New wind in sports: the balance between performance and flow
Recently, Wu Yanni's success has triggered a battle over performance and traffic. Her traffic surpasses that of Lin Yuwei, who won the championship, which also reflects the gradual move of the domestic sports world towards the "fan circle culture". After Ms. Wu was disqualified for running a race, she was criticized by the mainstream media and spectators, who generally believed that athletes should take pride in their results and not spend too much energy on social media. As a result, some have called for more attention to champion Lin Yuwei.
However, we might as well take a look at how the two athletes have changed on social media in the ten days since the end of the competition. On the day of the competition, Wu Yanni's short video platform had 2.949 million fans, while Lin Yuwei only had 127,000. Prior to the Asian Games, Lin Yuwei's results were significantly better than Wu Yanni's, and she had already won the National Games and the National Indoor Championships. And Wu Yanni only has a silver medal at the Universiade and the champion of the 2023 National Track and Field Championships.
Interestingly, the social media profiles of the two athletes are also different. Wu Yanni's profile column is full of various emojis and personalized quotes, and even includes contact information for commercials. In contrast, Lin Yuwei's profile is much more succinct, describing herself only as a track and field hurdler in Fujian Province.
Ten days later, however, Lin Yuwei's followers surged to 337,000, but it was still only one-tenth of Ms. Wu's. Wu Yanni has a whopping 3.286 million followers, and her influence on social media still far exceeds that of Lin Yuwei.
The number of followers is only one aspect, and there is also a big difference in the social media presence of the two athletes. The content posted by Lin Yuwei is mainly training videos, mostly related to track and field, and also includes a small number of short videos of selfies and life sharing. In contrast, Wu Yanni pays more attention to showing her appearance and figure on social media, and even the training videos are carefully planned to show the best side. She seems to know more about how to attract fans when it comes to marketing.
Ms. Wu's fans received nearly 1.7 million likes on a video she posted during the Asian Games, while other works also received hundreds of thousands of likes. Although Lin Yuwei is ahead of Wu Yanni in the field of track and field, in the field of marketing, Wu Yanni's performance is obviously better.
As of now, Wu Yanni has not released new works. Is she choosing to leave social media to focus on training, or is she worried that negative emotions will affect her path to influence? It's interesting to see.