In recent days, the WeChat video number has exploded again.
At 9:00 p.m. on April 15, Cui Jian's first online concert "Continue to Sprinkle Some Wild" was launched on the WeChat video account, with 500,000 people making reservations, the number of live broadcast viewers exceeding 46 million, and the number of likes exceeded 120 million, which refreshed the best results in the history of the video number.
Prior to this, the WeChat video number has concocted a number of online concerts that have set off a hot discussion among the whole people.
On December 31 last year, the video number joined hands with the New Year's Eve concert held on Mayday to brush the circle of friends, with more than 16 million viewers and 32 million likes, killing a bloody road in the pinch of a number of satellite TV and B stations; earlier, the West Side Boys Concert also set off a national nostalgia trend, with 160 million likes and 27 million viewers becoming an important milestone in the development of video numbers.
It should be noted that at the latest concert, the advertisements of Jihu Automobile can be seen everywhere, and the functions such as tips are fully online, and the video number has taken an important step on the road of commercialization.
Cui Jian has not changed, but the video number has been changing. As a new traffic highland that Tencent has high hopes for, the commercial prospects of video numbers are indeed worthy of our attention.
(Image from UNsplash)
Relying on music out of the circle, WeChat video number to find a new password for traffic
Looking back at the development process, it can be found that since it was launched in January 2020, the video number has also been groping for a period of time to find its own traffic secrets.
From the perspective of the growth curve, the WeChat video number in the first year of the launch is still in the exploratory stage, and the real starting volume is still in 2021. In this year, the most important task of the video number is to add to itself - to improve its own short video + live broadcast ecological chain by launching various important functions.
Looking at the most important new features of the video number in the past year, the Value Research Institute found that its update mainly follows two main lines: one is to precipitate the private domain traffic pool to achieve the traffic cycle in the WeChat ecosystem; the other is to expand the scale of the creator team and content supply, hoping to improve user stickiness and cultivate user habits.
The former involves many important functions, including the new attention button in January, the function of binding the home page of the video account in April, the function of sharing video account content and live broadcasting, and the function of jumping video number live broadcast room of mini programs opened in July.
After these functions are successively launched, the traffic closed loop between the video account, the public account and the mini program is opened, and the original huge traffic of the latter can reach the video number without unimpeded, which promotes the internal circulation of the WeChat ecology. After the video number traffic pool is enriched, the creators naturally will not ignore this window of opportunity, and it is natural to increase the output and enrich the content supply of the video number.
In order to expand the team of creators and enrich the content ecology, the video number also provides various help to creators.
In the past year, the video number has successively launched the creator platform, the institutional management platform, the creator center and other functions, and also added a video number entrance in the background and accessed the WeChat customer service in October to provide comprehensive support for creators.
According to the statistics of Youwang data, the average turnover rate of the TOP50 in the total list of video number industry in the past year is about 50%. Among them, creators in vertical fields such as humanities and arts, food, and current affairs are the most popular among users, and there are many similarities with the ecology of WeChat public accounts.
In the view of the Institute of Value, a 50% turnover rate means that every month there are high-quality creators who have the opportunity to challenge the head position. Compared with the power pyramid that has long been solidified and the traffic concentration is too high, The Vibrato, Kuaishou, and B stations, the video number has become a more creator-friendly traffic pool.
(Image from Youwang Data)
After the content supply and creation team grows, improving user scale and user stickiness is no longer a false proposition.
The report from Youwang data also shows that by the end of last year, the highest single live broadcast of WeChat video accounts reached 27.47 million. Although the popularity of the head anchor is not as good as that of Mayday, Cui Jian, and Xicheng Boys, the gap between horizontal and other competitors has narrowed.
Tencent's official data shows that since the DAU exceeded 400 million during the Spring Festival last year, the user scale of video numbers has maintained a good growth momentum. Everbright Securities expects its DAU to reach up to 700 million in the research report. In contrast, the medium- and long-term target proposed by Kuaishou is 400 million DAUs, the main DAU of Douyin was about 640 million in the third quarter of last year, which is not much progress compared with the 600 million in the first half of the year, and the speed version of DAU is about 140 million.
Of course, the DAU of the video number has always been a controversy: the video number and the WeChat ecology are deeply bundled, if it is separated from WeChat, the largest traffic pool in China, can the video number still maintain high popularity?
This controversy is not empty, but the video number is also trying to build its own independent brand and establish its own competitive advantage. What really makes the video number out of the circle and polish the signboard is the online concert mentioned at the beginning of the article.
Affected by the epidemic, a large number of offline concerts have been cancelled or postponed, and the online performance market has ushered in an unprecedented boom. There are many platforms that can do live broadcasting, but the video number has an advantage that other platforms cannot reach - backed by WeChat, the most important social base in China, it can meet the social needs of users in addition to listening to songs to the greatest extent, and fill the gap in the social link of online live broadcasting.
In addition to the above three large-scale concerts that triggered national carnival, independent bands such as Gojo Man and Sunset Flying Car, which are popular among young people, have also sung on video numbers, and the entire online performance market is booming.
Finding the traffic secret of music can be said to be the most important step on the road to the rise of video numbers.
(Image from UNsplash)
All along, WeChat and the entire Tencent APP have been passively beaten in the short video market. Whether it is The Microvision, which has been briefly revived, or the unsuccessful new products such as FlashCa, QIM, DOV, MOKA and Next Meal Video, they are all embarrassingly useful.
At the most, Tencent has a total of 15 short video applications in its hands, and it still cannot change the pattern of the short video field. But now with the rise of video numbers, Tencent seems to finally have the confidence to compete with Douyin and Kuaishou.
And jitter fast double male grab users, how big is the video number win?
On April 15, the Central Cyberspace Administration and other three departments announced the joint launch of a "clear and clear" special action against chaos in the field of online live broadcasting and short video. At the same time, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television also issued the Notice on Strengthening the Management of Game Live Broadcasting on Online Audio-visual Program Platforms.
From the regulatory level, the pressure on short video platforms is increasing. Even from the perspective of user growth, Douyin and Kuaishou may feel that they have reached the key node of prosperity and decline.
According to the data, as of the fourth quarter of last year, the Kuaishou DAU was 323 million, an increase of 19.2% year-on-year, and the MAU was 578 million, an increase of 21.5% year-on-year. In the same period of 2020, the year-on-year growth rates of DAU and MAU were as high as 50.7% and 45.6%, respectively, and the user growth rate of Kuaishou in one year was close to the waist, and the regression was worrying.
Although the volume of users of Douyin is still much higher than that of Kuaishou and video numbers, the ceiling has also loomed. Statistics from Aurora Big Data show that the year-on-year growth rate of Douyin MAU in the third quarter of last year fell to 2.9%, falling to the trough of this year.
More importantly, in terms of user usage time, the advantages of Douyin have also been continuously eroded: as of the third quarter, the average daily use time of Kuaishou users was 125.3 minutes, and the average daily use time of Douyin was 144.6 minutes, and the year-on-year growth rate of the former 30.9% also far exceeded the latter.
So compared with the vibrato and kuaishou that have entered the bottleneck period, where is the advantage of the video number?
The Value Research Institute believes that there are two points worth paying attention to: one is the synergy with the WeChat public account, and the other is to absorb the user groups that are ignored by Douyin, Kuaishou, or short videos that cannot be won by shuangxiong - such as middle-aged and elderly users.
The former advantage is well understood, after all, it is an indisputable fact that the video number relies on WeChat to make a fortune and gets a large number of Resources from Tencent.
At present, public domain scenarios such as WeChat recommendation, search, look, nearby live broadcasts and people, as well as the most important public account and other public domain scenarios, as well as private domain scenarios such as circle of friends, discovery page, and business card page, are all doing their best to divert the video number. Among them, the independent traffic entrance of the discovery page and the circle of friends was added last year, which shows that WeChat's traffic support strategy for video numbers is still increasing.
As for the latter advantage, it should be understood in conjunction with the user portraits of WeChat, Douyin and Kuaishou.
Although the video number has become the new favorite of many young people by relying on these online concerts that are out of the circle, it is not so easy to steal the time of young people from Kuaishou and Douyin.
According to the user portraits provided by Huge Arithmetic, Douyin users are mainly distributed in first-tier and new first-tier cities, with the proportion of male and female users being equal, and the proportion of young people aged 19-35 is the highest. Among them, the TGI of male users aged 19-24 is as high as 127, and the TGI of female users of the same age group has also reached 119. Kuaishou is also a world of young people, with users under the age of 24 and 25-30 accounting for 49.81% and 27.48% respectively.
It can be seen that the users of Jitter are still mainly young people. The huge number of middle-aged and elderly users is the untapped traffic treasure house of the short video double male, and it is also the key to overtaking the video corner.
According to questMobile statistics, in 2020, when the video number was launched, WeChat dominated the top 10 of the silver-haired population active APP with a penetration rate of 76.3%, Douyin only ranked seventh, and Kuaishou did not enter the top ten.
Relying on middle-aged and elderly users to enrich the traffic pool to attract creators to settle in, and then through the trump card of music to compete for young people and provide commercial monetization potential, the video number can be described as a step-by-step operation along the way.
(Image from Everbright Securities Research Institute)
Of course, the ultimate mission of the video number is not yet complete.
From the perspective of WeChat, the primary task of the video number is not to catch up with Douyin and Kuaishou in terms of user volume, but to accelerate the realization of commercialization.
According to the data of the new list, after opening up the video account and the public account, the emotional public account Laughing Emotion Theater has an average daily increase of 30,000 fans, and has achieved commercial realization in the past two months of operation. Through the new list, there are self-media treasures to receive orders for workplace training, food advertising, smile and emotion theater such as the waist public account monthly income has reached about 30,000, other vertical, similar volume of account income is also almost the same.
The mission of generating revenue for creators through video numbers has been achieved, and next, WeChat should think carefully about how to use video numbers as a new high ground for traffic to create greater value for Tencent.
How far away from full commercialization, video number?
For Tencent's aircraft carrier, the decline in the growth rate of revenue pillars such as games and advertising is inseparable from the rising status of video.
According to the fourth quarter financial report, Tencent's revenue in the quarter was 144.18 billion yuan, an increase of 8% year-on-year, compared with 25%, 20% and 13% in the previous three quarters, and the growth rate fell significantly. In addition, Tencent's adjusted profit attributable in the fourth quarter recorded 24.9 billion, down 25% and 22% year-on-year and 22% respectively, and the gross profit margin of 40% was also at the trough of the past two years.
In terms of revenue structure, the two major sectors of games and advertising have encountered the greatest resistance. In the fourth quarter, Tencent's social advertising revenue grew negatively by 10.1% year-on-year, and its media advertising revenue recorded a year-on-year decline for two consecutive quarters. On the game side, the revenue of the mobile game business in the fourth quarter was 40 billion yuan, and the year-on-year growth rate shrank sharply from 51% in 2020 to 9%.
It is worth mentioning that in the new batch of game version numbers issued a few days ago, Tencent and NetEase are still absent, which shows that the attitude of the regulatory level is not clear, and Tencent's game business still has to face great regulatory pressure.
In this context, Tencent needs to take precautions to find the next "printing machine" for itself - the video number, which is a choice that cannot be ignored.
At Cui Jian's online concert, the video number has begun to fully test the commercialization of large-scale live broadcasts.
On the one hand, Beiqi Blue Valley's high-end new energy vehicle brand Jihu has become the main sponsor of Cui Jian's concert, and the advertisement of Jihu Automobile has appeared in concerts many times, and the logo and light signs below the stage are also very eye-catching.
On the other hand, the WeChat video account also launched the function of purchasing WeChat beans and then converting them into gifts for tips. Among them, the Android weChat bean is priced at 1 yuan 10 beans, the Android end is 1 yuan 7 beans, a WeChat bean can give away a Polar Fox car, and 10 WeChat beans can give away a ROCK.
(Cui Jian concert screened by various gifts)
However, as mentioned earlier, the regulatory environment for live show broadcasting is not friendly, and it is extremely difficult to achieve large-scale growth in the existing competitive landscape, which is not the best path for the commercialization of video numbers.
In the past year, Kuaishou, which used to rely on live broadcasting to drive performance growth, has been actively adjusting the revenue structure and reducing the proportion of revenue in the live broadcast business.
According to the data, as of the fourth quarter, the revenue of Kuaishou's live broadcast business accounted for 38.2%, and the annual revenue fell by more than 7% year-on-year. In stark contrast, the advertising business recorded a revenue growth rate of 95.2% for the whole year, accounting for more than 50%. In addition, the e-commerce business has always been regarded as an important growth point in the future, and the repurchase rate and gross profit margin have increased compared with 2020.
The Value Institute believes that with the current user volume and traffic scale, the video number already has the basis for commercial monetization. There may be only one final and crucial step to full commercialization: to find the commercialization path and establish the future business direction.
Compared with live broadcasts where the regulatory environment and competitive environment are not friendly, e-commerce and advertising may be more worthy of video number attention, but there are still difficulties to overcome.
In terms of advertising, in addition to Cui Jian's concert, the Beijing Winter Olympics at the beginning of the year also provided an excellent testing place for video numbers.
According to the statistics of Baizhun Research Institute, the traffic of video numbers during the Winter Olympics has soared, and one of every 5 10W+ videos has rubbed on the winter Olympic hotspots. As the main equipment sponsor of the Chinese Winter Olympic delegation, ANTA attaches great importance to the time node of the Winter Olympics, and brushes its face through a series of cross-dressing and product advertisements on the video number.
In addition, Luckin, which signed a contract with Gu Ailing, and Wanda Property, which operates a number of ice and snow sports fields in China, is also engaged in marketing wars on the video number, exporting advertisements overwhelmingly.
(Picture from Bai zhuan data)
This series of events has proved that for advertisers, the status of video numbers has risen sharply, and Douyin and Kuaishou can be said to be doubly stressed. The report of Youwang Data shows that the WeChat video number mutual selection platform has been stationed in more than 5,000 accounts, and the advertisers who place orders cover many industries such as automobiles, digital home appliances, clothing, shoes and bags, food and tourism.
At present, the domestic Internet advertising market is at a low ebb, and at this time, advertisers will inevitably regulate their resources and put more ads on the head platform. For video numbers that are on the rise, this trend is favorable.
Of course, Zhang Xiaolong, as always, emphasizes the user experience and opposes the additional interference caused by excessive commercialization to users. Therefore, in terms of advertising loading rate, the video number is still quite restrained as the circle of friends and the public account. Next, how to solve the natural contradiction between the ad load rate and the user experience is something that WeChat needs to consider.
As for the e-commerce business, it also faces the dilemma of trade-offs between user experience and commercialization.
According to the data revealed in the WeChat open class in January this year, the GMV of the video number with goods has increased by 15 times in the past year, the average unit price of the live broadcast room exceeded 200 yuan, and the repurchase rate exceeded 60%. Judging from the current development route, the operation mode of video number e-commerce is similar to that of the Douyin Select Alliance, and both rely heavily on the quality of anchors and content.
Compared with Douyin, the advantage of the video number is that the creator's private domain traffic is larger, and it is more likely to improve user loyalty and repurchase rate, which is also related to The slightly closed ecology of WeChat. However, the tolerance of video users to e-commerce business is also significantly lower than that of Douyin and Kuaishou.
Bai Crow, the founder of Youzan, who is highly bound to WeChat e-commerce, once said that the 30% of the pure e-commerce ecology of video numbers is already the limit, and "users do not want to see that video numbers are all live streaming with goods."
Objectively speaking, after years of explosive growth, short videos have gradually reached a bottleneck period, and the positioning of WeChat video accounts is not completely in line with Jitter, nor is it limited to the field of short videos. How to clarify the priority of the video number business and determine the future development path is the next problem that Tencent needs to consider.
Write at the end
It is only two years since the weChat video number was first launched, but it has become Tencent's most successful product in the field of short video. Today, the video number not only shoulders the heavy responsibility of challenging the two heroes, but also opens up a broader commercial prospect for Tencent and injects new vitality into the national application of WeChat.
In the WeChat open class in 2021, which is also the tenth anniversary of WeChat's launch, Zhang Xiaolong completed the annual public speech through the form of live video number.
In this speech, Zhang Xiaolong gave this evaluation of the video number:
"What kind of thing is a video number?" To give a simple definition, it is a terminal content platform that everyone can create, and it is a content platform in the open domain. The more significance of the video number is that it is a carrier of video content. ”
Today, the function and form of the video number may have exceeded WeChat's initial expectations.
Although its degree of commercialization and active user scale cannot compete with Douyin and Kuaishou, its prospects are definitely worth looking forward to with the protection of the towering tree of WeChat.
Cui Jian's concert and The advertising implantation of Ji Fox are just the beginning. In the foreseeable future, the video number is expected to become a traffic distribution hub that combines many functions such as live broadcasting, content creation, and advertising operations, and is also the hope for further commercialization of WeChat in the future.