CP Marketing Strategy of Internet Celebrities

The most popular CP on Tik Tok has broken up.

On April 28, the news that @我是你的cc阿 and @可爱QQ呀 officially announced their “breakup” became a hot topic on TikTok. Their past love videos attracted a large number of users and helped the two of them become one of the top 100 million big Vs, with a total of 32.846 million fans.

CC and Keyoukeyou's breakup tops the TikTok hot list

After the two broke up, many netizens left comments under their previous video, "Why did you push this video to me when they officially announced their divorce? Are you trying to make me believe in love even less?"

It's not just cc and QQ. In the past two years, CP formation, matchmaking, bundled marketing and other methods have become increasingly popular on short video platforms.

In 2021, internet celebrities such as Piyu, Xiaoba Chong, and Xunrong quickly gained followers, all of which were inseparable from the blessing of rich emotional lines. Some top internet celebrities do not have social relationships such as marriage, love, or relatives, but this does not stop netizens from making up their minds, thus creating many hot memes.

For example, the currently popular couple of Menier and Piyou has generated a lot of space for "playing with memes". Netizens will spontaneously comment, "Spread the word, Piyou and Menier are married, and their child is two years old." Or, when Menier connects with other female anchors, netizens will start to tag Piyou, "Menier cheated."

Such entertainment activities are accompanied by chemical reactions between Internet celebrities. Netizens who are infatuated with them find fun in their boring online life, and Internet celebrities become more and more popular by taking advantage of the popularity.

Perhaps, it is too difficult to attract fans through conventional content, and complicated emotional disputes are the most effective.

1. 108 Ways to Pair Up with Internet Celebrities

The trend of top internet celebrities pairing up with each other can probably be traced back to 2020.

For example, @猴哥说车 has collaborated with @痞幼 many times. At that time, @痞幼 was a top motorcycle blogger with a hot body, a wealthy family, and 8.4 million followers.

The high-frequency interaction between the two CP-style groups led to a large number of naughty and childish memes in Monkey Brother’s comment section. Although most netizens know that their interactions are mostly for content needs, they still enjoy acting as "matchmakers", which adds a romantic touch to this serious car review account.

The change in the number of fans is very intuitive. In the six months from June to November 2020, @猴哥说车 gained 16.95 million followers, making it the fastest-growing automotive account in the same period. @痞幼 also gained followers rapidly.

In addition to car experts, drama and comedy experts are also going further and further on the road of forming CPs.

In September 2020, @疯产妹妹 and @张若予 co-filmed a bizarre blind date video, which received 2.764W likes.

Since then, many fans have started to support the couple. If you search their IDs on Douyin, you will see derivative topics such as "Are Zhang Ruoyu and Beile together?" and "Are Zhang Ruoyu and Beile a couple?", which shows how enthusiastic netizens are about "matching them together".

@疯产妹妹TikTok video screenshot

In the first half of 2021, the most popular short video CP is still "Ailoveyou".

In 2019, Yin Shihang began to publish his works on Kuaishou and Douyin. Later, at the wedding of internet celebrity Han Anran and Mr. Xiaozhu, best man Yin Shihang attracted the attention of some netizens.

Since then, Han Anran and his wife have experienced divorce, remarriage, and fighting against the mistress. Yin Shihang, as Xiaozhu's friend, has frequently shared his experiences. Soon, his long-lasting love story with He Jingjing also attracted the attention of passers-by, and the account's fans soared thanks to the daily life videos of the domineering boss and his wife.

In 2020, Yin Shihang proposed to He Jingjing during a live broadcast, announcing that he would marry her, but later announced their breakup. Not long after, the new female lead Tao Lulu appeared, and Yin Shihang's popularity reached its peak.

Thanks to scenes such as proposal, marriage, and breakup, Yin Shihang once sold goods worth tens of millions in a single show.

On May 15, 2021, he conducted a live broadcast of selling goods for 5 hours with the gimmick of proposing marriage. That night, Yin Shihang appeared slowly on the stage wearing a white suit and riding a pony. On the background wall were written big words "Hang Lu Engagement Celebration". Afterwards, Yin Shihang dismounted and knelt on one knee to propose to Tao Lulu.

The humorous scenes and the melodramatic plot made this live broadcast successfully top the Weibo hot search list. Not only that, its single-game GMV reached 46.2976 million yuan, achieving a double harvest of popularity and sales.

Screenshot of Yin Shihang's Kuaishou live broadcast

However, the "triangle relationship" plot did not last. On May 17, 2021, Yin Shihang was banned from the platform for vulgar hype and bid farewell to the battlefield.

At that time, Yin Shihang had 8.51 million followers on Kuaishou and 6.42 million followers on Douyin. The news that his Kuaishou account had been banned for 630 years even topped the Weibo hot search list.

2. Why do netizens want to "ship CP" in short videos?

Although Yin Shihang was banned, the form of forming CPs and performing multiple plots was continued, and was subsequently repeatedly proven to be a powerful tool for increasing fans.

The reason is that the audience is curious and wants to pry into the love lives of Internet celebrities. If Internet celebrities can satisfy the needs of their fans in just the right way, the popularity of their videos will no longer be a problem.

Taking @锅盖, @河马君, and @爆泰草莓粥 as examples, frequent content linkage has made the number of fans and popularity of the three people increasingly higher. The current number of fans has reached 11.989 million, 18.488 million, and 13.203 million respectively.

As early as 2019, @爆胎草莓粥 and @锅盖 started content collaboration, and then @河马君 also joined in. Together with Hippo马君’s mother "麻沫", these people with different styles and personalities often collide to create interesting sparks.

For fans, watching snippets of their lives may have become a habit and a hobby, just like a side dish for meals.

Among the collaborations, @爆胎草莓粥 and @锅盖 have the strongest CP feeling. The two were classmates when they were young, made videos together, and then joined the same MCN company PapiTube. They are both top Internet celebrities.

This close and firm friendship is envied by many people, and along with it, the frequent interactions between the two accounts have also attracted a lot of attention.

Image source: Screenshots of @锅盖, @爆胎草莓粥’s TikTok videos

3. What can forming a CP bring?

After going to great lengths to pair up a couple, what else can it bring to the influencer and his or her account, other than making the onlookers who support the couple smile knowingly?

First of all, in the first quarter’s analysis of fan growth, Kas pointed out that account linkage can drive rapid fan growth.

Take @痞幼 as an example. She used to mainly publish motorcycle content. Since the second half of 2020, her topics have become more diverse. In addition to exploring food in various places, she will also collaborate with different experts to carry out fun activities together.

In 2021, @痞幼 and @梅尼耶 filmed videos together many times, and the topic of their CP became more and more popular. After enriching the content format, @痞幼抖音's fan data has also increased significantly, with a total increase of 3.78 million fans from July to September 2021.

In the first quarter of this year, she also collaborated with experts in many fields such as @Menier, @Wang Bu Ran, @Xiao Yu Hai Tang, and @Gao Yu Yu to collaborate on content. The two parties appear in each other's accounts and co-create content around a certain theme.

After the relevant video was released, the performance of various data was very impressive. At the same time, the accounts themselves have achieved a win-win situation of mutual traffic and common growth of fans. The above accounts are all among the top 1000 Douyin accounts with the most followers in the first quarter, with @痞幼 and @梅尼耶’s follower numbers increasing to 26.334 million and 31.558 million respectively.

Second, by collaborating with other influencers and adding elements and styles that the original account did not have, the transformation can also be completed more smoothly.

It is worth noting that when she first became popular, Piyu was a motorcycle beauty, which attracted a large number of male fans, but also caused a lot of controversy.

After transforming into a "life + appearance" blogger, her natural and down-to-earth video style not only helped her gain a group of new fans, but also received better and better reviews from the outside world than before.

In addition, pairing up with other talents allows the talents' personalities to be presented more intuitively and can also increase the popularity of their works. When CP fans are enthusiastic enough, advertisers will also take the initiative to extend an olive branch.

For example, @痞幼 and @梅尼耶 not only cooperate on the content level, but also often shoot commercial advertisements together. The number of likes for both videos is higher than that of the content in which Piyou appears alone.

For example, on November 28, 2021, an advertising video released by Piyu received 1.428 million likes, and someone left a message: "If Piyu marries Menier, I will give her a gift of 20,000 yuan. This comment is proof that I keep my word." The comment received 40,000 likes. Many fans also expressed their hope that the two of them could film a sweet drama together.

@痞幼TikTok video screenshot

A similar situation exists on the Kuaishou platform.

In March this year, the popular short drama "The Princess Is Above" ended, and the number of views on the Kuai platform alone exceeded 330 million.

As the drama fermented on multiple platforms, the CP of the two leading actors, Xia Xia and Jin Chao, was also "shipped" with true feelings by many fans. Jin Chao went from being a model in the Hanfu circle to a popular internet celebrity actor. Although his fan base on Kuaishou and Douyin is less than one million, he has received multiple business invitations.

For example, on April 28, Jinchao participated in the live broadcast of the National Trend Festival hosted by jewelry brand Chow Tai Seng; on April 29, Jinchao also collaborated with Qie Xia Xia to shoot a commercial for a perfume brand.

@锦超jc Kuaishou video screenshot

Of course, while top internet celebrities are teaming up for shoots and actively forming couples to provide emotional snacks for CP fans and the general public, the drawbacks cannot be ignored.

First, if the collaboration among experts is rigid, it will not be possible to form stable and distinctive content output. Once the novelty of fans wears off, it will be difficult to attract traffic and increase fans.

Secondly, if the two parties in a CP have a real emotional relationship, every little thing that happens in the future will be magnified to the public. However, emotional relationships naturally have some not-so-glamorous and even ugly aspects, and these corners are not popular with the public. Once a crack appears in the relationship, the previous personalities of both parties will be at risk of collapse, leading to a loss of fans.

Third, from the overall market perspective, as user growth slows down, it is becoming increasingly difficult to increase followers on short video platforms. When influencers are happy to shoot VLogs of their daily lives, the content that requires careful polishing becomes significantly less, and the content pictures that users can see seem to become much more monotonous. For example, will works that require multiple reversals and focus more on acting and detail polishing gradually give way to simpler and easier-to-shoot fragments of life?

Forming a couple is a quick way to increase followers, but it’s obviously not the only way.