#头条创作挑战赛#
Let's start with a set of search-related data:
ChatGPT has more than 100 million monthly active users, more than 180 million users, and 1.9 billion website visits in May 2023.
According to Xiaohongshu, search has become one of the most frequent user behaviors, with 60% of daily active users actively searching on Xiaohongshu, with an average of nearly 300 million search queries per day.
In 2021, the monthly active users of Douyin search exceeded 550 million.
As of the third quarter of 2022, Baidu's APP has 628 million monthly active users.
These data show new trends in the search market.
ChatGPT data is growing rapidly and is dramatically replacing the position of traditional search engines, with a significant proportion of teenagers in the United States (19%) using ChatGPT for school assignments and more than 40% of college students using it for coursework. Since the introduction of ChatGPT, the frequency of my use of Baidu has decreased significantly, and ChatGPT can basically solve at least 80% of my needs to check information.
More and more people are using visual search platforms such as Xiaohongshu Search and Douyin Search when searching for information in areas such as life, travel, and consumption, and fewer and fewer people are using traditional search engines when searching for this information. The search data of Xiaohongshu is growing day by day, and the monthly activity of Douyin search has long been close to Baidu.
ChatGPT and visual search are squeezing the market share of search engines, Baidu, as a representative of search engines, may have a better and worse time, whether it can regain the market in the future, the key depends on the performance of Wenxin Yiyan.
ChatGPT has replaced many functions of the search engine, which does not need to be said in too much detail, and those who have used it have obviously felt it, this article mainly talks about Xiaohongshu and Douyin search, how this form of visual search will reshape the search market.
01 Visual search VS search engine, what are the advantages?
One visible shift is that the way we access information has shifted from text-based to visual-centric (images and videos), especially in search.
Once upon a time, we relied on search to find textual information. Today, a new mode of search, visual search, is rapidly dominating, and the era of image- and video-centric search not only marks a change in the way information is obtained, but also heralds a profound change in the consumer decision-making process.
Visual search reshapes the user's consumption decision-making path. On platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin, users make purchase decisions by watching the real usage of products after searching. It's more intuitive, and it's quicker to resonate with users.
From a business perspective, visual search has the following characteristics compared to text search:
- Search Drivers: In-page interest-driven vs. off-site interest-driven
"Who is Oppenheimer", "How is Huawei Mate 60", when we want to understand a question, we will generate the motivation to search.
In the PC Internet era, the path of users using search engines is basically like this: they see a piece of information in their lives, become interested in this information, and then open a search engine (such as Baidu or Google) to search for more detailed information. For example, when a user sees a promotional poster of "Oppenheimer" in a movie theater and wants to know about this person, he goes to a search engine to search, and the user hears that Huawei Mate 60 is far ahead on the Internet, and he also goes to the search engine to search.
Here, the driving force of user search comes from life, print media, websites and other channels, and search engines cannot directly create search demand.
In the era of visual media, in addition to users who are interested in a piece of information outside the station to search on the platform, there is another path that is completely new: users swipe the content on the visual platform, swipe the content they are interested in, and then directly open the search box of the platform to search. For example, when a user swiped a message called "The Story Behind the Birth of the Atomic Bomb", which mentioned Oppenheimer, he became interested and could directly search for Oppenheimer's relevant information without jumping out of the platform.
Here, too, the driving force of user search comes from the visual media itself.
- Search for demand: create demand vs. undertake demand
For the search engine, because the user's interest comes from outside the site, it mainly does to undertake the user's search needs, correspondingly, its business model is that when the user has a clear demand for a product and search, it will promote the user to complete the subsequent business behavior through the advertising in the search results. In this case, search engines do not create demand and incremental business.
For visual search, some users generate search demand because of the content on the site, so the platform itself can directly create new demand, correspondingly, its business model is not only search advertising, but also use content to guide search demand.
For example, when "Oppenheimer" was released, the distributor made a batch of content on the site, and a user clicked on one of the contents because he was interested in one of the contents - "The Story Behind the Birth of the Atomic Bomb", which in turn generated a demand to search for Oppenheimer, and eventually it was possible to create a movie ticket business increment.
- Ad type: Content-based vs. keyword
Most brands advertise on search engines to directly undertake the needs of users, so the brand's text chain advertising usually leads directly to the sales platform, which promotes the conversion of users with the highest demand, which is more efficient and less costly. The problem is that as users become desensitized to this ad format, they will try to avoid clicking on ads when searching.
On the visual search platform, because the content exists in the form of graphics, texts or short videos, the information carrying capacity of a piece of content is more, so when many brands advertise, they often give users the content they need first, and then give advertisements.
For example, if you search for a notebook, the first thing to appear on Baidu is an advertisement of a certain brand, and on Xiaohongshu, you may see a picture and text of "2023 cost-effective notebook recommendation", and after entering, you can get useful information first, and then see the advertisement.
Another mode of brand search is to do high-quality content for a long time, when users search for relevant information, because they get useful information and pay attention to the brand, when it advertises again in the future, it can naturally reach users and may get conversions.
Therefore, on the visual content platform, it is better to do search advertising based on high-quality content than to do pure advertising.
- Consumption Decision-Making Patterns: Emotional Decision-Making vs. Rational Decision-making
Pringle and Felder did a study in which they compared the difference in profit growth that was ultimately created by communication activities that followed the emotional route with those along the rational route. It was found that the average increase in the creation of the perceptual route was 31%, and the effect almost doubled compared to the 16% of the rational route.
The reason behind the exploration is that the human brain can receive emotional information without cognition. The second is that the human brain is particularly susceptible to strong emotional stimuli and remembers them.
Compared with text, images are inherently more emotional and can drive consumers' interest, which is the natural advantage of visual content in driving consumption.
In addition, another feature of the visual content platform is that the content is produced by real people, and after searching for content, users can not only see the information required by this search, but also see the historical information of the creator, because of this feature, users will feel more real, and the next time they see the information of the same creator, they will also be more trusting.
Especially when the author's experience and knowledge system are similar to our own, we will empathize with his content more emotionally. It's like we always trust the information provided by our friends more in our daily lives.
Because of this, visual search is more effective at driving purchases than search engines that show the results of images or videos made by real people than search engines that show text. Because of this feature, in general, users are far more likely to compare prices on search engines than on visual searches.
- Content Experience: Flesh-and-blood people vs cold text
When users search on search engines and visual search platforms, the content experience is not the same.
When a user is using a search engine, most of the results he gets are integrated information, which can be said to be "cold text", and he doesn't care most of the time and doesn't know the provider behind the information.
When users obtain content on the visual platform, most of the information they get is provided by real people, and the advantage of real people providing information is that it is personalized and interesting, which can provide consumers with more inspiration and surprises, and in terms of consumer behavior, it will also allow users to make choices faster.
Compared with search engines, visual search is also faster, more convenient, and more intuitive. For example, the efficiency of searching for pictures or short videos on platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin is much higher than that of searching for text on a search engine, the former is more like someone teaching you how to cook, while the latter is more like him giving you a piece of text and letting you learn the Xi yourself.
02 Under visual search, users' consumption decisions become shorter
With the shift from textual to visual search, the user's consumption decision-making process has also changed, and overall, the whole process has become more intuitive and faster.
The AISAS model is a user consumption decision-making model proposed by dentsu for the PC Internet era, which consists of five steps: Attention, Interest, Search, Action, and Share, of which search is the core.
Under the AISAS model, the characteristics of search are that users need to pay attention to and be interested in the product in other channels, then obtain information through search, and finally jump out of the site to complete the purchase and sharing, and only one part of the entire path of consumers is carried out on the search engine.
In the era of visual search, the user's decision-making path is shortened to three steps.
The first step is attention and interest. When a user swipes information on a visual content platform, he notices a piece of content and opens it to view it, and here, attention and interest occur almost simultaneously, which is determined by the fact that the information flow of visual content is more intuitive and attractive than text. At the same time, when the user stays and browses the relevant content for a longer time, the algorithm will give him more content to strengthen his interest.
The second step is to search. There are two paths to search here, the first is that when a user is interested in a piece of content, they can search directly on the platform, get detailed information, and ultimately facilitate action. Second, users come directly to the platform to search, for example, many people will search for content such as "which one to choose for A and B notebooks" on Xiaohongshu.
Step 3, Buy and Share. In this step, users may take action faster because the visual content is more vivid, and consumers can usually complete the purchase directly on the platform without jumping out, and at the same time, after completing the purchase, the user can directly share the purchase experience and use experience on the platform, which can further influence the consumption decisions of others.
It can be seen from here that on the visual content platform, the user's consumption decision-making path becomes shorter, and at the same time, in the entire decision-making path, the user does not need to jump out of the platform, but can complete the whole process on the platform, and therefore, on such a platform, the efficiency of user search to obtain effective information will be higher.
03 Conclusion:
With the strong growth of visual content platform users and the change of user search Xi, the search market pattern, which has been stable for about 20 years, may usher in new changes. In the age of visual search, we are witnessing a critical shift: the rapid evolution of the way information is acquired and consumed decisions.
First, visual search reinforces the intuitiveness and emotional connection of the user experience. On platforms like Xiaohongshu, images and videos not only simplify the process of obtaining information, but also make it more vivid and easy to resonate with. Second, the decision-making process of consumers is more rapid and direct, and consumers can quickly shift from attention to interest in brand information, which in turn can more quickly promote search and purchase actions.
In this situation, brands used to do SEO on search engines, but now they should do search content optimization on Douyin and Xiaohongshu. AT THE SAME TIME, THIS YEAR, THE VOICE FUNCTION OF CHATT HAS FAINTLY MADE PEOPLE FEEL THAT ITS LEVEL IS MUCH HIGHER THAN SIRI, SO IN THE FUTURE, BRANDS MAY ALSO NEED TO DO A GOOD JOB OF AEO (RESPONSE ENGINE OPTIMIZATION).
For marketers, today's search market is more complex, and it is not all right to do traditional search engine optimization, search marketing should adapt to new trends and focus more marketing efforts on visual search platforms.