The anchor's dream of becoming rich overnight was shattered
In just 7 months, he earned a full 35 million through live broadcasting! Recently, the Internet celebrity Ling Dale, who has the title of "Shanzhai Luhan", was on Weibo for revealing his income.
"Buy a suite for 11 million, decorate the old house for 500,000 yuan, and a Mercedes E for 530,000." In Lingdale's discourse system, "ten thousand" is the only unit of measurement and is often omitted.
At the same time as its public opinion fermentation, Jiang Ge's mother Jiang Qiulian and Teacher Huang, who sang "digging and digging", all started live broadcasts one after another, among which, Jiang Qiulian's live broadcast sales exceeded one million yuan.
Is live streaming really so profitable? This is actually an illusion, only a small part of the iceberg makes money, and the income of a large number of anchors under the iceberg is not high.
"At present, most of the new Xiaobai anchors have a salary of four or five thousand yuan at the end of a month." A number of live streaming practitioners told the "city boundary". In the eyes of some anchors, the dividends of the live broadcast industry have passed, and there is not much time left for them to make money.
Get rich overnight, just take a look
"No girl can walk out of Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room empty-handed." Around 2019, this buzzword on the Internet describes the popularity of live streaming goods.
Live streaming has developed rapidly since 2017, and by 2022, the market size will reach the level of 3.5 trillion yuan, an increase of nearly 180 times in five years. After live streaming e-commerce gradually penetrated into the public's shopping routine, e-commerce anchors have become a profession with great power and potential.
Taking the well-known Li Jiaqi and Weiya as an example, in the "2021 Top 100 Chinese Internet Anchors Annual Net Income List", Li Jiaqi topped the list with an annual net income of 1.8553 billion yuan; in the same year, Weiya and his wife had a net worth of up to 9 billion yuan. Another top player in the live broadcast industry, Luo Yonghao, almost paid off 600 million debts in a few years of live broadcasting.
To this day, the anchor still gives people the impression of fast money and low threshold, countless people have poured into the live broadcast tide with the mentality of getting rich overnight, and data shows that more than 60% of fresh graduates want to become Internet celebrities.
However, when the labels of "Internet celebrity" and "celebrity" are removed and the lens is focused on ordinary small anchors, it is a different scene.
"Doing this line for 2 years is not much higher than ordinary civilian jobs, and you have to pay extra time and energy, which is a bit more than worth the loss." Lin Lin, who signed a small business, told "City Boundary" that she was alone in the live broadcast room, and there was no broadcasting, streaming, or planning, "In the past, the store sold a lot of goods without any substantial rewards, but now because of poor operation, I have to be deducted money because I sell less goods."
In Lin Lin's opinion, "monthly income of 100,000" is far away from her, and it is almost an impossible dream.
A Shenzhen anchor gave a more intuitive figure, his current salary is 5,000 yuan + commission, more than 5 hours a day, and there is no central control, the whole process must rely on himself to crackle continuously. Thinking about changing jobs, "but turning over the BOSS direct employment is almost all at this level." ”
"Those news that the online overwhelmed anchors earned more than 10,000 and became rich overnight, just take a look." The anchor said indifferently.
Guangzhou female anchor Ji Yuan very much wants to pour cold water on young people who plan to enter the industry. "It's true that streamers are paid well, but that was a long time ago. Taking Guangzhou as an example, from the second half of 2022, many experienced anchors will find it difficult to get even 8,000 yuan. ”
"No way, the competition is too fierce." Ji Yuan said. Even so, young people with dreams of becoming rich continue to pour in. "Even if it is 8 hours of work and 7 days of trial work, there are many people who are willing to join." Ji Yuan said.
A "China Online Performance (Live and Short Video) Industry Development Report (2022-2023)" supports the facts described by the above anchors. According to the report, by the end of 2022, more than 150 million anchor accounts had been opened in the mainland online performance (live broadcast) industry, and 95.2% of the anchors with live streaming as their main source of income had a monthly income of less than 5,000 yuan, and only 0.4% had a monthly income of more than 100,000 yuan.
In this regard, the post-00s male anchor Cheese, who has more than three years of anchor experience, is deeply touched, "Although I don't know the specific data, I know that most anchors who have just entered the industry, or in some areas where the e-commerce industry is not very developed, do only earn a few thousand yuan." ”
What causes more trouble to the anchors is the internal friction in the "artificial pull", so that they are tired and do not love.
"The glory days of the past have passed, and now we have to start over, and we need to take longer to increase traffic." The company's sales were not ideal, and the operation director first thought of strengthening, hoping that Lin Lin would increase from the original 4 hours a day to 5 to 6 hours a day, without overtime pay or benefits.
Ji Yuan also said that the key is that many live broadcast accounts are new numbers, there is no fan base, there is no way to sell goods, the anchor broadcasts to the live broadcast room of only a few people until midnight, and finally can only rub a basic salary, and the payment is seriously disproportionate to the income.
"Live streaming is exchanging overdraft bodies for money." Cheese emphasized.
Not making money, closing the company
Ordinary anchors have risen to 10,000 yuan in monthly income. Ji Yuan recounted the experience of a friend of hers, in 2021, the friend worked as an assistant Xiaobai in Guangzhou, and his salary was only 6,000 yuan. Later, I felt that Hangzhou salary was high, and after running over, I directly drove to 100 yuan per hour, and I could earn tens of thousands of yuan a month, and my friend was very happy, and later the salary rose to 150~200 yuan per hour.
Unexpectedly, a year later, the friend with rich work experience would have an hourly salary of 70 yuan.
Why are streamers' income getting worse? This is related to many factors such as anchor ability, industry competition, and platform logic.
A user who often visits the live broadcast room said, "Now there is no threshold for opening a live broadcast, no matter who you are, what your appearance is, whether you have talent or not, you can set up a mobile phone to broadcast it." ”
But in fact, not everyone can be a streamer. "Whether a person is suitable for being an anchor is difficult to learn. The sense of lens, the aura, all need talent. Zheng Qing has been in the electronic equipment business for more than ten years, and began to do live broadcast in 2020, he told "City" that he has changed more than 20 anchors in the past 3 years, and only 2 are really capable.
"Streamers are different from offline sales, and they have to face tens of thousands or even millions of viewers at the same time." Chen Xiao, another live streaming practitioner, said that the anchor industry needs audience popularity. After more than 3 years in the industry, he has seen capable and high-paid anchors, no more than 10%.
Zhang Shule, a senior TMT industry commentator, agreed that the live broadcast of Internet celebrities is essentially in line with the network's law of 19 (the advancement of the 28th law), and in the case of great homogenization, with the weakening of the aura of live streaming goods, the sharp drop in anchor income below the waist after the wind outlet weakens is in line with the law of the market and is also a normal state.
Regardless of the reasons at the anchor level, as the industry dividend fades and the cost of traffic procurement rises, the pattern of "big anchors eat meat and small anchors drink soup" is becoming clearer.
Lin Lin remembers very well that when she first entered the industry in 2020, the live broadcast industry was reckless, as long as the anchor could say, the company was willing to throw money to push the flow, and it was not a problem to issue orders. At that time, she first knew what "holding orders" (that is, using benefits or attractive products as a gimmick to attract users to stay for a long time), and also witnessed the number of online people in the live broadcast room "from a dozen to more than 2,000".
"At that time, live streaming was not like now, which requires anchors to have half a year or more than a year of experience, as long as they do it for 3 months, they are not newbies." Lin Lin recalled to the "city boundary".
Also in 2020, data from the Department of E-commerce of the Ministry of Commerce showed that the cumulative number of live broadcasts on the e-commerce platforms it focused on monitoring exceeded 24 million, with a total GMV of 961 billion yuan and an average sales of 40,000 yuan per game.
Feng Yi can be regarded as an old player of live broadcasting. He told "City Boundary" that in 2019, his ROI can be about 1:6, that is, invest 1 yuan to promote, and finally earn back 6 yuan. By 2023, ROI can barely be maintained at 1:2.
The reason is that traffic is getting more and more expensive. "In the first half of the year, 10 million goods were sold, and the net profit was more than 400,000, and in the second half of the year, the average loss was more than 200,000 per month."
"E-commerce platforms always seem to have an invisible hand controlling traffic prices." According to Feng Yi, since the beginning of this year, the most obvious feeling of the peers around him is that no matter how much money is invested, they can't run the industry average.
Affected by the company's high costs, before the "Eleventh" holiday, Feng Yi closed the company and returned to working as a worker. And the 18 anchors he originally hired have all re-entered the circulation market, "waiting for the price and selling".
It is not difficult to see that it is the change in the platform's traffic mechanism that leads to the occurrence of traffic gaps, which in turn affects the income of anchors.
"Whether it's traditional e-commerce or live streaming goods, it's all a business that buys traffic and sells products. For example, Ling Dale, Jiang Qiulian, Teacher Huang, etc., these Internet celebrities not only bring their own traffic, but also do not have to spend a lot of money to buy traffic from the platform, and even bring traffic to the platform. Feng Yi told the "city boundary" that with the traffic base, the "Lingdales" have chips to negotiate a proportional commission with the merchants, and there is a story of "monthly income of 100,000" and "getting rich at every turn".
Following this logic, Cheese takes the Douyin e-commerce ecology as an example and says that those who can play in it are big brands or big Internet celebrities.
"Only big anchors have the opportunity to cooperate with big businesses and big brands, so as to achieve high GMV." According to his estimates, beauty brands like Lancôme or Estée Lauder will spend as much as eight or nine million a week on advertising when they catch up with the big sale.
On the contrary, small and medium-sized businesses have no money to buy traffic, sales are not ideal, and the income of corresponding anchors will be relatively lower.
In the long run, the result is that small anchors earn less because of few resources and poor data, forming a vicious circle.
Where do hundreds of millions of anchors go?
Being in the industry, cheese can clearly feel that the live streaming industry is going downhill. First, supervision is becoming stricter, and second, it is becoming more and more difficult to make money.
He revealed to "City Boundary" that not long ago, a female artist did a live broadcast, and 20 million of the 30 million sales were brushed out by themselves. "This is also why the stars who posted live broadcast results in the early days rarely posted later. There is a fear of being audited, and the larger level is because the sales are really miserable. ”
It can be said that the "golden age" of live streaming is gone. With the slowdown in the growth rate of the industry and the serious polarization of revenue, where should hundreds of millions of small and medium-sized anchors go?
Zhang Shule analyzed that the industry needs to go in two directions in the future, one is that Internet celebrity anchors move towards vertical segmentation and truly stick fans with valuable content; Second, live MCN is moving towards the industrial chain, gradually achieving quality assurance and the best cost performance through the self-operated industrial chain, infinitely approaching the lowest price of the entire network, and truly making the channel more flat.
When it comes to streamers, everyone's choices are different, but there are not many options.
Lin Lin belongs to the category that is still watching. "It's not that I didn't think about giving up." She reluctantly said that she had tried to find ordinary sales jobs, but when she thought of facing customers directly, or even maintaining customers during breaks, she retreated. ”
Chen Xiao and Cheese believe that the industry is not yet complete, but they still want to insist and turn the rudder at any time according to the trend of the industry. The industry is still new, and new opportunities will emerge every once in a while. Chen Xiao learned that Byte has obviously been supporting local life business in the past two years, and Meituan and Xiaohongshu have also begun to engage in live broadcasts.
He has devoted double his time and energy to making achievements, and recently approached "Double 11", and he worked more than 10 hours a day. "For example, in company A broadcast for 4 hours, company B broadcast for 3 hours, and then go to company C for 4 hours. Live broadcasts are all day. Chen Xiao said.
Cheese's point of view is that anchors should use the company's resources and platforms to pile themselves up and accumulate their own fans during the Xiaobai period. In this way, with the influence and appeal of personal IP in the future, whether you continue to sign an institution or start an independent business, you will not worry about your livelihood.
He learned that the T97 coffee female anchor "Big Mouth Girl", who was popular in the circle last year, created her own personal account after she had a certain right to speak in the later stage.
Inspired by this, Cheese also negotiated with the company to open a personal account, "Before signing an agreement with the company, the negotiation process was difficult. But without further ado, I'm still trying my best, after all, there is not much time left for me. ”
After witnessing the income gap in the industry, Ji Yuan firmly withdrew from the live broadcast circle and turned to looking for business experience on Xiaohongshu. Like Ji Yuan, more small and medium-sized anchors did not leave their names. In the past few years when the industry has been moving forward, they have disappeared into the army of live streaming goods at different time nodes.
Interestingly, despite the disruption of the industry, under the temptation of "high salary" and "fame", there are still many people who look at the door and try to enter the industry. They are either looking for opportunities on BOSS Direct Employment, or looking for bloggers on social media platforms to set up and ask for guidance. For them, "live streaming goods" is still a shortcut for the next Li Jiaqi and Xiao Yang Ge.
(Lin Lin, Ji Yuan, Cheese, Zheng Qing, Chen Xiao, Feng Yi are pseudonyms in the text)
Author | CHEN Chang LI Dan
Edit | CHEN Fang
Operations | Liu Shan