Wen | Wenbin
"Spring should be good, if you are still present"
There are still 5 minutes before the start of the broadcast, there are already more than 450,000 people waiting online in the live broadcast room, and the bullet screen is refreshed at a speed that is difficult to distinguish with the naked eye; in the 6th minute, the number of people in the live broadcast room officially exceeded one million. After the concert, more than 17 million viewers were watched.
This is the live broadcast "live" of the "Passion" concert. On April 1, 2022, on the 19th anniversary of the death of his brother (Zhang Guorong), the WeChat video account sent his last concert left on the world 22 years ago in such a special way to the people who missed him through restoration technology.
In the past year, relying on online live broadcast content, from Xicheng Boys and Mayday to the CCTV Spring Festival Gala and the Winter Olympics, the video number has been out of the circle again and again.
In addition to the carefully planned PGC content live broadcast, PUGC and UGC live broadcasting have also become popular in the knowledge and show live broadcasts.
On the test field of "public domain traffic + social media", live broadcasting preceded the content explosion of short videos.
Starting late and burdensome, the video number has been running in small steps, and it has changed especially frequently in the past six months. Business data school observed that from January to December 2021, the video number has rapidly iterated more than 50 times, opening up the connection with various sections of the WeChat ecosystem
After nearly two years of testing the waters, the road is gradually clear, and the two major products of live broadcast + short video are gradually finding their correct position in the WeChat ecology.
Live broadcasting first is changing the broadcast form of traditional TV programs just like the official account changes the traditional newspapers, magazines, and websites. Short video content is still in the early stages, there is quantity but quality to be improved, and the head in each category has not yet formed. In addition, the video number has more instrumental properties than jitter, which also makes the tone of the video number more complicated.
What else will grow in this test field?
The live broadcast was on fire first
There are WeChat public accounts with graphic UGC content as a precedent, and WeChat has also hoped to take the lead in breaking the cold start period from UGC content in video content, but the development of things seems to be completely different.
Live broadcasting precedes the content of short videos to break the circle.
Literary and artistic works always evoke emotional resonance. Whether it is Zhang Guorong, Xicheng Boy or Mayday, the "nostalgia card" played by the video number and Tencent Music has triggered a wave of nostalgia in the 70s, 80s and even 90s.
Compared with the second dimension, these contents can better capture the three core age groups of WeChat users.
While the traces of the planning are obvious, it also reflects the eagerness of the video number. Like other content platforms, video accounts also attract the rise of the entire ecosystem by creating benchmarking cases in the early stages, and gradually increase the level of influence of video accounts.
In addition to literary and artistic works, news live broadcasts are also the focus of video number live broadcasts.
In February 2022, "News Network", which has been broadcast on television for nearly 44 years, was officially broadcast on the video number. During the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, CCTV4 focused on the live broadcast of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and the number of viewers exceeded 90 million.
During the Spring Festival, the online live broadcast of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala and the Winter Olympic Games has pushed down the number of people watching online to the level of 100 million people. As early as the launch of Shenzhou 12 in June 2021 and meng Wanzhou in September of the same year, Meng Wanzhou returned to China, attracting more than 10 million people to watch online through live news broadcasts.
It can be seen that relying on the huge traffic base of WeChat, the video account is changing the broadcast form of traditional TV programs like the public account to change the traditional newspapers and magazines.
▲Pictured: News simulcast video number
In addition to the top news media, more and more vertical media practitioners have also begun to use live broadcasting as an important way to reach users. For example, in the field of finance and technology vertical content, every night after seven or eight o'clock, the continuous wheat and live broadcast salons of various professionals will occupy the circle of friends and the message list of subscription numbers.
At present, the video number live broadcast has 8 categories such as information, games, appearance, shopping, and the same city. Among them, combined with the observation of New Vision data, the live broadcasts with a large number of video number viewers at present mainly include news live broadcasts, professional event live broadcasts, film and television screening halls, and online concerts.
In addition, the head of the MCN agency in Chengdu who does show live broadcast told the business data faction that after more than a year of development, the live broadcast of the video number has been very mature, and many companies in the industry have begun to use the video number as the most important live broadcast channel.
At the same time, benefiting from Tencent's own advantages in games, Tencent's fist products such as king glory, stimulating the battlefield and other well-known mobile games, its related game live broadcast content has also become an important part of video number live broadcast in UGC.
In addition to the wide influence of content, it is more important that live video numbers are really starting to make money.
According to the financial report data, in the fourth quarter of 2021, Tencent's social network revenue fell by 4% to RMB29.1 billion due to the decrease in game prop revenue, but some of the decrease in revenue was offset by the increase in revenue from video live streaming services.
In the full year, social network revenue increased by 8% to RMB117.3 billion, also due to the contribution of live video number services, paid video membership services and revenue contributions from the merger of Huya in April 2020.
From the perspective of live broadcasting, the content composition of the video number is rich enough, and the process of commercialization has also been initially revealed. But there are also some problems that have not been resolved.
For example, the above-mentioned MCN person in charge told the business data faction that the most important reason why the company did not let the anchor choose the video number live broadcast was that it could not afford to advance money.
The person in charge said that the settlement mechanism of the video number is once every three months, but many MCN agencies give anchors a daily or monthly ending.
This means that during the period when the platform has not settled for the company, the company needs to advance a large amount of funds to the anchor in advance, and this fund is beyond the affordability of many MCN institutions.
In the afternoon of the same day, the commercial data faction randomly selected an anchor who was broadcasting live in the company's live broadcast background, and its monthly turnover had reached 380,000, and this anchor was still in the company's waist and tail. You can see the cash flow pressure that the business needs to bear if it fully moves to the video number.
In contrast, the mechanism of live settlement on the Douyin and Kuaishou platforms is real-time settlement, of which Douyin and B station are five or five points, and Kuaishou is slightly lower. Therefore, whether in terms of sharing ratio or settlement rules, the rules of these platforms will be relatively friendly to MCN institutions.
In addition, the migration cost of anchors has also become an important consideration for MCN institutions and anchors themselves. The person in charge said that in the live broadcast industry, especially in the live broadcast of the show, one person, one machine and one platform are standard, because it is difficult for the anchor to take care of multiple platforms at the same time, and the synchronous live broadcast will inevitably affect the viewing experience of the audience in the live broadcast room.
Therefore, mature anchors usually do not easily consider switching platforms. However, the person in charge also said that in the future, the possibility of new people cultivated on the video number will not be ruled out.
The short video ecosystem is still in its early stages
The live content of the video number is on fire, but the short video content is still in a very early period.
From the data point of view, the "2021 Video Number Development White Paper" released by the Sight Lamp Research Institute shows that the video number DAU has exceeded 500 million in 2021 and is expected to reach 600 million in 2022. From the perspective of active users, the video number has surpassed Kuaishou to become the second largest short video platform in China.
But in addition to the above live broadcast, when we mention the video number, we can't seem to think of other impressive or representative content.
In fact, the video number is not without head content creators, and even the head content creators of the video number are not in the minority.
For example, among the top 50 content content creators on the top 50 video number top lists released on the new list in March, the vast majority of videos have more than one million likes, such as @ a Zen little monk @ Xiaoxiaoyu, such a head account is often dominant, most of their content has more than 10W+ likes.
But the problem with these head content creators is also obvious. For example, @Hapipi, which was at the top of the list in February, basically all the content comes from the handling of other platforms, and does not have its own creative characteristics, and it is no longer on the list in March.
In addition, accounts such as @Xiaoxiaoyu, @Yizen Little Monk, @Peach's Emotional Station, etc., are labeled as culture, life and emotion to talk about the so-called philosophy of life, experience and chicken soup for the soul.
It is precisely these contents that are the most popular among users in the video number. In the statistics of Youwang data, emotional content has the highest proportion of likes and comments, 17.83% and 15.96% respectively. In the industry distribution of explosive works, the number of emotional output likes of 10W+ is the largest, accounting for 19.46%;
Although the data of these contents is good, the influence of breaking the circle is actually limited. Because they do not have a wide range of communication value, and at the same time lack lasting vitality, it is difficult to really go out of the circle in the mainstream context.
For example, the memoirs of the blogger @Dingdang, who talks about emotional problems with photographic content, can get an average of about 10,000 likes in the video number, and even 10W+ likes are not few, but the same content is only a few hundred to a thousand likes on Douyin.
The same is true of the top three accounts in january, @Peach's Emotional Station, which generally gets 8,000 to 10,000 likes for its video account, but after Douyin sent more than 1,000 videos, the average number of likes per video was only a few dozen.
In this context, these so-called head content creators are not active for a long time. According to the statistics of Youwang, from January to November 2021, the average replacement rate of the TOP50 in the total list of video number industry is about 50%. According to the data of the Light research institute, the replacement rate of video number TOP500 content creators in 2021 is close to 90%.
Of course, this is also related to the unique user composition of the video number and the content distribution mechanism.
On the one hand, as the largest social platform in China, the combined monthly active accounts of WeChat and WeChat have reached 1.268 billion, which basically covers the Global Chinese-dominated Internet population. The video account that relies on the WeChat ecosystem also has the largest and most complex user group. One publicly available data is that the overlap rate between video numbers and Douyin users is only between 5% and 10%.
On the other hand, under the decentralized traffic distribution mechanism unique to WeChat, the content dissemination of video accounts relies on social relationship fission, and the explosive content that breaks the circle and brushes the screen is destined to be much more difficult than the centralized distribution of vibrato and kuaishou.
This is actually a necessary feature that the video number must accept, after all, fish and bear paws cannot be combined.
Although PCG beat PUCG and UCG at the current match point, the future video number will still rely on the latter two to achieve a normalized outbreak.
Not just a content platform, but a tool
Video number has never been a pure content platform.
For example, in the 2021 WeChat Open Class, Zhang Xiaolong said that the video number is a supplement to the long content of the WeChat ecosystem, and it is a short content form that everyone can participate in. At the same time, Zhang Xiaolong also hopes that the video number can become a new generation of official websites for enterprises after WeChat public accounts and mini programs. In addition, Zhang Xiaolong also mentioned another concept, that is, the video number should be the carrier of video content, and the so-called carrier is a tool for carrying video content.
By 2022, Zhang Xiaolong did not appear in the WeChat open class, but this did not prevent the WeChat team from adding a new definition to the video number. This time, the video number has become an atomized content component in the WeChat ecosystem.
The complex properties of the video number itself also determine that it cannot be simply compared with Douyin and Kuaishou.
It can be seen that Zhang Xiaolong and WeChat's definition of video number is divided into two dimensions. One is for the C-side, making a short content form that everyone can participate in. The other is for the B-side, to become a new generation of official websites after the WeChat public account and mini programs.
▲ Picture: Zhang Xiaolong in the 2021 WeChat open class
This also shows that the video number is not just a simple content platform, or at least it is not a typical content platform.
If the video number can become a new generation of official website of the enterprise, the commercialization of WeChat will be a huge new world. Here reference to douyin, Taobao, Kuaishou brand self-broadcast can already be foreseen.
After opening up the background with the WeChat public account, the video number has ushered in a major update recently, and the home page of the enterprise certified video number can directly jump to the Mini Program.
In the future, brands will not only be able to implant their own brand logo in WeChat red envelopes, but also put their own short videos. After that, the user enters the video account through the red packet, and then connects the public account, Mini Program, enterprise WeChat and other scenarios through the video account, and the outbreak of this traffic will likely bring huge private domain traffic value to the enterprise and the brand.
For example, when a brand party establishes its own private domain traffic pool through the WeChat community, then in this community, around the use of products, after-sales, repurchase will produce a variety of topics. If a customer encounters a problem with the use of the product, the brand can post the video number of the product description in the group.
For the brand side, it not only improves the efficiency of after-sales service, but also increases the stickiness of users.
"The carrier carries this content, which means that we are not doing this content, nor will we produce content, nor will we buy content; we do not pay attention to what the specific content is, the carrier means that we produce the bearing and transmission of content." Zhang Xiaolong said.