12 modes of short video monetization

This article summarizes some short video monetization models that I know of. Some of them I have experienced personally, some I have seen experienced by various great people around me, and some are case summaries I have seen on the Internet. If you also want to make short videos and make your own fortune, I suggest you take a good look at it and then choose one or two directions that suit you to practice.

1. Obtain huge subsidies from the platform

I think this is the easiest and most direct monetization model, suitable for novices, part-time workers, and side jobs. One of my readers and friends is a new media planner as his main job, and he likes to shoot and edit some travel vlog short videos as a side job. Because his time and energy are limited, his monetization model is to join a short video platform, become a contracted author, and obtain subsidies from the platform. He can now earn about five to six thousand passive income each month, all of which are platform subsidies he gets from posting short videos.

Which platforms can apply for video subsidies? We need to pay attention to policies in this regard, especially new platforms.

For example, platforms such as Toutiao, Douyin, Xigua Video, and Penguin have provided huge subsidy policies in recent years. You only need to post original videos on their platforms to get good returns.

1. Toutiao’s 1,000-person, 10,000-yuan plan

For those who participate in Toutiao's Thousand People and Ten Thousand Yuan Plan, Toutiao platform will ensure that at least 1,000 top creators will receive a guaranteed income of at least 10,000 yuan per month.

2. Xigua Video (Toutiao) 1 billion yuan subsidy

After the “Thousand People, Ten Thousand Yuan” plan, Toutiao has allocated another 1 billion yuan to subsidize short video creators.

For example: you only need to post short videos on Xigua Video, which is owned by it, and you can get advertising revenue through the number of readings.

3. The bonus of Dayu account is upgraded, and up to 2,000 creators will receive bonuses every month

4. Tencent Weishi, 10,000 views can earn 1,000 yuan.

Tencent spent nearly 3 billion yuan in 2018 to create Weishi, a short video app. Many college students and new employees shoot short videos in their spare time. As long as the effective playback volume exceeds 10,000, they can earn nearly 1,000 yuan per video.▼

2. Ad placement monetization

When Douyin stores were not yet widely popularized and the Star Map platform was not put into large-scale use, the earliest monetization methods were to accept advertisements and customize content for brands.

In particular, MCN agencies or internet celebrities almost all monetize through advertising placement, which is also the monetization model most recognized by short video players. After you have a certain number of fans, the video playback volume is relatively large. Taking advantage of the fan economy is a self-media attribute with a clear user portrait that can fully meet the needs of scene construction. Then, many first-party brand merchants will come to you to place advertisements, such as brand implantation, product implantation, and advertising shooting.

There are four modes of advertising monetization.

1. Sponsored advertising

Sponsorship advertising refers to a form of advertising that adds the name of a sponsor or advertiser before a program to promote the brand and expand its influence. When we watch some variety shows, many times before the show starts or the host will introduce that the show is sponsored by **. The amount of advertising for this type of show is generally larger.

2. In-film advertising

In-stream ads are specially made ads that are added to short videos as they play, usually at the beginning or end of the video. This type of ad has a relatively high reach, but the revenue for the film company is lower than other forms of advertising. Moreover, the appearance of such advertisements will make users feel a little abrupt and somewhat irrelevant to the content of the short video itself, and may bring users a bad viewing experience because of such advertisements.

3. Product placement

Product placement is the process of placing a brand’s product into the plot of a short video, allowing viewers to unconsciously become familiar with or repeatedly remember the product or service.

For example, when Papi Jiang was talking about her game Honor of Kings, she also made an advertisement for the vivo phone. The revenue from this kind of embedded advertising is also considerable.

This type of advertisement is not as abrupt as the first two types. It naturally integrates into the video content and has a relatively high user acceptance rate.

4. Brand Advertising

A combination of the above three.

It is said that bloggers with 30,000 fans on Douyin can receive advertising, and the advertising fee for a single video of a million-level influencer basically starts at 50,000.

3. Advertising brokerage monetization

It doesn’t matter if you don’t have your own account, you can be an advertising broker, as long as you have the client’s brand customer resources. This is especially suitable for traditional advertising and media companies, which have their own customer base and can help them place expert ads, earn the difference and get rebates. This is also an unspoken rule in the industry. For example, many platforms are doing this. They do not have the ability to create content and accounts themselves, but they have the ability to integrate these expert resources and connect with the client.

As far as I know, Huawei's annual 200 million yuan in new media advertising fees are handed over to a delivery service platform. Our company is also providing services in this area, so in my circle of friends, on the one hand, there are many internet celebrities, and on the other hand, there are many client brands. We do not position ourselves as an advertising company, but a professional new media marketing consulting service provider, engaged in integrated marketing services, including strategy, content, agency operations, advertising, etc.

4. Publish Douyin information flow and monetize advertising videos

Last year, I also went to the official Douyin office in Shenzhen, and they introduced to me the official Douyin information flow advertising. In fact, our company can also do this. Many companies are also doing this. They can become advertising channel providers for Toutiao and help Party A companies to place advertisements. They can help them make videos for placement and do Douyin advertising. The price of a simple advertisement shooting is about 3,000-8,000 yuan per piece. Douyin's information flow advertising is definitely continuous. It is impossible to place only one advertisement. Generally, several advertisements are placed.

A cameraman and a director can generally produce four commercials a day, and six if they are fast. After deducting their daily salary and commission, the remaining profit is still huge.

When it comes to Douyin advertising sales, there is a Toutiao company in every city. You can directly talk to them about rebates for information flow advertising, help them sell and earn commissions.

During the delivery process, landing page design and planning are also required, which can also be charged.

5. Tik Tok agent operation

I have been doing agency operations for over a year and signed contracts with about ten clients last year. Whether these accounts can be successful is a matter of probability and also depends on the budget, investment intensity, resources, attention of Party A, and the planning level of Party B.

The market in this area is still immature and there are good and bad companies. Now more and more companies are outsourcing their short video projects to professional teams. In the first half of this year, I received seven or eight inquiries from all over the country on WeChat almost every day. We dare not say that we are the best, but we are definitely the most responsible.

To do agency operation, you need a strong professional team. Understand marketing, understand Tik Tok, understand videos, and do planning. It’s not just about making hit videos, but also about planning a marketing path that can enable customers to realize profits. Only through path planning can we better plan the content, whether it is to direct traffic to WeChat or Taobao, or simply to attract fans, or simply to increase the number of views, it depends on the needs of the customers.

First, determine the Douyin production path through the profit model, and then select the actors. Selecting actors is very important. Team configuration: screenwriter, director, actors, cameraman, editor, and operator.

According to the current market quotation, taking Shenzhen as an example, the monthly fees of professional and high-quality teams are not low. Some dare to charge 50,000 or 100,000 yuan. There are also some gambling forms, where I will charge you based on how many fans you want.

6. E-commerce brings goods to cash in

Taking Douyin as an example, the product showcase sharing function is connected to Taobao and JD.com. Kuaishou also has a Kuaishou store, which can be opened after paying a deposit and submitting qualifications. On Taobao, you can spend money to buy traffic by launching a through train, and on Douyin, it is to launch Dou+. If 100 yuan can get 5,000 views, it is still very cost-effective. The better the content, the higher the monetization conversion income. Last year, many people specialized in Dou+ to sell goods, and this year the regulation has been much stricter.

To monetize e-commerce, we need to know how to select products and choose potential best-selling products. By publishing short videos, we can direct traffic to the store and achieve sales performance. These stores can be our own self-operated e-commerce stores or in the form of Taobao customers.

1. Self-operated e-commerce

Self-operated e-commerce companies introduce, manage and sell various brands of goods by tailoring procurement standards that meet their own brand appeal and consumer needs. They use a number of reliable brands as support to highlight the reliability of their own brands and build e-commerce itself into a highly valuable brand. The advantage of self-operated e-commerce is that it provides products precisely to its own users, and the profit will be relatively higher.

2. Taobao customer change

Taobao's current promotion model is based on charging based on transactions. As long as it obtains the product code from the Taobao promotion zone, any buyer (including yourself) who enters the Taobao seller's store through your personal website, Weibo, or posts and product links and completes the purchase can get the commission paid by the seller and earn the difference. This type of monetization method is relatively simple and suitable for small teams or internet celebrities.

7. Live broadcast rewards monetization

Regarding the monetization of live broadcast rewards, I have also been studying and paying attention to this aspect. Since the second half of last year, short videos have officially entered the live broadcast era. During this year's epidemic, it has become extremely popular due to the participation of celebrities and politicians.

Recently, I also witnessed with my own eyes a friend who started a new live broadcast platform and specialized in live broadcasting for internet celebrities. He signed 100 anchors from scratch, and in just two months, he could earn about 30,000 to 50,000 yuan in tips every night. He found that this is indeed feasible. Of course, in the early stages, he also relied on money to make it.

To do live streaming, you need to have a certain fan base, and it also depends on the platform's traffic and promotion efforts. It also has certain requirements for personal expressiveness, appearance, and talent. In order to earn revenue from live streaming, many MCN agencies give out gifts and compete on the charts themselves, spending millions of dollars in one night.

The first thing to do when doing Douyin live streaming is to find your personal positioning and something that makes others like you, whether it is your speaking style, principles, scene and so on. You need to plan your profit points in advance, whether it is giving gifts, selling products, or directing them to WeChat, or guiding them to join your fan WeChat group.

If you find a reliable MCN agency to cooperate with, it will be much better than going it alone. You can get the highest commission, increase revenue, and have professional team operation guidance. In this regard, we have been recruiting potential anchors. Anchors who are interested in joining the Chongge New Media Douyin Guild can add my WeChat tangxiaohan008 and indicate my purpose.

8. Realize the value of online celebrities and build personal IP

The most successful IP in turning a prominent image in a short video into an IP is Liziqi.

She herself is already a super IP with a huge fan base and a star effect on her fans. Overseas, she represents traditional Chinese culture.

Now Tmall also has agricultural products produced by the Liziqi brand. I often buy their lotus root powder to eat. These are all IP effects.

The benefit of building an IP is to bring about a series of monetization methods in the future. For example, these IPs can start live broadcasts. At this time, they already have a certain number of fans and can ask for praise or sell their own products in their regular live broadcasts. You can also make IP peripherals for sale or hold some offline activities to monetize.

This method mainly works on transformed internet celebrities and economic companies.

For example, personal IP creation, models, internet celebrities, entertainment circles, original singers, etc.

Transformation can gain derivative value, such as starring in TV dramas, brand endorsements, concert tours, selling IP products, etc. Celebrities becoming internet celebrities and internet celebrities becoming celebrities are both trends. Short video celebrities can move towards personal IP and performing arts stars.

Once you have an IP, you can also monetize it through copyright. Refers to the related income obtained by authorizing others to use copyrighted content.

Just like some best-selling novels, their copyrights are authorized or even transferred so that others can use them to make movies or TV series. For mature short video teams, if their works have a greater influence, they can make further profits from copyright.

9. Knowledge Payment

Experienced people or industry leaders can choose to share their own experiences and professional knowledge. Interested or like-minded users who want to deepen their learning will pay for your content.

Most accounts of this type need to convert private traffic pools in short videos. For example, the real estate account I once wrote about, Big Beard Talking about Houses, they direct traffic to WeChat, and have many paid courses on real estate information, communities and one-on-one consulting services. They also hold an annual meeting every year and charge admission fees, but their main source of income comes from real estate brokerage. This is the way vertical expert self-media plays.

On Douyin, many people, after gaining millions of followers, become teachers to provide consulting and planning services on a one-on-one basis, charging hundreds or thousands of dollars. This is also a monetization model for knowledge payment. For example, there is still a huge market demand for Douyin courses, paid communities, consulting and diagnosis, on-site guidance, and content teaching.

10. Short video training

In the first half of this year, we conducted a lot of online training sessions, as well as a few internal short video training sessions for enterprises. We also launched our Lizhi Micro-Course column. Short video operation, editing, and live courses are quite popular.

It has only been online for two months and has no dedicated person to manage it. However, by using WeChat Moments marketing and community marketing, it has attracted nearly three thousand followers and hundreds of people have purchased courses. The courses are in the form of recorded and live broadcasts. We have developed courseware through PPT and mind map video formats and made it a hit. In addition, there is a steady stream of C-end users, so if we do a good job in this area, we can make money without any effort.

The business with slightly higher profits is offline in-house training for enterprises. We are also more willing to provide customized development courseware training services in this area, which can lead to subsequent consulting and operation.

The market price for offline internal training courses ranges from 5,000 to 20,000 per day, depending on the influence of the instructor and the marketing level of the institution.

11. Selling accounts in bulk

That’s right, Douyin accounts can be bought and sold. Many organizations specialize in producing accounts. One account can gain a thousand followers a day, and when it reaches tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of followers, it can be sold. If you do 30 at the same time, five or six of them can become popular. There are many people who get up early to do graphic and text editing, which has low costs, quick monetization, and does not require actors to appear abroad.

In the industry, the initial price of fans was set at 1-5 points per fan and 5-10 points for vertical categories. Teams or companies purchase mobile phone numbers in bulk. They maintain the accounts for about a week before publishing content and create content in batches. Generally, they start selling them when they have around 200,000 followers. After the sale, the mobile phone numbers will be kept for other accounts.

12. Tik Tok’s Black Technology

There are still a lot of messy software in this regard, such as group control of WeChat business, batch account management of Douyin, video remix, and unmanned live broadcast, which are all produced by these software.

Prepare 200 mobile phones and some stands, plug all the phones into the network, put in SIM cards, and use the computer cloud to control all the phones to publish videos. The video source is the content you mixed and edited yourself.

Among the above 12 monetization models, there are outstanding players in each field, such as "He Xiangu Fu" which is an MCN matrix, "Kanjian" which provides knowledge payment, "Chen Xiang Liu Dian Ban" which upgrades big movies, and "Zui E Niang" which provides membership paid services.

Author: Xiaohan Tang

Source: Tang Xiaohan