Tandian MCN agency in Zhejiang, said.

100,000 fans, eating and broadcasting in front of the camera

In early December, in Hangzhou, a Thai food internet celebrity restaurant. The table is filled with tomonic soup, fried crab curry, green papaya salad and other dishes. There is a camera at one end of the wooden table, and Ah Hai (pseudonym) is pushing the camera with a fork to bring food to his mouth.

This is ah hai's 60th recording to enter the exploration field. Fans enthusiastically left messages in the background, which made him secretly happy, and the transformation of the store was a success.

In 2021, Ah Hai, who has operated a short video account for many years, is facing an embarrassing situation, although it has accumulated nearly 100,000 fans, due to the lack of a good script for a long time, the shooting creativity is drying up, resulting in the delay in fan growth, and the business cooperation opportunities are visible to the naked eye.

After some thought, he decided to transform into the field of exploring stores: "This kind of video does not need too much creativity, as long as you find an internet celebrity restaurant, rich lines and actions, one person can do it." ”

During that time, Ah Hai frequented popular local restaurants. Due to the lack of fame in the early stage, no merchant hastily agreed to pay for cooperation, and must pay for it out of their own pockets. Fortunately, with his witty explanations and exaggerated action expressions, Ah Hai quickly attracted a group of regular fans.

"The daily job is to go in and out of different places in front of the camera and eat different things." Ah Hai told the Beijing News shell financial reporter, "Exploring the store is a relatively vertical live broadcast, everyone is curious about the restaurant decoration style, dish taste, once you present these needs in the short video, there will definitely be people paying attention." ”

Shell financial reporter learned that the shop has a long history. As early as the WeChat public account era, it is one of the categories that fans pay attention to, and each store carries out publicity and promotion for marketing needs and UP main cooperation. Platform support for such videos has driven the industry to explode rapidly. Public information shows that Douyin and Kuaishou will enter the local life field from 2020, and the short video of exploring the store is the focus of the force. In 2021, similar support activities will continue to be launched, and it will begin to help bloggers and merchants tap the monetization value of the business of exploring the store.

The industry is hot, the platform is strong and the entry threshold is low, which makes more and more MCN institutions and individual anchors begin to transform into stores, and also spawn head Internet celebrities and mature business realization. According to statistics, in the TOP 10 of the Douyin Exploration Shop, including "Lang Stomach Immortal", "Big LOGO Eat All Over China", "Mizijun" and other UP main fans have exceeded 10 million. Among them, the number one Lang Wei Xian fans reached 37.25 million, and the total number of likes was 33.59 million. These shopkeepers not only get fan tips during live broadcasts, but also get a lot of income through evaluation, goods and other ways.

Huge profits have attracted countless UP owners eager to profit from it. On December 8, Shell financial reporters searched through the Douyin platform and found that the number of related shops and gourmet UP owners involved in this field reached several hundred, and the scope of shops was also expanded from barbecues, hot pots and other catering shops to hotels, scenic spots and other places.

"Vertical content is undoubtedly faster than creative video, both in terms of fan growth and monetization." Ah Hai sighed incomparably, everyone hopes to make a profit with this track, maybe it is the spring of the exploration field.

Earn two million a year, MCN agency traffic "bottom"

Under the hot shop, some MCN agencies and UP owners have made a lot of money.

In 2019, Lin Peng, who saw the profit space of short videos, invested 500,000 yuan in his hometown in Sichuan to set up an MCN agency, and decided to bet his resources on local life.

Lin Peng's daily job is to contact various merchants and introduce businesses diligently. Once successful, they arranged for subordinates to write scripts and shoot videos according to each other's needs.

"On the one hand, the store needs to be publicized at any time to attract consumers, on the other hand, when netizens are looking for places such as eating and gathering, they usually do not blindly choose, but search online first, and then decide according to the evaluation." This gives the shopkeepers enough market. Lin Peng said.

Lin Peng clearly remembers that when he cooperated with a newly opened local wine restaurant, he deliberately aimed the camera at the cool equipment in the room, a variety of drinks, and even a stylish waiter, more emphasis on the preferential price, and then through professional explanations and post-editing, attracted many netizens to punch in, and successfully helped merchants sell hundreds of membership cards.

This effect made the other party very satisfied, and then enthusiastically introduced many catering circles peers, which allowed Lin Peng to quickly get a group of fixed customers, because he often cooperated with merchants to send consumption coupons, and the account grew by nearly one million fans in half a year.

"Now I visit 4 stores every week, and the number of people visiting the store has increased from the initial 2 to 6." Lin Peng told Shell Financial Reporter that since 2021, the number of merchants seeking cooperation has shown a clear upward trend, "now orders are lined up until March next year, and the number of orders before the holiday is doubled than before."

"In the early days, many UP owners were more inclined to go to 'net red food stores' to punch in, after all, these stores have a large amount of topics and a large number of followers, and it is easy to get traffic." Zhang Fan (pseudonym), who also runs an MCN agency in Zhejiang, shifted his focus to the field of exploring stores half a year ago, "After getting traffic, go to negotiate cooperation with other stores." After the other party sees your fans, topics and other data, whether it is the communication process or the pricing of promotion fees, it will be much happier. ”

Revenue streams come from a variety of monetization methods. Zhang Fan told Shell Financial Reporter that the price of the industry is usually based on the number of fans, the main price of UPs with less than 10,000 fans is mostly in two or three hundred yuan, and the main price of UPs with fans of 500,000 yuan is around 5,000 yuan, and the price will rise to tens of thousands of yuan if the fans reach millions or even tens of millions.

"If it is an artist to open a store, it is usually free to promote or charge a small fee according to the reputation of the other party, after all, it can appear in front of the camera with the artist, which is also a kind of publicity for the UP owner itself." Zhang Fan said.

Zhang Fan's account has more than 4 million fans, and he also maintains contact with a number of head Internet celebrities, and whenever he receives a cooperation order, he will organize team anchors to focus on promoting customers.

This gives him the confidence in the asking price. Usually the price of cooperation with merchants will be nearly 10,000 yuan, which is much higher than most of their local counterparts. Even so, I receive six or seven orders to promote restaurants every week, and visit one or two stores every day during the busiest hours. "In 2021, I made almost two million, which is nothing compared to the giants in the industry, but enough to feed the team."

Success with rollover

"Beef noodles are one of the staple foods in Chongqing, and the noodles are strong and smooth. The seasoning is the soul of Chongqing noodles, a bowl of noodles all based on spices to enhance the flavor, plus the aromatic soup. If you eat such a hot bowl of noodles in the cold winter, you will feel a little warmth in your heart. ”

Noodles covered with beef, omelette and green vegetables are on the noodle table, and Yue Yue (pseudonym) displays them one by one in a video camera, explaining the characteristics of the food.

Since entering the short video field in 2020, Yue Yue, who has many years of experience in the public account of food, knows that visiting the store is not simply eating a few bites of food, just say a few words. Netizens in front of the camera not only need to see the food itself, but also need to have an immersive experience through the UP main explanation to produce an immersive experience.

Yue Yue always checks the information about dish methods, ingredients and other materials in her spare time, and will spend a long time delving into the relationship between food and local human history to make herself look more professional in front of the camera, "You have to let netizens recognize you, so that you can be 'planted' by the video, and finally germinate the idea of entering the store." ”

In the past two years since entering the industry, Yue Yue has become a "food expert" recognized by friends. She couldn't remember how many stores she had visited or how many delicacies she had tasted. Frequently haunting various domestic Internet celebrity restaurants and petty bourgeois places, the work rhythm of several hours is the norm for her, "in 2021, she has worked for more than 300 days, and she is about to become a trapeze artist." ”

Nevertheless, it is clear that the competition is becoming more and more intense. I often see a lot of peers in the same store who hold cameras and talk in front of the camera. "Now everyone is visiting the store, and the feeling has been flooded. And the exploration of the place is also various, traditional restaurants, hotels are not enough to explore, and even some people specifically go to explore the bathroom. It felt like the industry was starting to mess up. ”

With the influx of many shopkeepers, the industry began to become a mixture of dragons and snakes.

"I used to look at the store and think it was very interesting, but then I felt that the pattern was similar, and the UP owner often said in the introduction that it was a decades old store, or that the decoration started with millions, and I felt that the store did not have any background and was embarrassed to open the door to pick up customers." Chen Lin (pseudonym), who was addicted to the video of exploring the store, told shell financial reporters that he could not remember the last time he watched such videos, "UP lord revealed exaggeration in action and language, there is no highlight of the characteristics of food, and now sometimes inadvertently flip to similar videos are directly skipped." ”

The chaos doesn't stop there. The heads of a number of MCN institutions admitted in an interview with Shell Financial Reporter that the behavior of "carrying private goods" and "holding one step on one" in the industry is not uncommon, and even UP mainly eats the overlord meal under the banner of exploring the store.

In public media reports, when visiting the store KFC, a Beijing food UP owner once said that the other party's fried sauce noodles were expensive and the taste was "almost meaningless", and took out similar goods he brought with him to compare and step. Ironically, not long after, the owner of the food UP came to KFC again, ordered the same food, but said that "there is a taste of mother's cooking" and "the feeling of coming home".

After encountering a report of suspected false publicity, the UP owner quickly set all the content under the account to private.

"It is not excluded that there are UP owners who do not receive the store fee, or want to sell the goods they bring and make unfair comparisons." Lin Peng is very helpless, these behaviors are easy to trigger consumer disgust, whether it is for businesses or the industry may cause harm.

The tandian market has shrunk, and it is not easy for newcomers to survive

Shopkeepers flocked to the shop, and more monks and fewer porridges had already appeared.

"Now that the tan shop market is gradually saturated, there is no chance for newcomers at all." Recalling the short experience of visiting the store, Ah Ke (pseudonym) told reporters that he basically posted tens of thousands of yuan and finally found nothing.

In 2021, the "exploring the store" video on the short video platform is hot, so that Ake, who is eager to make a profit through video but can't find a way out, see the direction.

"For a small UP owner like us, it is difficult to receive a merchant invitation, after all, there is no visibility." Arco decided to publish a video of visiting the store on the short video platform, and then used his works to attract fans to increase his popularity, and was invited and cooperated by the hotel.

The first attempt was confident, and in the end it did not make a splash. She deliberately spent more than 300 yuan to eat and broadcast at a small local restaurant, painstakingly explained each dish in detail, and then posted it online through a night of careful editing.

The next day, there were very few comments.

The immortal Ah Ke frequently enters and exits various restaurants within half a year, and does not hesitate to fly to various places to explore food. She has followed the popular places of popular restaurants or Internet celebrity IP, and also excavated some unpopular restaurants, but the effect is still mediocre. As a last resort, you can only choose to give up.

"This industry is not as easy to do as the outside world thinks, and it is unlikely to make a profit casually." Zhang Fan told reporters that the tandian market is gradually saturated, and most UP owners are difficult to survive from.

Zhang Fan said that the anchor of the store seems to be sucking fans, but in fact, because of the strong regional restrictions, there are natural limitations. "Most of the UP owners originate from the location relationship, the probes are local businesses, and most of the orders received are also concentrated here." Although the fan base is more vertical, it also determines that it is difficult to attract foreign fans. In addition, most of the cooperative merchants are small and medium-sized and are unlikely to pay higher fees. ”

In fact, most of the anchors do not have the ability to achieve the effect of visiting the store envisaged by the merchants, and even charge high promotion fees, and do not bring much traffic and orders to the merchants.

The investment and return are not proportional, and more and more merchants have begun to cautiously handle and explore the cooperation of shopkeepers.

"I have found several anchors to visit the store before, but the traffic and income brought by it have not increased significantly, and if the cooperation fee is deducted, the cost will be slightly lost." The owner of a hot pot shop told Shell Financial Reporter that he was cautious about visiting the store, even if the shop was more inclined to cooperate with the head anchor with fans and more traffic. At the same time, it is inevitable to worry about the other party's fans scattered all over the country, even if the grass is planted whether they are willing to come from other places to taste it.

"Cash payment contracts are rarely signed directly now, unless it is some big local UP owners. Others usually substitute free food and drink or store coupons instead of cash. The above-mentioned merchant said.

Beijing News shell financial reporter Qin Che Editor Wang Jinyu Proofreader Zhao Lin