Text | Musical precursor, author | Lv Liuqi, editor | Fan Zhihui
Where can I hear the latest rap music in China right now? The answer may be the music area of Station B.
Since the open recruitment of the B station's self-made variety show "Rap New Generation 2" at the end of February, Rappers such as Xu Zhenzhen, Tai Shuai Hua, and Duo Lei have successively announced that they will participate in the competition, which also makes people look forward to this season's program. The B station's station selection recruitment has been carried out for more than a month, UP owners as long as they release their own original rap works, it is possible to be selected, and recently there are still new works emerging. In addition to musicians, many UP masters who were originally scattered in the folk also took this opportunity to reveal the true colors of rap musicians.
According to the head of music at Station B, in less than a month since the recruitment, the total number of played works has exceeded 100 million. This wave of operations has also allowed many hidden music UP masters to come to the front of the stage.
In fact, not only is Station B doing things in the music field, Xiaohongshu has also focused on the music content of the recent soaring data. These two most typical community platforms in China have stepped up their efforts to promote music content in recent years, and have gradually formed a unique content ecology dominated by UGC bloggers.
We see that on these two platforms, whether it is ordinary users or professional bloggers, the content shared can be described as all-encompassing, in addition to original music, there are cover songs, teaching, instrument playing, vinyl sharing, music reviews and other diversified content.
So, how is the music blogger ecology of Station B and Little Red Book different from platforms such as Weibo, Douyin, and Kuaishou? What about the living conditions? This article will explore the music ecology of domestic community platforms in depth by observing the content and business status of music bloggers.
Ecology: B station and little red book music blogger system
The music district is a large area of Station B, starting with ACG culture, the music district as one of the earliest divisions, originally known to the public for cover singing and carrying Japanese songs. At present, the music area of station B is subdivided into original music, cover songs, raps and other partitions, and each partition has several subordinate channels, which makes it easy for users to find the content they pay attention to.
On the top 100 list in 2021, the music area has Phoenix Legend, LingYi Yousa, Hun Yuan Rysn, MayTree May Tree, Vicky Xuanxuan, Jade Flower Not Too Brittle, Upside Down Orange, Jiusan's Ears Are Not Particularly Good, Liu Qingyao's Buddha, Gun Bullet Trajectory 10 UP Masters on the list. In addition to the Phoenix Legend itself is a mature musician, the other 9 are all UP masters.
From the chart, we can see the general content characteristics of the B station music UP main:
1. The genre is mainly original and cover, and some have obvious B station characteristics, such as the two-dimensional element of yousa, the ghost animal of the bullet trajectory, etc. In the view of the music leader of Station B, ACG is the foundation of Station B, and with the expansion of the overall scale, the content ecology has gradually expanded and grown to more fields.
2. Half of the accounts will choose multi-platform operation, including MayTree May Tree, vicky Xuanxuan, Jiusan, Liu Qingyao, and those active only on B station include Yousa, Hunyuan Rysn, Cuihua is not too brittle, upside-down oranges, and bullet trajectories (Douyin is a personal record).
2 out of 9 people belong to the rap genre. The head of music at station B told Music Pioneer that what is different from the streaming media platform is that now in the daily content consumption of station B, the first major category is rap, and this trend has lasted for two years since the beginning of "Rap New Generation", the second is popular, and the third is the national style. On the one hand, because 89% of B station users are post-90s users, young people's acceptance of rap is still relatively high; on the other hand, this is also closely related to the B station's self-made rap variety action, and the current "Rap New Generation 2" audition related video playback is rising very fast.
Compared with Station B, Xiaohongshu's music bloggers show more original appearances.
According to the person in charge of the music category of Xiaohongshu, the music business of Xiaohongshu has basically grown rapidly since the middle of last year, and the attention to music first began with the trend. When doing the trend business, it was found that the user's demand for music is very large, which is why Xiaohongshu first began to sound from the trend music, and did some rapper and DJ content last year.
In the past year, the amount of music content in the Little Red Book has been very fast, and on the whole, although there are no native bloggers who have broken the circle, they have gradually formed a unique ecology. We screened a number of accounts of different fan sizes on the platform to analyze the current situation of Little Red Book music bloggers.
From the chart above, we can see:
1. Most of the head accounts on the list are multi-platform synchronous operation accounts, and some of them choose to join Xiaohongshu to synchronize operation after other platforms have good results. For example, Zheyin 4811, which has been active in Douyin in 2018, has chosen to officially enter Xiaohongshu in 2020, which also reflects the attractiveness of Xiaohongshu to music bloggers in recent years.
2. Musical instrument performance is a feature of Xiaohongshu bloggers, and the content of musical instrument learning and playing skills is consistent with the "practical" and learning platform positioning of Xiaohongshu; music sharing is also a major feature, and the personalized sharing of music libraries and song lists is in line with the tonality of life shared by the platform.
3. In addition to music, many bloggers' notes and videos are also interspersed with typical Little Red Book content such as makeup, dressing, and skill sharing.
4, Xiaohongshu native account is concentrated in the middle waist and tail, some accounts are very vertical, basically only One account of Xiaohongshu. Little Red Book is recognized as a novice friendly and harmonious community, and niche content will also be affirmed and encouraged comments, so as to harvest their own living soil.
Little Red Book blogger's life-like content
It can be seen that the music bloggers of the Little Red Book are very fresh and diverse, and they have not yet formed a native Little Red Book blogger who is enough to break the circle.
This is also consistent with the overall characteristics of the Little Red Book platform, which adopts a more "UGC" traffic distribution principle, compared to other platforms, the traffic of little Red Book is more dispersed, which also makes the traffic not too concentrated. According to statistics, waist KOC, ordinary people are the platform, but also the main force of content contribution, head leopard data show that the number of interactions more than 10,000 small red book notes, waist talent output accounted for 43%.
The person in charge of the music category of Xiaohongshu told Music Xiansheng that Xiaohongshu explored the positioning of the music business for a long time, and finally came up with a relatively clear answer: music lover community, rather than a music sharing platform with one-way output, media attributes, and consumption attributes, Xiaohongshu emphasizes more on attracting people with common music hobbies to communicate together through the characteristics of the community. This positioning is consistent with the overall life community of Xiaohongshu, and also explains the relative niche and interest orientation of Xiaohongshu's music content.
From the analysis of B station and Xiaohongshu, it can be seen that although they are mainly based on video content, the user content of this group of music UP owners or bloggers incubated from the platform makes them have obviously different content characteristics from short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou.
The first is the content tendency. Because of the logic and duration limit of the short video platform traffic first, the music content on short video platforms such as Douyin Kuaishou tends to attract attention in a short period of time, such as card point music, showmanship performance, face value singing, etc., and the style is also mainly popular. The community platform emphasizes the growth logic more, and the duration is also based on medium video, so there are also many slower-paced content and longer-term content, such as original, musical instruments, vlogs, and atmospheric music.
The second is the community atmosphere. Music users on the community platform are more willing to share some in-depth content, such as Vicky's publicity on station B, because of the vlog of recording their own songs, and the chief song promoter of Qiu Chill on the Little Red Book, who has long promoted his favorite niche songs with personalized recommendation.
In addition, the short video platform is more concerned about popularity and dissemination, and a song is very popular to easily drive a large number of content to follow and create, thus promoting the song to become more popular. Although the hot songs born on the community platform are not as many as vibrato and kuaishou, they also give niche content soil, and then niche and subdivided areas can find fans with common hobbies, such as hand disc playing, vinyl sharing and so on.
Station B UP the main "hand disc _ Su Muzhe" hand disc performance works
In general, the music content of the short video platform emphasizes more on short video services, while the music content of the community platform pays more attention to the fun of the music itself.
Monetization: How are music bloggers doing on community platforms?
There is a cost to making good content, and it is difficult to maintain the power generation of love to ensure continuous output.
Different from the copyright distribution system of streaming media platforms, music bloggers on community platforms have another set of commercial logic. At present, the main profit channels of music bloggers are divided into the following four categories.
The first is the creative incentive of the platform. The latest financial report of Station B shows that the current average monthly active UP master number is 2.7 million. The incentive plan implemented by Station B can bring about 1 to 4 yuan per thousand plays to the UP master. Officials will also provide targeted traffic support through various activities and plans.
Station B's creative incentives for up masters, source: 2021 new media content ecological data report - new list
And Xiaohongshu also gives excellent creators through official activities, during the event, as long as you bring relevant topics to publish notes, those who meet the requirements can get official traffic rewards. Incentives are usually issued through the commercial flow tool "Fries", but also through this incentive to achieve the purpose of promoting production.
This is followed by cha-rice, which has become a major source of income for many bloggers. Regarding the meal, there is such an unwritten statement circulating in the industry, and the value ranking of the platform fans is: WeChat public account > Xiaohongshu > B station> Douyin> Kuaishou > know that > Weibo. The higher the value of the fans, the higher the blogger's income.
In 2020, Bilibili Fireworks UP main business cooperation platform was officially opened, based on platform big data, to provide UP owners with system quotation reference, order process management, platform security settlement and other services, to help high-quality UP owners better realize content monetization, improve creation income, and reduce cooperation disputes. According to the latest financial report of Station B, 45% of the UP owners who received the first order in Hanabi in 2021.
Source: Station B 2021 Ecological Report
According to the person in charge of music at station B, receiving business orders through fireworks is the main source of income for the music UP master of station B, in addition, the effect of virtual UP main monetization through live broadcast is also relatively good, and the annual income of the head music UP master can reach millions. Under the current ecology of the "spindle body" of station B, the platform hopes to link fireworks more closely in the future, so that the mid-waist bloggers with 100,000 to 500,000 powders can live better and receive more business orders. After that, it will also open up more new business models for B station musicians, including virtual derivatives, physical peripherals, etc., as well as imagination space.
The strong "planting grass" attribute makes the Little Red Book's cha-rice soft text more. According to the "2021 New Media Content Ecological Data Report" released by the new list in January this year, last year, about 57.6% of the tail accounts of Xiaohongshu were put on, which far exceeded B station, Douyin and Kuaishou.
This is also inseparable from The Little Red Book's meticulous creative guidance to bloggers. At present, Xiaohongshu has more than a dozen anthropomorphic official accounts such as "Music Potato", "Captain Potato", "Beauty Potato", etc., actively guide users to participate in interaction, guide content production through the launch of official activities, and cooperate with incentive mechanisms to build a community atmosphere.
At the same time, Xiaohongshu is also actively exploring official commercialization channels, and since 2019, Xiaohongshu has successively launched commercial tools such as brand partner platform, brand number, "dandelion", "Fries" and so on. It is worth mentioning that unlike douyin,ltd., which tends to head traffic, Xiaohongshu's algorithm mechanism is more biased towards ordinary people, and can continuously fish out some high-quality, low-exposure content from the content pool.
This also allows the middle-waist bloggers of Little Red Book to have a better chance of being put on, and many music bloggers are also among them. Moreover, Xiaohongshu encourages bloggers and fans to communicate sincerely, and many bloggers will directly write "declarations of interest" in commercial content to highlight commercial content, which is also conducive to the positive interaction of content, brands and fans.
Music blogger next door king - RINO - advertising content
In addition, Xiaohongshu is exploring the model of community e-commerce, through the link of the blogger's own store combined with the video, to open up a direct transaction channel for the blogger. In the relay live broadcast of the just-concluded vinyl concert, many vinyl shop owners have begun to try to divert their goods in the live broadcast.
"Actually Records" video shopping links and on-site stores
In addition, the particularity of music bloggers lies in the fact that they can earn income as musicians, and it is common practice to guide deeper music cooperation by using the platform as a channel for sound. Some bloggers who do training or lectures are also consciously cultivating fans and accumulating teaching foundations.
In the profiles of many music bloggers, they also wrote the account information of professional music platforms such as NetEase Cloud Music, QQ Music, and Kugou Music, and actively expanded the possibility of follow-up cooperation. For example, through the Vicky propaganda of the B station video explosion, the follow-up has gradually moved closer to the professional direction, singing the interlude in the movie "I want to go to your world and love you".
From this point of view, the source of income for music bloggers on the community platform is more flexible and natural, and it is not easy to cause counter-resistance from fans, and it is farther away from the professional track and closer to life. Of course, some original music bloggers are also trying to move closer to the professional road, while more cover songs, instruments and other bloggers are more willing to exist as platform KOLs.
Ambitious vs natural growth, community platforms engage in the prospects of music imagined
It can be seen from the official commercialization channels that the community platform cherishes music bloggers very much, and while maintaining the existing ecology, it is also hoped that music bloggers can benefit more from the platform. And how will the subsequent music bloggers develop? Or we can get a glimpse of the development strategy of these two platforms.
Looking back, B station from 2020 no longer hides its ambitions for music, in recent years, the action has continued, not only launched self-made variety shows such as "Rap New Generation", but also reached in-depth cooperation with partners such as QQ Music, and even joined hands with youth culture representative 88rising to create a new label "W8VES", and also established a "Cheer Music" label to create an artist management department.
In recent years, B station has also given birth to many cases of music UP masters breaking the circle, such as the songs created by Vicky Xuanxuan were reported by CCTV, and the "Ordinary DISCO" created by UP main ilem was sung by Wang Feng, Li Yuchun and other stars on the satellite TV stage. In January this year, the popularity of the opera animation of "Goddess Splitting View" in the game "Original God" continued to soar through station B, blowing up a "two-creation wind", in addition to many national performance artists "participating in the war", but also let many performance bloggers burst out.
The site audition of "Rap New Generation 2" can be regarded as a sign of the in-depth linkage of the music strategy between the UP master and the B station, and it is foreseeable that after the self-made programs, self-made films and televisions, concerts, and New Year's Eve parties, there will be more music bloggers participating, and the relationship between music and the original self-made of the B station will be further bound.
The person in charge of B station music revealed that B station music will be more deeply bound with internal resources. Last year, Cheer Music Label has signed a number of "Do You Listen to My Music" contestants, and this year's "Rap New Generation 2" will continue this idea to open up more linkages. Station B does not want these actions to be just an isolated program and a party, but hopes to have more precipitation, and hopes that the UP owner can really grow and grow through these internal resources.
Cheers Music's interaction with its artist Zheng Chuang
Not only that, Station B Music will also develop very firmly in the direction of music depth, extend more upstream, and develop in the direction of music companies, labels, artists and other businesses. In the successful cases of these years, songs such as "Lonely Brave" and "Goddess Splitting View" prove the diversification of the music ecology of Station B, and many second creations also show the vitality of station B's music ecology, proving that station B is really capable of pushing fire to some good songs.
Taking "The Lone Brave" as an example, as of April 4, 2022, the original version has been played: 32.34 million, the highest number of second-created plays: 23.56 million, and the total number of second-created plays in the whole station is 570 million+ (of which the highest two-creation plays are 23.56 million, 4 are 10 million, and 101 are 101 million manuscripts), a total of 38908 articles have been submitted by the second creation of the whole station, and a total of 14542 music areas. Therefore, Station B Music is very confident to find a corresponding position in the industry.
Station B "Lone Brave" plays the highest two creations
In the interview, the person in charge of B station music mentioned more than once that B station music respects the "people" thing, and there are many young people on the platform who will play music in a different way, which determines that B station music is not traffic logic, but content logic.
In the past, the music content of station B was more inclined to PUGC content operation, and in the future, it will more firmly incubate and cultivate UP masters, promote the launch of an open platform for musicians by building a system of Bilibili musicians, and excavate, support, sign, motivate and cultivate around UP masters, and carry out more in-depth and targeted incubation and cultivation.
In addition, Bilibili Music is also actively expanding external cooperation, and pilot cooperation with NetEase Cloud Music and TME is gradually unfolding. Through the combination of internal and external expansion, music UP owners are expected to get more and more professional growth opportunities in station B through a more mature platform music system.
Compared with the ambition of Station B, the development of Little Red Book Music Bloggers is currently more in the stage of natural growth.
The person in charge of the Xiaohongshu music category believes that the current task of Xiaohongshu Music is, first of all, to understand what kind of platform Xiaohongshu is, the second is what the music of Xiaohongshu should look like, and third, under the guidance of the envisaged community direction and goal, it needs to be ecologically prosperous enough, including the prosperity of the author and the prosperity of the content.
The fine operation of the official account of Little Red Book Music Music Potato
Only then can we see from the prosperity what kind of opportunities have emerged. The current development strategy of Little Red Book Music is more based on the link of user needs, and where it naturally flows, it begins to do what step of the matter. At the same time, the person in charge added that if you follow the existing model to build a framework and learn from the practices of others, you will only repeat the path that others have walked, and it does not make sense to become a second existing platform.
It can be seen that for the Little Red Book Music, which is still a new thing, there is no rush to achieve results, but it has focused on refined community operation and support, focusing on subdivisions such as vinyl and classical music that are not necessarily so popular.
Xiaohongshu has released many life-like and interesting theme activities through the official account music potato, including vinyl sharing, musical instrument punching, sleep days, etc., through activities to mobilize the enthusiasm and activity of bloggers and enhance community interaction. It can be seen that compared with the original music that can be directly commercialized, the official hopes to retain a rich music blogger ecology through colorful activities.
The recent focus of the event, "Great Classical Music", is actually the result of a natural operation. At that time, the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics led to a wave of classical revival, and there were many classical music-related contents on the platform, and Little Red Book Music took advantage of the trend to do classical music activities. But I didn't expect the data after the launch to exceed expectations. This kind of activity based on the preferences and needs of bloggers will be the key way for Little Red Book Music to operate in the near future.
The overall environment of The Little Red Book has also changed. On the one hand, the new slogan "200 million people's life experience, are in the Little Red Book", more emphasis on the connection between the Little Red Book and all aspects of life, with the aesthetics of the Little Red Book music blogger living space will be larger, such as sense of atmosphere, minimalism, beauty sharing class, etc., on the other hand, but also more emphasis on the "useful" experience attributes of the Little Red Book, music-related skills, experience sharing type bloggers to share dry goods will be more popular.
In addition, the male users of Xiaohongshu have recently grown rapidly, and the official has also begun to increase support for male content creators. According to the data revealed by the Xiaohongshu 2022 Business Ecology Conference, the proportion of male users has risen to 30%. This strategic traffic support is also good news for male music bloggers and male preferred music segmentation types.
The person in charge of the music category of Xiaohongshu believes that Xiaohongshu has always emphasized the concept of "UGC" and "community", and does not think that all bloggers have to grow up, many people in Xiaohongshu are not to become a professional blogger, more people have their own hobbies, and the voice in Xiaohongshu is to communicate with people with the same hobbies. Little Red Book will also continue to maintain this community atmosphere, emphasizing that "music is a way of life."
The law of "everyone can be famous in 15 minutes" is not a new thing in this era, compared with the rapid iteration of short videos such as vibrato and Kuaishou, community platforms such as B station and Xiaohongshu seem to provide more possibilities for voice and attract longer companionship and attention.
In the era of rapid professionalization of creators, when more and more people are willing to call themselves bloggers, what kind of changes will occur in the music content ecology? As music becomes more lifelike and grassroots, how can the gap between "elegance" and "divine comedy" be balanced? When traffic pays more attention to music bloggers, can community platforms disrupt the music industry? These interesting questions still have time to answer.
It is foreseeable that in this process, the value of music bloggers is expected to be further affirmed and amplified.