How to choose topics for short videos, 7 tips for choosing topics for short videos!

This article has 6,129 words and discusses in detail how to select topics for short videos. It mainly includes the following seven parts.

1. Five directions for short video topics to become popular

2. Four principles that short video topics should follow

3. Five dimensions for selecting short video topics

4. How to establish a short video topic library?

5. Where do daily topics come from?

6. Three major sources of short video creation materials

7. Notes on short video topic selection

To make good short videos, you must plan the topic content in advance. This will make it easier to produce high-quality videos, attract accurate users, and increase user stickiness.

So, what principles should we follow when selecting topics for short videos? Which content directions are likely to become popular? How to build a topic database? Where does the material come from? What should we pay attention to? Today's article will help you sort out your thoughts.

1. What topic is likely to become popular?

There are roughly 14 categories of topic selection for short video creation. The direction of topic selection is to choose the track. Different tracks have different ceilings (number of fans, monetization value) and different operating mechanisms.

In these short video categories, drama, entertainment, film and television, life, and business occupy most of the content areas, and it is also easier for some large-scale top resources to appear. These categories solve the problems encountered by most people in their eight-hour work and the entertainment problems in their eight-hour life.

In the entire Internet short video field, there are two relatively special fields, finance and health. For creators in these two fields, the platforms will require qualifications in related fields to create content. For example, the finance field requires a securities practitioner qualification certificate, and the health field requires a doctor qualification from a Grade 3 hospital or above. There is also a commonality among all categories, which is that content can be turned into knowledge, and the content can be output and disseminated by transferring the value of knowledge, that is, content is value and content is product.

Among so many tracks and directions, which ones are relatively easy to become popular? A wider audience? And it is relatively easy for novices to get started? We have summarized five popular types below.

1). Humor and comedy

Humorous comedies have a wide audience, and entertaining and funny content can arouse the interest of most viewers. As long as it does not involve sensitive content, it will have a large number of viewers on mobile and PC. One of the most popular categories is the "Tucao" jokes.

"Tucao" type short videos are a form that is very popular with the audience. This type of video generally "complains" about current hot issues. Its language style is sharp and humorous, and it hits the nail on the head on many issues, which is deeply loved by the majority of users. However, as a content creator, even though you are "complaining", you must maintain positive energy and must not violate national laws.

In addition, the points of "complaint" should be harsh, accurate and profound. The so-called "ruthless" means to make sharp comments on other people's words or the weak points of an event. Here we should pay attention to controlling the scale of complaining: on the one hand, we should not be too polite, so as to avoid making complaints that are ineffective; on the other hand, we should not always say harsh words and we should not lose our sense of humor. The so-called "accurate" means grasping the fundamental characteristics of the person or thing being "complained", and avoiding complaining about irrelevant content. The so-called "deep" means that "Tucao" should not only bring joy to users, but also reveal deeper truths. In this way, "Tucao" type short videos can go further.

2). Life skills

Life skills and humorous comedies have a large audience, and users are happy to learn a little trick that can make life convenient in just a few minutes. The basic appeal of short videos on life skills is "practicality". When planning such short videos, pay attention to the following points, as shown in Figures 3-7.

(1) Easy to understand

This type of short video has a characteristic, which is to make difficult things simple. For example, some software uses this type of short video to teach novice users how to use the software. The content of short videos must be easy to understand, which is reflected in the use of simple words and detailed steps. Even slow down the pace at some key points.

(2) Strong practicality

The material for short videos on life skills must be close to life and be able to bring convenience to users' lives. If the user does not see any effect after watching, then such a work is undoubtedly a failure. Therefore, before making a short video, you must collect, organize, and analyze data to see what difficulties the target users have in life, and then make targeted short videos to help solve the problems. The practicality of such short videos is very important.

(3) The explanation method is interesting

Generally speaking, short videos about life skills are rather boring. In order to better attract the interest of users, the consequences of operational errors can be shown in an exaggerated way in the explanation.

(4) The title should be novel and specific

The selection of short video titles is very important. A good title can often quickly attract the user's attention, thus making the user want to watch the short video. Therefore, the title you choose must be novel and specific. For example, "What to do if a ring gets stuck on your finger? Remove it easily with one trick" is much better than "How to remove a ring stuck on your finger"; "I've lived for more than 20 years before I knew that a mobile phone plug can be used in this way. After reading this, I decided to try it" is more attractive than "Mobile phone plugs can be used in this way"; "Is it difficult to find the tape end? That's because you haven't learned these 3 tricks" is much novel and specific than "How to quickly find the tape end".

3). Fashion and beauty

Fashion and beauty short videos have always been popular among female users and are even favored by some male users. These users choose to watch this type of short video in order to learn some skills to make themselves more beautiful, so when planning this type of short video, you must not only have practical skills, but also keep up with fashion trends.

Because everyone's understanding of fashion is different, and the fashion field is complex, you must do a lot of preliminary research before making a short video. For example, short videos about the season's trends require a certain understanding of popular elements and common brands of clothing accessories. As for personal dressing short videos, it will be much simpler. You just need to share your dressing experience with users. In addition, beauty-related short videos are also popular among users. Generally speaking, beauty short videos can be divided into three types: skills, reviews, and imitation makeup.

Among them, beauty videos that focus on techniques are most popular among makeup beginners or users who want to improve their makeup skills. The content production of this type of short video should focus on demonstrating each step of makeup techniques so that users can learn easily; review-type beauty short videos are often produced by the producers trying out and evaluating similar beauty products, giving some suggestions to users who know little about beauty products or are hesitant about the products; imitation makeup short videos: often after acquiring certain makeup skills, the producers put on makeup like a celebrity, and then make short videos, giving people a shocking feeling. This type of short video will attract many celebrity "fans", and these "fans" will be converted into potential users, bringing convenience to the operation of short videos.

4). Science and technology digital category

Although there are relatively few female audiences for technology and digital products, it is still a high-quality topic. First of all, the extremely rapid update and iteration of digital products can bring a steady stream of creative materials and fresh content for short video creation. Secondly, with the popularization of personal digital devices such as mobile phones, people's interest in technological digital products is gradually increasing. This means that this type of short video will have a better market and can continue to attract the target user group.

When planning this type of short video, the first thing to do is to obtain first-hand information, then process and edit it, and then pass it on to the audience at the receiving end. Not only that, but content planning should also give users something to refer to and compare. For example, when introducing a newly released mobile phone, if you only introduce how excellent the overall appearance, performance, craftsmanship, etc. of the mobile phone are, it will be difficult for users to have a clear concept. If you compare the mobile phone with other similar products, it will be much clearer.

5). Food

There doesn't seem to be any special reason why food is popular in China. Thousands of years of food culture have destined food-related topics to have great potential and to be able to continuously produce high-quality content for a long time. After all, with thousands of years of accumulation, there will always be good topics to explore.

“Food is the primary need of the people”, and the audience for food-related topics is very large. Generally speaking, food-related short videos are divided into the following four categories, as shown in Figures 3-9.

(1) Food tutorials

Food tutorials, to put it simply, teach users some cooking skills. RiRiZhu is a typical short video program of food tutorials. The audience can learn how to make a delicious dish in just a few minutes, as shown in Figure 3-10. Although it’s about cooking, Ririzhu’s videos are more refined. Every shot, every text and every music is just right, which can easily arouse the audience’s appetite. Moreover, the dishes for each episode will be determined based on user suggestions and feedback, seasonality, and real-time hot spots.

(2) Food tasting

Completely different from food tutorial videos, the content of food tasting short videos is simpler and more direct. The audience's evaluation of the food mainly comes from the facial expressions and actions of the characters in the video and their feelings about the taste of the food. There are usually two types of food tasting: one is food tasting and evaluation. This type of content is like a food guide, helping viewers discover, identify and choose food; the other is eating show, which is to perform eating through relatively direct and exaggerated body movements and expressions, creating a simulated sense of reality or curiosity for users.

(3) Food delivery

Modern people live at a fast pace and face pressure from all sides every day. Conveying a state of life by making delicious food in a certain context has become a hot spot for food shows. In the videos of Rishiji, whether it is the gentle and skillful production techniques or the warm and romantic interior environment, they are all carefully planned. At this time, delicious food is not just a dish, but a lifestyle pursued by busy urbanites.

(4) Entertainment and food

For the general public, short video content is mainly a consumption of free time, so funny and entertaining content can easily attract users. Food is no exception, and many creators present food-related content in a funny way. For the audience, the combination of funny and delicious content increases the entertainment and fun of the content, making it easier to attract users, and the user base is also relatively wider.

2. Four principles that short video topics should follow

1) The topic selection must be user-oriented. Be down-to-earth, close to users, take user needs as the goal, and never be separated from the content needs of users and fans. In other words, when choosing topics, we should give priority to user needs and preferences, which is also an important factor in ensuring the number of video views. Often, the content that is closer to user fans is more likely to be recognized by them, triggering the video's completion rate.

2) The purpose of video selection should be to output value and valuable information. The content of our short video programs must be beneficial to the public. In other words, we try to select valuable and informative content. A major feature of useful content is that it will directly trigger users to collect, like, comment, and forward, helping us spread the content and thus achieve the effect of fission dissemination.

3) Ensure the verticality of the topic content. Vertical content can attract accurate fans and increase the influence of our professional field. After you have positioned yourself in a good field for short videos, do not change fields easily. The short video accounts created in this way will not be highly vertical, the content topics will be more diverse, and the user fans will not be precise. You must output content in a certain field for a long time, which will make it easier to occupy the top traffic.

4) The content of the topic should be combined with industry hot spots or network hot spots. If you follow the network hot spots closely, you can get a lot of traffic exposure in a short period of time, which has a very important impact on increasing video playback volume and attracting fans. When we select topics, in addition to the regular daily topics, we must improve our news sensitivity and be good at capturing and riding on hot topics.

3. Five dimensions for selecting short video topics

There are five dimensions to consider when choosing topics for short videos:

1) Frequency. The content of the selected topic should have a high frequency of occurrence in terms of the needs and pain points of user fans. In other words, it should be a popular topic among the target user fan group. Only the high-frequency concerns of user fans can generate more playback volume.

2) Difficulty. Creators should also consider the difficulty of production after topic selection, and whether their own or their team's creative ability can support the content production and content operation behind the topic selection. Topic selection, content, and form are all factors to consider. User fans now have increasingly higher requirements for content quality.

3) Differences. Regardless of the category of the topic or the subject, there are many competing accounts in the short video field. It can be said to be a red ocean. Even some vertical segments already have leading accounts. At this time, we also need to consider how to establish the differentiation between us and competing accounts and increase user fan recognition.

4) Perspective. The perspective of topic selection is related to the feeling it brings to users and fans, and the topic should be presented from that perspective. Is it the athlete role from the first perspective of the user fan, the referee role from the second perspective, or the audience role from the third perspective. When choosing different topics, you also need to change your perspective based on the actual situation.

5) Action cost. It mainly focuses on the actions of user fans after receiving the topic content. Whether the topic content can make user fans understand it at a glance and learn it immediately. Only by truly meeting the needs and pain points of user fans can more actions of user fans be triggered.

4. How to establish a topic database?

Creators can better continue to produce content by establishing a topic library. The topic library is divided into three types:

1. Popular topic database. Pay attention to major popular lists, such as Douyin hot searches, Weibo hot searches, Toutiao Index, Baidu Index, and various popularity lists of third-party platforms, grasp hot topics, be familiar with popular content, and choose appropriate angles for topic creation and content production. The more popular the content topic, the more likely it is to arouse users' interest in watching.

2. Regular topic database. Day-to-day accumulation is very important. Whether it is the people, things, and objects around you, or the external information you receive every day, you can organize them into your own regular topic library through value screening. You can also filter and organize the topics into a topic bank based on professionalism and resources.

5. Where do daily topics come from?

There are actually many sources for daily topic selection. You can take a look at the following 5 sources:

1) You can choose works in the same field as your own for reference

Everyone has his or her own shining points, because as long as it is in the same field, there will always be someone who does well, but there will also be some points that he or she has not discovered, so you can also learn from your peers. (This point is actually the same as the "imitation" mentioned in the previous article. If you are interested, you can read the previous tweet.)

2) Read more comments

After the content is published, you can also get some inspiration by browsing the comments and messages below, and know what users like and what they want to watch more, which is more meaningful for the selection of subsequent video content.

3) Increase the selection

There are many platforms, so there are more options to choose from. Learn to make full use of the Internet. The selection process may be complicated, but once you choose the right one, it will be easy to match the video with the user.

4) Tell your own jokes

Crosstalk seems to be better now than before. Many people are willing to listen to it, which means that there is still a large audience. Shooting from this perspective is also a good choice.

5) Track the data

If you understand everything related to short videos, you can avoid taking detours when choosing video topics. There are many data tracking software, and you can learn about them yourself.

6. Three major sources of short video creation materials

When we browse Douyin, there are all kinds of video content, including 3D animation, light animation, text video, picture video, film and television editing, original video, etc. It takes hard work to make a good video. Of course, some videos have a higher production cost, such as 3D animation, professional original plot videos, etc. These all require relevant professional talents to produce.

So how can we make videos if we don’t have such professional skills? After positioning yourself according to your account and determining the format of your content, you can then look for some free, genuine materials to produce it. So how do you find these materials? Materials can generally be divided into three types: video materials, audio materials and copywriting materials!

1) Video material

After positioning yourself, determine the format of your content, such as vlog, text video, picture video, etc. You can find materials in these formats. You can refer to the following websites:

Mixkit is a website used by 99% of new media operators; Vlog Station has vlog shooting techniques, cases and videos; Zuoshipin updates more than 100 new materials every day; Shareae has a lot of high-end countdown materials for titles; Iconfont has a lot of small icons. For example, for funny emoticon pictures and videos, you can refer to Huaban.com, 699pic, pexels, etc. They are all genuine high-definition free materials. You can choose according to your own style.

2) Audio material

Among the popular techniques on Tik Tok, appropriate BGM is also an important element. Many of the short videos on Douyin have background music provided by the platform. Try to choose popular music. If you don’t know which ones are popular, you can search the popular music list on the Douyin platform. When you are watching excellent videos, if you think other people’s BGM is very good, you can collect it for use. If the video requires different effects, it is recommended to record the audio file yourself.

What needs to be noted is that the selected BGM must be consistent with the tone of our video content. For example, videos about pets should not be matched with music about food. You can refer to the BGM of similar videos.

3) Copywriting materials

Both text videos and published videos require good copywriting. For copywriting materials, you can refer to vlog.com, Yizhuan, Meihua.com, webmaster materials, top copywriting, NetEase Cloud Music hot reviews and other websites to give you inspiration for related copywriting. After a copy is written, how do you know whether it is good or not? You can use Yizhuan.com to detect and Juyi.com to filter out illegal words.

Our copywriting and content can be appropriately combined with hot topics, which will achieve twice the result with half the effort. Combining hot topics with one's own creative field can also increase the probability of becoming popular.

7. Notes on short video topic selection

1) Stay away from sensitive words. Short video platforms all have some restrictions on sensitive words. For example, a video may have a high number of views on a certain platform, but no views on another platform. Pay more attention to the developments of each platform and learn about some official notifications released by the platform. You can also use Juyi.com or Yizhuan.com to conduct preliminary screening of sensitive words in topic content to avoid illegal account blocking and banning on the platform.

2) Avoid blindly following hot topics. Many hot and popular contents will involve news, current affairs, political policies and other contents. These hot contents have always been sensitive topics and should be avoided if possible. If the scale of opinions and content is not well controlled, it is easy to fall into the vortex. Improper operation will not only fail to bring traffic, but may even bring the risk of being banned or blocked due to violations.

3) The title description should be reasonable. The number of words in the title should be moderate. On some platforms, the title will be automatically folded and hidden if it exceeds a certain number of words. The format should be standard, use Arabic numerals for numbers, and use Chinese as much as possible, avoiding uncommon characters and Internet vocabulary to facilitate machine algorithms to obtain and recognize them. The sentence structure should be reasonable. Many short video platforms generally require the title to have a three-paragraph structure, with clear expression and avoidance of exaggerated phrases.

4) Activity topic database. The selection of topics for holiday activities can be planned in advance, such as Mid-Autumn Festival, National Day, Spring Festival, Valentine's Day and other holiday topics that the public cares about. Another source of activity topics is various short video platforms. The official platforms will launch a series of topic activities from time to time, such as the habitual national style power, the big fish's quark knowledge, etc. Participating in the platform's topic activities according to your own situation can get traffic support and cash rewards.

Author: Tang Xiaohan

Source: Tang Xiaohan