With the rise of Douyin, Neither Tencent nor Weibo can stay out of the way. The short video challenge is coming faster than expected, stirring up the trend of change is already very obvious, and the entire content industry may reshuffle.
Written by | Liu Danru
Editor| Wang Xiaoling
Unlike the closed WeChat empire, Weibo, the largest social media platform in China, does not look so strong, and provocateurs can be said to be emerging in an endless stream. This year, the "Weibo Killer" is the hot short video platform Douyin, and some people even say, "On the road of sniping Fast, Douyin first extinguished Weibo."
Yes, even if according to the latest financial report, the number of monthly active users of Weibo exceeded 400 million, and the commercial revenue maintained a growth rate of more than 60% for 5 consecutive quarters, Weibo still cannot sit back and relax. Like Tencent, Weibo has also had a layout in short videos, but neither giant has been able to establish enough barriers in this new content form.
With the rise of Douyin, Neither Tencent nor Weibo can stay out of the way. The short video challenge is coming faster than expected, stirring up the trend of change is already very obvious, and the entire content industry may reshuffle. In this regard, AI Finance and Economics interviewed Cao Zenghui, senior vice president of Weibo.
▲ Cao Zenghui, senior vice president of Weibo
Music is the core consumption point of this round of content creation
Two years have passed since the beginning of the "second rise" in 2016, and Weibo, which insists on user sinking and content diversification, still maintains a good momentum of development, but this does not mean that Weibo as a social media has moved away from the war.
One not-so-distant case is Twitter. Social media, which was once regarded as a powerful challenger for Facebook, has not grasped the development dividends of new forms such as pictures, videos, and live broadcasts, which has gradually disappointed users. In contrast to 700 million Instagram users and more than a billion Whatsapp users, the number of users has stagnated, and Twitter, whose performance has declined, is even more twilight.
In the Chinese market, Weibo has never lacked competitors, in the 2009 Hundred Bo War, Weibo was surrounded and suppressed by many companies, until 2014, the war ended with Sina Weibo renamed Weibo, and since then Weibo has no semicolon except Sina. But then the rise of WeChat brought a huge blow to Weibo, so that the Weibo listing in 2014 was spent in the "bleak", and then Weibo ushered in a second rise. Nowadays, when the vibrato is fast, a thought-provoking question is that from the small coffee show to the Weibo story, Weibo can be said to have a layout on the short video, but why has it not been able to establish its own firewall?
AI Finance and Economics Agency: Since two or three months ago, there has been a debate about "so-and-so platform killing Weibo", what do you think inside Weibo?
Cao Zenghui: I have also seen articles like "Douyin kills Kuaishou and kills Weibo" before, and we don't judge this behavior very well. For Weibo, it is more important to do a good job of positioning and content. In the early days of the mobile Internet, Weibo and WeChat were two social platforms that attracted relatively large user traffic. After the development of the short video platform, there will inevitably be some new products, but everyone's positioning is different. Horizontally, this change must have an impact on the user's use time, but the content of funny entertainment is not necessarily Affected by Weibo.
AI Finance and Economics: Speaking of short videos, Weibo actually did short video content relatively early in China.
Cao Zenghui: In fact, from the data point of view, Weibo's video playback data in April and May is a record high compared with the end of last year. In fact, every platform is doing video, and we all know that video is the main form of user dissemination and consumption of content in the future, and it is the trend of producing content. However, the direction in which each platform does video and the role of video in each platform may be different. Last year, everyone was talking about vertical screens, as if the entire video industry was full of vertical screens. But for Weibo, Weibo has arisen from the head of PGC users, and so far, the professional PGC content of the horizontal screen is still a very important part of the video content in Weibo.
AI Finance: At present, there are many new content platforms for horizontal screen video, what is the foothold of Weibo?
Cao Zenghui: Looking at other platforms horizontally, you will find that many platforms mainly do disassembly, that is, some historical copyright movies and funny content are disassembled and cut in batches through editing tools, and then distributed. To be honest, the threshold for obtaining traffic in this way is very low, and the ability to obtain traffic is stronger than that of originality. But Weibo is different from these platforms, and our layout of horizontal video mainly does original PGC content. Including Weibo supporting MCN and doing cool burning, it is hoped that the original author's video production capacity will be enhanced through institutions. Weibo will not give up the original ecology, because the core of this market is still to create content with IP value.
AI Finance: In addition to the horizontal screen, Weibo also made a vertical screen "Weibo story" last year, but this product does not seem to have achieved the expected effect and has been adjusting. Now how does Weibo view vertical screen content?
Cao Zenghui: Weibo began to do "Weibo Stories" last year, and frankly speaking, it has also taken some detours. In the early days, we mainly referred to Facebook's approach, but later found that there are still some differences between domestic consumption habits and foreign countries. So from the end of last year to the present, we are still optimizing the "Weibo Story" product.
From the perspective of consumption habits, vertical screen is definitely a very important direction for video consumption. It's closer to the way of producing content directly on a mobile phone, and as long as there is expressiveness, the author is not constrained by the ability to produce very good content. Whether it is horizontal or vertical, the core advantage of Weibo still stems from social networking. Why do users post content on Weibo? Because by producing good content, you can accumulate fans on Weibo and monetize social assets. Which content fans like and attract more users, the author will produce what content.
In late March, the number of vertical video posts on Weibo already accounted for about 40% of the total number of videos posted on Weibo, and Weibo stories were only a part of the vertical screen videos. Whether we can help authors produce better, lower-cost videos that attract users and help authors accumulate social assets is the most critical.
AI Finance and Economics: As early as Douyin, Xiao Jiaxiu also had a period of time on Weibo, but in the end this product failed to succeed, what was the reason for the failure of this product? And did Weibo miss the opportunity for a wave of vertical screens?
Cao Zenghui: The small coffee show was already vertical at that time, but it was a pity that the product was not sustainable. After Douyin got up this time, music became a part of this round of content creation, and it is a very core user consumption point. This one was not there when the little coffee show appeared.
Now look at the small coffee show, we will feel that, first, it is too dependent on stars, some individuals with the ability to show, and have not been able to grow up on this platform, no new traffic, the traffic of stars is limited. Second, for platforms with particularly high creative requirements, if their production stagnates. In fact, because the cost of creating content is higher than the cost of PGC creation. How long can this frequency of production and its scale last?
In fact, the small coffee show faced this problem at that time, such as the star shooting every day, and then shooting for a while did not know what to shoot, right? For example, I think that a platform like this that is highly dependent on operability, its production capacity and the diversification of the content it produces, I think this problem is still a problem that they need to face.
AI Finance: Will Weibo increase its investment in vertical screen content in the future? Will portrait screens replace landscape screens in the future?
Cao Zenghui: At the end of last year, we began to gradually position "Weibo stories" to produce disseminatable content in the form of vertical screens, and the core was to let head users and people with the ability to produce disseminatable content use "Weibo stories" to produce content. This year, we are more about making its content high-quality and disseminatable, so that it and Weibo's communication network can be better integrated.
I think that after Weibo Story has adjusted it and the overall network structure of Weibo this year, it should still have very strong growth potential. I think the future vertical screen will be more and more, become a part of the consumption of young people to consume video content, the future you say horizontal vertical screen, I think it is not possible to say who is bigger than whom, but it will indeed become two very important forms in the video.
All platforms are entering each other's territory
For the story of "new players defeating old giants", people have always liked it. In recent times, the giants have been busy entering each other's markets, even at the expense of reviving products that have been stopped. Headlines are a typical example of this expansion, and Tencent has also followed up quickly this year, in addition to the short video platform Weishi, even Tencent Weibo, which has been abandoned for several years, has also released a new version. Not to mention, products like information flow have become standard on all platforms.
Under this trend, where exactly are the boundaries of platform expansion?
AI Finance: Weibo itself has also made such a product as hot streaming, it seems that everyone is doing each other this year?
Cao Zenghui: On the surface, it seems that they are doing each other, but everyone's starting point is different. Weibo's recommendation information flow is mainly to guide users to build new relationships, let users match their interests on Weibo, and lower the threshold of "the ability to find a good account". For example, a new user comes, the data in the relationship information flow is zero, and he does not know where to find a good account and good content. Popular feeds solve this problem. The ultimate goal is to improve the ability to discover good accounts, not just the ability to discover good content.
AI Finance: So how does Weibo view the products that build social relationships from content information platforms, and if these platforms can also build social relationships, will it have an impact on Weibo?
Cao Zenghui: We have done a popular information stream, the purpose is to feed back social, to help users discover and precipitate relationships. This logic should be more general, right? But a recommendation system is originally a platform for users to watch content at a very low cost, and you build relationships. To be honest, I haven't seen a pure recommendation platform turn into a social platform in reverse.
Because this thing is determined by flow and genes. The form determines where the traffic is, which determines what positioning the product is. If the user does not account for the vast majority of your consumption traffic in the relationship flow, this social relationship is definitely meaningless.
AI Finance: Some emerging content communities have also shown a rising trend, such as vertical communities such as the far right, instant, and even Xiaohongshu, as well as B stations, do these platforms have the opportunity to grow into large social media, and then impact Weibo?
Cao Zenghui: Niche communities certainly have value, but there are very few products with a very strong community atmosphere that can finally break through the popularity. These two things may naturally be in conflict, and if niche circles are particularly strong, this is an obstacle to popularization. When it is going to be popularized, it will face the huge resistance of the original crowd, and old users will feel that the culture has been impacted and provoked, and it may be that old users will be lost, and new users may not necessarily pass.
Weibo insists on being a big platform, in fact, it sacrifices the construction of some community culture. Weibo has never done offline particularly strong organizational user guidance, and doing this kind of guidance will inevitably make the popularization of Weibo face some impacts, such as it may produce a wave of people, holding a cultural thing to confront new people, which is the problem. Therefore, Weibo has no attitude, no culture, no official color, and the most important guarantee of Weibo is fairness.
Weibo does not block potential competitors
In May this year, Zhang Yiming, the founder of Today's Headlines, personally complained about Tencent in his circle of friends: "The excuse of WeChat is blocked, and the plagiarism and handling of Weishi cannot stop the pace of Douyin." Since then, the two companies have fought several rounds of war of words on WeChat's blocking of the Douyin link.
In fact, in the early days of the cold start of Douyin, the main position was Weibo.
AI Finance and Economics: Nowadays, many of Weibo's competitors have used Weibo's spread to catch fire in the early days, will Weibo block opponents early in the future because of fear of raising tigers?
Cao Zenghui: The core is how content producers think about the problem. For example, a self-media, he definitely hopes to have a stronger ability to obtain fans and greater influence. Based on this situation, it is unlikely that he will publish content on only one platform. The point is which platform he relies on when he wants to be an influencer. Any platform that wants to be the only platform for user growth is not realistic.
Weibo positioning is social media, we hope to do a better job in this field, this is the core competitiveness of Weibo. But Weibo can't be all self-media. Where there is more traffic, self-media will go to where to operate, but the platform chosen in the end must still be a platform that can help him accumulate social assets. So now the core platform of self-media is still two, one is WeChat and the other is Weibo.
AI Finance and Economics: Weibo and WeChat are equivalent to two central ecological platforms, where all content producers distribute content, if users distribute content from other platforms on Weibo, will Weibo go in and blow the whistle?
Cao Zenghui: We don't. There are uniform distribution rules in the relationship flow, such as high exposure of interactions. In this case, whether it is sent through the story or moved from TikTok, the competition is the same. For us, Weibo has grown over the past few years, which is originally such a network structure, and users will naturally concentrate a large amount of high-quality content on a platform like Weibo to publish. It is because of this that Weibo has become the only social media platform in China, because in this case, your content competitiveness will be very strong. Because the user's ability to discover good content is always stronger than the site.
AI Finance: But last year Weibo planned to sign a batch of exclusive big Vs in various vertical fields, is it still adhering to this strategy this year?
Cao Zenghui: Last year and the current competitive environment is not the same, but what is the core? A big V naturally needs to use multiple platforms, which is caused by market demand, and no matter how big any platform is, it should not destroy this most basic logic. If Big V has an active appeal, we will provide more resources to support him. If big V does not take the initiative to appeal, Weibo does not need to initiate this thing. This is unrestrictive and unreasonable.
Knowing what you are is more important than what you want to do
The rise of Douyin, the reason why other platforms are highly nervous, is because from text to pictures to videos, every innovation in content form will give birth to a number of new giants, and it will also make some companies that miss the trend gradually decline. Whether it's For Weibo or WeChat, this is a challenge.
AI Finance: Now Weibo's challenges are mainly from itself or from competitors?
Cao Zenghui: The biggest challenge is whether Weibo can become a platform for users to express themselves in various forms in the process of video. Content producers are a very critical demographic on social media, and there is something to be in awe of. In the process of Weibo evolution, whether it can become the most efficient platform for self-media to better show themselves, accumulate fans, and then commercialize, this is what we will always care about the most.
AI Finance: How to consider the impact from competitors?
Cao Zenghui: The key is that Weibo must know what it is, which is more important than what it wants to do. Whether it is in the face of WeChat competition at that time or now, we will think about what the core advantages of Weibo are and what we must adhere to in the competition.
AI Finance: Does the trend toward video mean that text will gradually become less important?
Cao Zenghui: Weibo has not given up on text, and we have been constantly improving from the weight of information flow and interaction. People still want to show a complete self, whether it is an ordinary user or a head user, when he wants to show his thoughts, words are irreplaceable forms. So far, words are at the heart of public discussion and irreplaceable in terms of ideas and public discussions. On the contrary, words are our strong form of content.
At the heart of Weibo is public discussion. This public discussion is social, cross-crowd, cross-class, cross-field, cross-knowledge, and so far no platform is very similar to Weibo in this regard. For example, in the discussion around Hongmao medicinal liquor, there are doctors, lawyers, and people at all levels, and the value brought by this confrontation to the whole society is irreplaceable by other platforms. The long-term development of the platform must also be valuable, knowledgeable, and help users solve problems.
AI Finance: Now that everyone is talking about decentralization, will social media also show a trend of decentralization in the future, with multiple social media instead of one?
Cao Zenghui: The reason why social is sticky is because of strong uniformity. For example, social media, the communication efficiency and communication efficiency of the unified platform are the highest, whether it is WeChat or Weibo, which is in line with this feature. From the perspective of the general direction, the social platform will definitely tend to be unified in the future. Efficiency cannot be achieved after decentralization. For example, I am an Internet big V, and on a platform I have the opportunity to meet a doctor and discuss the same topic with him, which is the social value of this platform. It's hard to spread across multiple platforms. The only difference between Big V and other platforms on Weibo is actually this kind of cross-border interaction. This pluralistic discussion is even more valuable. The feelings this brings to the user and the drive for personal growth are completely different.
AI Finance: Every product has its own life cycle, what stage is Weibo at now? What are your priorities at this stage?
Cao Zenghui: It has been two years since our second rise, and the user size has probably nearly doubled during this period. The size of the user cannot grow indefinitely, and the speed will certainly decline compared with the previous two years. For Weibo, our early users are mainly first- and second-tier cities, and now users in third- and fourth-tier cities account for a large proportion, and then go down to cities below the fifth and sixth tiers. How to solve Weibo's user acquisition capabilities in fifth- and sixth-tier cities is certainly a very important job for Weibo, and may also be a challenge.
AI Finance: User sinking is a main theme of the current Internet competition, how does Weibo compete with other products?
Cao Zenghui: The core of Weibo is the form of social media, which determines that we have our own unique place in obtaining users and consumer content, even if we enter the fifth and sixth-tier cities, Weibo is still based on social media positioning. Now Weibo has text, articles, pictures, videos, and live broadcasts in terms of content form. From the content category, there are a large number of content such as stars and food, but the richer the content form, the more content, the more complicated it is to enter the sinking market.
So we made a Weibo express version, which is to pick out the content that may be of interest to the fifth and sixth line users, as long as these contents are given to the user. But the express version is still called Weibo, and we also adhere to the positioning of social media in fifth- and sixth-tier cities.
AI Finance and Economics: Today's headlines are expanding with multiple apps, why has Weibo been doing Weibo and not launching other products?
Cao Zenghui: Mr. Lai (Weibo CEO Wang Gaofei) said one thing before. An investor in the early days of Weibo, every time he saw him, he only asked one sentence, are you still doing social media? As long as it is, he continues to hold Weibo stock.
The core of Weibo is still to adhere to its own positioning and role, and then adapt to the changes of users in this positioning. For example, if we watch more videos, we must do a better job in the production, consumption and interaction of videos. Innovation isn't just about making a bunch of new apps or particularly new features.
A few years ago, we faced the challenge of WeChat, and the measures taken by Weibo at that time were not to make a WeChat-like App, we still insisted on the positioning of Weibo. After that stage, the content of Weibo has undergone qualitative changes, which has created the diversification and richness of the current Weibo content, and an independent ecology has been formed in each field, and this innovation based on its own form may be more important. Is not innovative do not know, anyway the user pays the bill.
AI Finance and Economics: In the early days of the birth of Weibo, a large number of public events were discussed on Weibo, and with the sinking strategy of Weibo, various controversies such as content entertainment, serious online violence, and so on never stopped, how does Weibo view these controversies?
Cao Zenghui: The early users of Weibo were mainly celebrities and media people who paid attention to social hotspots. Some people's understanding of Weibo may still stay until that year, thinking that Weibo is still a platform for watching social hotspots and watching celebrity gossip. So he doesn't understand why Weibo MAU was only 100 million in the past, and now it is more than 400 million. Among Weibo's active users, 16 to 25 years old account for 60%, and what content users like to consume, there will be more content producers to produce.
It is not what direction the platform wants to operate users or content, but in fact, it is driven by user demand. The ecology and structure of Weibo content have undergone earth-shaking changes, and it may be difficult for old users to find the same feeling as before.