Author|Liu Xiaotu
Editor|Li Chunhui
The complaints and even insults that came from time to time in private messages were all expected by Yunying (pseudonym).
As a travel blogger, she occasionally has the urge to quibble when faced with bad reviews such as "the scene is not like this at all", "fraud really deserves jail", "waste of time, it has already been reported". But this untimely feeling will soon be suppressed by the ever-increasing number of favorites.
What's more, Yunying is already at a loss. On the eve of May Day, she posted a travel note on social media, arguing for a small stream suitable for taking pictures, and using eye-catching words such as "super niche", "film and television poster level", and "this is the romance of the county" to emphasize how worth visiting.
Many people believed it and came all the way to check in. It turned out that the so-called "poster-level creek" was a small river ditch outside the county seat. If you don't have some composition skills or preliminary preparation, there is a high probability that you will shoot stranded garbage and crazy weeds - you can shoot Jia Zhangke's movie poster. Hard Candy Jun also went to see it, in addition to being impressed by Yunying's creative ability, he also felt that she was not wronged at all when she was scolded.
The environment around the creek ditch
Yunying also admitted that this creation was a bit exaggerated, but made up for himself: "This is really not to the level of fraud in the travel content." Let's not worry about whether it's a creek or a ditch, taking the trouble to find an angle can really make a good photo, right? Compared with the kind of operation that was made out of nothing and fabricated out of thin air, I still have a good conscience. ”
And according to her experience, the fans of small travel bloggers are not fixed, and netizens are generally cool after scolding and leaving after cooling, which basically will not cause too much negative impact, and can be treated cold. Yunying's top priority is to think about how to package the next "niche" check-in point, and how long his career can last.
Make the stinky ditch a check-in point
In March this year, when Yunying swiped the poster of "The Return of the Big Dream" on the Internet, a thought flashed in his mind: can I find a check-in place with the same style. After all, fans and passers-by are discussing Guo Jingming's aesthetics, and they are chatting passionately about the makeup and composition of the poster.
For a long time, travel bloggers have always liked to find inspiration from films, television, and variety shows, so as to gain natural topics and popularity. When "Going to a Windy Place" became popular, they quickly switched to the Dali life mode. Now that "My Altay" is on the air, they immediately rushed to Habahe County, Xinjiang.
It's just that punching in is too expensive, which is a creative cost that most travel bloggers can't afford. Yunying told Hard Candy Jun that county travel bloggers like her have few fans and are difficult to monetize, "I really can't keep up with the trend, and 'fake' is more cost-effective." So after the poster of "Big Dream Returns" became popular, her first thought was to find a similar pool or stream.
Cloud Shadow inspected several places. "Some of the scenery is better, but it takes two and a half hours to drive from the center of Changsha, and it is too remote for no one to go. Some are not fresh enough, other bloggers have already been there, and they have already been 'anti-fraud' for a round. ”
As a result, the small river ditch at the beginning became the most compromise choice. After deciding on the location, Yunying chose a weekend with good weather to work on site. "I found some big leaves as props, and I also brought a fishing net to clean up the garbage, and I filmed for nearly two hours. This note has a total of more than 400,000 views, which is my best work of the year, and it is worth it. ”
And in Yunying's view, this is far from the ceiling of travel bloggers' imagination, or even her own. She once made a stone shaped like an eagle's beak, accompanied by a photo of standing on it overlooking a township, with the text "You can also take photos of life in the county". To check in this place, you have to drive for more than ten minutes just on the mountain road, and there is really only a bare stone on the scene.
According to Yunying, the strange stones, ancient villages, and forests that have not been commercially developed are the focus of the county's tourism bloggers. In the eyes of many young netizens, these places are mysterious and wild enough. We can use the concepts of vitality and natural energy field to package, and teach people to feel relaxed in the most unrelaxed posture. The most unexpected thing for Yunying was that she passed by the flower wall of an abandoned elementary school and made a spring-themed photo guide, but she was also chased by a large number of netizens to ask for the address.
Of course, in order to prevent being reported, Yunying will still work copywriting. The most common is to add some limited scenes or times, such as "early morning after rain", "early autumn gifts", and so on. In case netizens who follow the trend to check in express their dissatisfaction, they can attribute the reason to the wrong timing. "Anyway, this kind of place is boring, and no one should want to go a second time."
Fraud, the fate of travel bloggers
Yunying was also "tricked" into the travel blogger industry at the beginning.
At the beginning of last year, she was overwhelmed by her work, and she frequently brushed up on the naked resignation news, and was deeply stung and attracted by the glamorous life of travel bloggers. They are all young people, why are their lives in the wilderness, but they can only play the cows and horses in the world? After learning from the pain, Yunying is determined to join the team of naked resignation.
She followed the trend and went to Dali, rented a garden courtyard without spending much money, and began to share her daily life of letting loose and socializing on social media. Luckily, Yunying just ate the topic dividends of resigning from travel and Internet celebrity cities during that time, and in just two months, there were six works with more than one million views, and more than 100,000 fans on the whole network.
Strictly speaking, Yunying did not become popular because of the content of tourism. One of her best data is about how cool and comfortable it is to "resign naked as a travel blogger", and there are still many netizens who want to copy the same life in the comment area. Now it seems that in this seemingly factual note, she has begun to let her imagination fly and deliberately beautify the kind of life she has chosen.
Yunying has posted a series of Dali videos, and the traffic in the early stage is quite considerable, but the popularity has slowly decreased. She had to start learning from similar creators, following the hot spots and becoming a special forces-style travel blogger, running along the rising route of Dali, Zibo, Quanzhou, and Tianjin, which are Internet celebrity cities.
At this stage, the update frequency and creation level of Cloud Shadow are still stable and rising. She told Hard Candy Jun that when she went to a big city or an Internet celebrity city, she could write several articles for eating, drinking and having fun. "I now go to Changsha for a day on the weekend, and I can write at least three travel notes. Just talking about fans, I can write about Internet celebrity stores, yards, categories, etc. ”
Of course, there are two obvious problems with this type of creation. First, there are quite a lot of creations on the same topic, and if you can't find a novel angle, you won't be able to share much traffic. Second, the cost of creation is quite high, which greatly squeezes the living space of travel bloggers at the waist and tail. In half a year, Yunying's savings were not much spent, and she had to return to her hometown in the county seat.
Unexpectedly, at this time, county tourism and county tourism bloggers became popular again, and a new creative logic appeared.
Compared with the first- and second-tier cities, the tourism resources that can be developed in the county are very limited. But the good thing is that when he returns to the county, Yunying, who has more than 100,000 fans, can also afford the name of Internet celebrity. With the accumulation of traffic, she was also invited by many stores in the county to go to the platform and check in. "Publicity of three or five hundred at a time, and occasionally the cooperation of foreign travel, you can earn an extra one or two thousand a month, which is already very good in a small county."
It's a pity that such easy days didn't last long. On the one hand, the county has a limited number of stores that need to be promoted, and they are usually sold with a hammer, and there is no chance of repurchase. On the other hand, after returning to his hometown, Yunying's creativity decreased significantly, and the limitations of relying on his old book were gradually revealed. Under the double pressure of monetization and content, she embarked on the road of counterfeiting "niche check-in points in the county".
This is a common dilemma for county travel bloggers. Yunying clearly knows that there is nothing worth watching in his hometown, but if there are any attractive attractions, the government has already developed them, which round will get them to dig and package. "It's not that we want to fake and defraud, we don't have the money to travel, and we lose fans immediately, in short, we don't have a choice."
Where is the county tourism going?
Compared with no traffic, Yunying thinks that she is happy to be scolded, "At least it shows that there is attention and you can continue to do it." During the May Day period, that small river ditch allowed her to successfully refresh the reading data of a single note in the past six months, and once again ignited her confidence in creation.
In particular, the cost of travel fraud is low enough, and it is nothing more than a battle of words. According to Yunying's observation, travel bloggers in first-tier cities have become popular with an unworthy Internet celebrity check-in point, which may be controversial after it is exposed. But it's just a general attack without focus, and it doesn't target a certain blogger or creator. Every time it is about aesthetic hegemony, it will be dispersed after two sentences, and the damage is almost zero. ”
County bloggers are under less pressure. Netizens who were "scammed" by them will most of the time comfort themselves with the statement "That's how the small county town is", at most complain a few words, and there is no room for fermentation of bad reviews. Moreover, people who travel to the county are often just tired of urban life, taking advantage of weekends and holidays to go to the countryside to relax, and more meaning is on the road.
However, the relatively relaxed public opinion environment still can't offset Yunying's anxiety. In the past year, she has tried monetization methods such as soft broadcasting, live broadcasting, and bringing goods, but it is becoming more and more difficult for travel bloggers to make money. The current situation is that there is almost no atmosphere for commercial delivery in the county, and the conventional is to cooperate with restaurants, amusement parks, homestays and other places to strive for some discounts for issuing coupons and opening groups, and then earn a commission according to the final conversion. In addition, it is to try to produce some popular content and obtain the traffic share of the platform.
"Do you think we don't want to create well? I also want to follow the history of elementary school to check in the world, go to a hundred cities to drink coffee, and find truly valuable things such as forgotten ancient villages, but these creations cost money, and the rich second generation and MCN institutions can afford to play. ”
Therefore, the vast majority of county tourism bloggers only do graphic production, which is the most cost-effective way. "Barely making a little money, if it is the main business, it should be difficult to survive without hundreds of thousands of fans. A colleague I know smashed hundreds of thousands of videos and earned a total of two or three thousand. ”
Of course, the unprecedented popularity of county tourism still gives these bloggers hope. Ctrip data shows that during this year's May Day, county-level hotel orders increased by 68% year-on-year, and scenic spot ticket orders increased by 151% year-on-year, especially sought after in Zhengding, Hebei, Anji, Zhejiang, Yangshuo, Guangxi, and Pingtan in Fujian. Yunying told Hard Candy Jun that a group of county travel bloggers who had broken off their shifts came back to life, "Everyone has the confidence to start the 'fraud' business again." ”
In order to enjoy the dividends of county tourism, many local governments have also rethought their publicity routes and thrown olive branches to local tourism bloggers. After May Day, Yunying participated in a closed-door meeting to discuss with relevant departments and tourism peers whether a local bridge could be turned into an Internet celebrity attraction. "It's just an ordinary rope bridge, but it feels like it's something that other counties don't have. Anyway, as long as the range is small enough, each town has a unique setting. ”
All of this makes Cloud Shadow feel very excited. Originally, what really made her want to continue creating was fame. "In a small place like ours, if you can achieve more than 100,000 fans, relatives and friends will think that you are famous. Internet celebrity is the best filter that life has ever given me, and I am really reluctant to remove it. ”