Two weeks of wild roll 50 million fans, what did the pusher behind Liu Qihong do?

Tech Planet (WeChat ID: tech618)

Wen | Dou Xuan

Editor| Qiao Qian

The source | 36 Kr

Cover source | IC photo

Liu Qihong's girl may not have lost weight yet, but Liu Qihong is really thin.

As of April 26, Liu's Douyin fans have exceeded 50 million, and it has only been 6 days since he sent a video celebrating the reach of 20 million fans.

Liu Washong used to be Jay Chou's friend and little puff's father, but now, he is a superstar on Douyin. At first, it attracted attention because of the live broadcast of fitness in a down jacket, and then with the shuttlecock exercise that everyone can keep up with, it broke the circle from vibrato. At present, the topic of "Compendium of Materia Medica" has been challenged by shuttlecock exercises, and has been played 4.64 billion times on Douyin.

After leaving the circle, platforms such as B Station and Xiaohongshu have also strengthened their cooperation with him.

In fact, as early as June 2018, Liu Ruihong settled in Douyin, and the early content was mainly based on parent-child and fitness daily science, which was also interspersed with some short videos interacting with stars such as Jay Chou and Lin Junjie. But in two years, it only rose by 1 million fans.

Until the end of last year, Liu Qihong signed a contract with Worry-free Media, which was initially based on live streaming with goods, but the data did not improve much. Since the start of the morning exercise and night exercise live broadcast in late February this year, the number of fans has increased significantly, until the down jacket live broadcast event began to explode.

As the head MCN in the Douyin ecology, Worry-free Media has been on the first place in the Douyin MCN monthly list for 35 consecutive times. This institution has created Internet celebrity cases such as Zhang Xinyao, the big wolf dog couple, and Mao Maojie in Douyin, but the content of star artists on Douyin, Worry-free Media has not yet had the results of going out of the circle.

For Douyin, the appearance of Liu Qihong is also very timely.

After Luo Yonghao gradually faded out, a new phenomenon-level Internet celebrity appeared in the Douyin ecology, and Liu Qihong filled this gap. The operation of Douyin revealed to 36Kr that Douyin is also trying to find the increment of the platform by supporting some vertical categories.

As far as the fitness vertical category is concerned, Douyin launched a short video fitness action "DOU Movement Plan" at the end of last year. The popularity of Liu Ruihong, the operation departments of Douyin hotspots and sports vertical categories have also participated in the promotion, and from the recent douyin live broadcast list, fitness live broadcasting also occupies the vast majority of seats at the top of the list, which means that this vertical category has taken off.

36Kr interviewed Lei Binyi, CEO of Worry-free Media, trying to restore the beginning and end of this out-of-the-loop event.

36 Kr: When did you start working with Liu Qihong?

Lei Binyi: We signed in December last year, it just so happens that his agent I know, we want to be a star this year, talk to them when selecting seedlings, we also look at it at a glance, I feel that there is an opportunity to do him.

Just signed to February this time period, belongs to the communication plan, set the direction, including everyone to understand each other and plan the collision of the run-in period, in February began to try live streaming with goods, did several family shopping and jumping with goods, to March gradually to the fitness live broadcast.

36Kr: Why switch from live streaming to fitness live?

Lei Binyi: Before signing us, he also did live streaming with goods, but he definitely had to test the data through various aspects.

We initially let him do e-commerce with goods in Douyin, in fact, it is OK, it will only be more than 1 million fans, and it did not give too much pressure in the early stage, more is to find the rhythm and feeling of bringing goods in Douyin live. In the process of doing it, we are also thinking about how to make the content richer and increase the number of online audiences, so we tried the direction of fitness.

The original idea was to do live content and short video content at the same time, short video this piece, we will do some family, life content with him, live broadcast is to bring goods and take everyone to fitness.

But then we found that in the direction of fitness, he loved and was good at it, and the fans responded well. Therefore, we feel that we can do the content well first, and we may not be in a hurry to commercialize it first.

Therefore, in March, it began to focus on live fitness broadcasting, and e-commerce was suspended. We also did some fan operations, for example, at that time, Douyin had opened the fan base function, and we also actively guided him to build a fan base inside Douyin, and precipitated his private domain through Q&A and interaction. Since the end of March, if the daily powder rises, it will probably rise by about 50,000-100,000, so that it has risen to more than 3 million fans in a month.

36Kr: At that time, it was obvious that the growth of fans of fitness content would be better than the previous e-commerce with goods or parent-child content, and only then did the content direction adjustment be made?

Lei Binyi: Not counting the adjustment of the direction, what we adjust is the proportion of live broadcasting. Just this year, we also set up a knowledge service division, which is equivalent to this exploration.

36 Kr: When did you perceive that Liu Ruihong's fitness live broadcast began to catch fire?

Lei Binyi: The time when the fire started, it should be the time when the down jacket was worn in the live broadcast room. I think it's a bit of a coincidence. At that time, our team was still worried about this review. Fortunately, the talent was able to resolve it in a relaxed way, which was a very good turnaround, and we felt that everyone's attention was strengthening afterwards.

36 Kr: The next breaking point after the down jacket incident is shuttlecock?

Lei Binyi: That's it.

36Kr: After these incidents, what is the situation of Liu Qihong's fan increase on Douyin?

Lei Binyi: The down jacket incident rose by about 1.5 million fans, after which his fan base increased significantly, after the shuttlecock exercise attracted attention, it was also frequently on Weibo and Douyin hot searches, from April 15 to April 21, the single-day growth of fans has been rising, and by the 21st, the number of fans reached its peak, and the single-day increase in fans on that day was 9.119 million.

36Kr: What is the cooperation model and division of labor between Worry-free Media and Liu Qihong?

Lei Binyi: We signed his cooperation exclusively, and in terms of the division of cooperation models, we jointly plan content and operation. Specifically, in the field of fitness, he has been doing it for 30 years, very professional, and now everyone sees the aerobics choreography and music choices, which are mainly based on him, and we also have some suggestions for the music choices behind. Every short video content selection will also collide together, in addition to some external and media operations, which may be our leadership.

36 Kr: How was BGM chosen?

Lei Binyi: "Compendium of Materia Medica" was chosen by Liu Qihong himself, and the later "Dragon Fist" was the advice given to him by our team. In the general direction of song selection, Chinese style is a very important point in our consideration.

36 Kr: When reviewing this time to become popular, what do you think is the key to success?

Lei Binyi: Frankly speaking, there is no systematic review, I myself analyze the reasons, first of all, the first core is still a person, when we signed it, we felt a bright eye, a loving couple, experienced twists and turns, but also three children, both in line with the national policy, his three children are also very cute, plus his fitness profession, itself is a good seedling, this is the most basic step.

The second factor is that he is willing to spend most of his time and energy on new media.

The year before, we wanted to be a star, although we also signed a few well-known stars at that time, but the environment we did face at that time was that many stars were still difficult to accept at once, and there was no further investment. Because some stars may face a dilemma: both, I want, and if you don't invest enough time, no one can guarantee that you will explode as soon as you do it.

He is very involved in himself, and he does have the concept of promoting fitness, and in the planning stage, he will contribute a lot of ideas. Including his online grading of fitness homework after his live broadcast, we were afraid that he was too tired at first, and considered letting the account operation assist in replying, but he still insisted on personally participating in fan interaction.

He and his wife live-streamed almost five days a week. Before the live broadcast, he still had to practice, and he also had to create actions, and the investment in all aspects was relatively large. As far as I know, he should have lost a few pounds again during this time.

The third point is that our team pays attention to the data changes in time, and chooses to look at the long-term line in time, and when there is a suitable opportunity, first do not bring goods, and do a good job of content and fan accumulation. The artists themselves and Wuyou, including Liu's agency, support this choice. In fact, for many companies and artists, it is not so easy to choose.

In addition, I think it is indeed a time of day, catching up with the boom of online fitness, and also getting the attention of the central media.

36Kr: During the whole process, did the Douyin official give you support or co-plan with you?

Lei Binyi: At the beginning, we did it ourselves, but when we got better feedback, Douyin also gave us a lot of support and operational suggestions for resources on the site, and we have always maintained communication.

36Kr: Is Douyin now specifically pushing the fitness category?

Lei Binyi: Douyin last year was vigorously promoting knowledge, culture, art and other vertical categories, which is their established direction, so we were digging KOLs in the field of fitness last year, according to my understanding, douyin will continue to increase the intensity of fitness promotion recently.

36Kr: When Liu Qihong became popular on Douyin, his content was also widely disseminated on channels such as B station, Little Red Book, and Weibo. Did you do supporting various channels at that time?

Lei Binyi: We will have some actions at the marketing level of content fermentation. Station B is more of a spontaneous clip of users, Little Red Book, because there are more fitness enthusiasts, so we have strengthened content operation and guidance.

Liu Qihong himself also has daily updates on Weibo, but I think it exploded on Weibo, and many of them came from the attention of users and the media. At that time, our focus was still on Douyin, and at the beginning, our energy was limited, and the main operating force of Worry-free was also placed on douyin.

36Kr: After Liu Qihong became popular, will you copy your experience to other signed stars or Internet celebrities?

Lei Binyi: At present, there is indeed a plan, worry-free has been doing a pyramid-shaped master structure, the pyramid has both a head and a waist, and there are constantly new people coming in at the bottom. So since we have run through this direction, we will definitely do the matrix and increase the strength of this sector, and now the corresponding plans are in progress.

36Kr: You mentioned that last year, you specifically did the star plate and knowledge payment, why focus on these two pieces?

Lei Binyi: Signing stars, we began to try in 2019 and 2020, and what we envisioned at that time was to do an Internet-based agency, so we would do the artistization of celebrities and the networking of artists.

But I think a lot of things actually need timing, such as when we first wanted to push celebrities in the direction of artists, but when the environment was not suitable, it may not work. Last year, we had a small success in the artistization of celebrities, that is, Zhang Xinyao, who gradually began to develop from KOLs to variety shows and filming.

From the perspective of the entire environment, the investment of stars in new media has also experienced that from 2020, everyone has gone to the field to bring goods, and now the new media has gradually deepened this understanding. After two years of stock accumulation, we see that the time is gradually ripe, so we firmly started to look for seedlings last year and increased our efforts to do this thing.

Knowledge payment, in fact, last year after we saw this trend, has been looking for the right person in charge and team, the team was just formed at the beginning of the year, and then there may be more talents out, now the polishing stage.

36Kr: Which vertical categories will be focused on this year? Does Douyin currently have to push some vertical categories and find new growth by creating head influencers in this vertical category?

Lei Binyi: I think it's not that Douyin can be built if you want to build, no one is a god, you have to look at the user's preferences, our institution also needs to find and explore, and then through the verification of data. Douyin is already a platform with rich content, and they have been pushing a lot of vertical categories, including museums, operas, etc. It is only to say that whether a new magnitude can be born in each vertical class, which may be more about whether the vertical class can explore a content direction accepted by the whole people. Even if it is like fishing, there are people who have achieved tens of millions of levels of vibrato. I think sometimes it's not about the audience of the vertical category, but about his way, and it also needs some timing.

There are many TikTok classes, and we can't do them all. As a worry-free, entertainment, food, music, dance, family, funny these vertical categories, is our focus, of course, later also gradually increased the investment in some vertical categories, such as beauty, cute pets, cultural tourism, and now doing knowledge services, knowledge sharing.

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