Edit | Yu Bin
Produced by | Chaoqi Network "Yu see column"
The ancients concluded that there are three major elements for entrepreneurship: time, location, and people. The Internet industry has experienced more than 30 years of development, although the entire industry ecology has undergone several iterations, but no matter the rise and fall of the industry, or the success or failure of the enterprise, are confirming this unbreakable truth.
However, as the consensus of the Internet circle, the three giants of BAT have their own strengths, Baidu heavy technology, Tencent heavy products, ali heavy operation. If it is said that the favorable time and place are the external conditions for the success of an enterprise, then the innate genes of Internet companies may be their internal decisive factors.
For example, in the early years, when Weibo products were popular, the major Internet head companies that did not lack resources entered the game, but in the end, only Sina Weibo was left to take the lead. When the subsequent self-media era came, it was a hundred flowers blooming and a hundred schools of thought contending, but there were few players left who could win in the end.
After the advent of the short video era, vibrato, kuaishou, and video numbers have a three-point trend. No matter which product form dominates, the various games between giants have been repeated repeatedly. Nowadays, the short video products in the Internet industry are also in full swing, although they seem to be evenly matched, in fact, there are signs that victory and defeat have been divided.
Taking the tit-for-tat vibrato and video number as an example, it can be compared and analyzed through the internal genes of the enterprise, external timing, geographical advantages, etc., to spy on its future fate.
When it is time to occupy the sky, Douyin has become the hegemon of the industry
Sooner or later, Kuaishou, which originated in the sinking market and was founded in 2011, is a pioneer in the short video industry compared with the vibrato launched in September 2016 and the video number launched in 2020.
However, in the early years, due to many restrictions such as 4G network speed, user traffic usage costs, Internet users' browsing habits of short video content, and the concept and cognition of new Internet products, Kuaishou did not catch up with the best time to enter the market.
On the contrary, in the 5 years before the establishment of Douyin, Kuaishou made many sacrifices for the education market, model trial and error, etc. On the other hand, the video number is just the opposite of Kuaishou, and in the context of the strong cognition and serious dependence on short videos because of Douyin and Kuaishou, it seems to be late.
According to public data, on January 22, 2020, the WeChat video account opened the internal test, although in just over 2 years, its user volume also relied on the WeChat ecology and grew rapidly, and now the daily active users have reached 500 million. However, compared with the daily active activity reported by Douyin, which has exceeded 700 million, there is still a big gap.
Therefore, the industry also frequently hears such a voice, and the era dividend that the video number missed in those years is afraid that it will be difficult to recover.
At this time, Douyin has almost refreshed the cognition of Internet users and stood in the industry: it is now a short video era, and Douyin is the national APP of the short video industry. Therefore, missing out on how many video numbers have lost the best day time of the short video era. The opportunity left for it to catch up with Douyin is obviously not much.
Over-reliance on WeChat may be a double-edged sword
Backed by the 800 million daily live super national APP WeChat, the video number is like a golden key born, but the constraints and restrictions it has been subject to, as well as the inherent ills brought to the video number, are also obvious.
First of all, from the logic of the operation of the short video platform, Douyin relies on the accurate algorithm precipitated over the years and has a stronger content distribution ability. Moreover, the centralized form of content distribution can allow newly released content to be quickly recommended through the platform's algorithms, get more exposure traffic, and get more users. Therefore, it has also allowed some influential anchors and big Vs to settle in.
On April 1, 2020, Douyin became the first choice for CEOs of major companies to personally bring goods because of the live broadcast debut of "the first generation of Internet celebrities" Luo Yonghao. Among them, there are many big coffee in traditional enterprises such as Dong Mingzhu and entrepreneurs from Internet companies such as NetEase Ding Lei.
As a result, the myth of "star-making" of vibrato is also staged every day. Compared with operating a WeChat public account and becoming a super IP in the industry, Douyin is equivalent to giving ordinary people the opportunity to stand out.
For example, according to Crowley's release of "Visible Fan Value in 2020: Four Major Platform KOL Fan Analysis Research Report", among the TOP-10,000 accounts of the four major platforms of Weibo, Xiaohongshu, Douyin and Kuaishou, Weibo has the highest overall fan volume, with 100% of the account fans above the million level, followed by Douyin, which accounts for 61% of the fans between 1 million and 10 million.
At that time, the video number was just in the internal testing period. It is undeniable that in contrast, compared with the already deflated Weibo, which has not yet become the video number of the climate, Douyin has become a veritable hegemon of the industry.
Second, from the perspective of the targeted users. Douyin was born and grew up in first- and second-tier cities, and with the brand marketing and platform promotion of Douyin for many years, it has gradually achieved user sinking, and even penetrated into rural areas. Therefore, the content temperament of Douyin is full of youthful vigor and youthful vitality.
High-quality content is the foundation of the high-speed dissemination of users, and the average age of Douyin users has gradually risen from about 24 years old in the early years. However, according to the latest statistics, the user portraits of the Douyin platform are still dominated by urban young people under the age of 35. This kind of group is the mainstay of the whole society, and also has super consumption power, so it will also lay the groundwork for the commercialization of vibrato.
However, WeChat, on which the video number is based, is originally just a communication tool, which is based on the social relationship chain of the circle of acquaintances as the growth logic, and its limitations are also obvious.
The first is based on the content expression of the circle of acquaintances, which is somewhat contrary to this era of information openness. The second is to analyze from the user's psychological appeal, more people tend to express themselves without scruples in the unfamiliar social circle.
Therefore, in contrast, the unfamiliar social logic of Douyin can to a large extent stimulate users to social expression and even speak freely. However, relying on WeChat's video number, because platform users need to protect their personal privacy and strongly hope to expand the scope of unfamiliar social and other psychological demands, it limits the user's desire to express and weakens the social interaction between users.
It is not difficult to see that the two are very different in social communication and the establishment and extension of relationship chains. In contrast, Douyin naturally meets the needs of the public's content creation and social needs, while the video number restricts the free expression of many people.
Third, from the commercial level of analysis, the gap between the two is very large. As we all know, the common business model of short video platforms is commercial advertising plus platform commissions. However, the pace of development of video numbers and vibrato at the commercial level is also dwarfed.
For example, according to the recent statistics of Kuang Fang, a well-known self-media person in the micro-e-commerce industry:
From the perspective of the volume of goods, comparing the data of the live broadcast room of douyin and the video number monthly sales TOP 100, it can be found that the monthly sales of the vibrato top 100 live broadcast room are more than 50 million, while the monthly sales of the video number TOP 100 live broadcast room are more than 50 million.
Moreover, in the top 100 live broadcast rooms with monthly sales of video numbers, 81% of the monthly sales are only 40-5 million. The gap between the two platforms in terms of cargo volume can be described as a huge disparity.
In addition, compared with the number of merchants with goods in the hot TOP100 live broadcast room, it is found that 77% of the merchants with goods on Douyin and only 40% of the merchants with goods with video numbers, indicating that in the live streaming with goods track, the proportion of Douyin merchants exceeds the video number.
Media vs Social, the ecological flaw of the video number
It is worth noting that in the video number popularity TOP100 live broadcast room, the most common is the news information live broadcast content, rather than the cargo content. Therefore, the media attributes of video numbers are also getting stronger and stronger. However, in contrast, the social attributes of Vibrato are stronger.
In fact, the formation of such tonality is not accidental. According to industry analysts, WeChat launched a video number in the early days to operate it as the positioning of the company's official website, that is, to regard it as a new window for enterprises to release company information and show the company's strength. It is not difficult to understand why the strength of the two in the operation of the business is far from the same.
Moreover, by cross-comparing the top 100 products with douyin and video number live broadcasts, we found that the GMV of the video number TOP100 products was 93.95 million, and the top categories with sales were 3C digital, household appliances, clothing, shoes and hats, food and beverage. TikTok TOP100 commodity GMV is 27. 300 million, the top categories of sales are food and beverage, home life, clothing, shoes and hats.
It can be seen that the GMV brought by the video number and the hot head product of Douyin is not in the same order of magnitude. Moreover, although the unit price of the goods on the video number is relatively high, the video number cannot be the same as the vibrato in terms of repurchase rate or sales.
In view of the many natural differences between the two, the overlap between douyin and video numbers of internet celebrities, anchors, and stars is not high. According to statistics, 90% of the head Internet celebrities and celebrities in Douyin have not settled in the video number. Moreover, even if such talents settle in, there is no obvious traffic support for video numbers. It can be seen that these intuitive and objective data are all real problems brought about by the video number relying on WeChat.
Compared with the benign ecology of Douyin that can monetize through the intelligent advertising mode of massive users, and can also rely on the benign ecology of short video with goods, live e-commerce and other platform service fees, the formation between the video number and the original function of WeChat will also be another ecology. Although the two do not matter whether they are good or bad, from the perspective of future development vision, it is clear that Douyin is closer to money, and the imagination space is naturally self-evident.
epilogue
The development of the Internet has experienced 30 years of ups and downs. From the initial portal era, to the later BBS community, and then to today's era when everyone is self-media, it can be described as a changeable situation. And each iteration is a bloody storm, with players standing out and players leaving the stage.
The advent of the era of short video and live broadcasting has made douyin and video number stand in the wind outlet, but it is also facing a life and death battle. It is foreseeable that only Internet products that adapt to the development law of the times can have more lasting vitality. And Douyin obviously has such a significant feature, but the video number, more like "nibbling" the old weChat, whether it can lean back against the tree to cool off, or an unknown.