Analysis of Zhang’s popular short video operations!

Many people have discussed why Zhang became so popular, but they haven’t finished what I want to say. So I decided to explore Zhang’s popularity from a marketing perspective, not only to explore why, but also to talk about the commercial value.

1. Zhang’s Background

Student Zhang started this Douyin account in early October, and its followers have now grown to 1.7 million. He is the blogger with the fastest increase in followers on Douyin in November. And because of the reports from major media and discussions among various people, it has become a hot topic recently.

Student Zhang studied for eight years and started many businesses, but all failed. Before, he made short videos for others. He was behind the scenes while others acted and sometimes he also appeared on camera. At most, I have to think of scripts for 6 accounts at the same time. My home is in a small village in Yingkou, Liaoning. I have a wife and two children. 86 years.

Before this, Zhang was in the Balinlangzi team. The purpose of Balinglangzi is to show the rural life in the 1990s, and it contains many scenes and objects that were popular in rural areas in the 1990s.

However, Zhang’s videos are not limited to nostalgia, but show the current rural life, not only the past but also the present.

2. Why did Zhang become so popular?

Perspective 1 : Douyin officially supports the content related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers, which is conducive to direct competition with Kuaishou and snatching users from Kuaishou. Therefore, the content related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers created by Zhang was selected.

It is very likely that Zhang will be supported by Tik Tok. Mr. Zhang's content is generally medium-length videos of seven or eight minutes. According to general algorithms, it is actually difficult to get millions of likes and tens of millions of views. Compared to movie clips that are several minutes long, getting tens of thousands of likes is considered a good result.

It is rare for a video of about seven minutes in length to get a million likes on Tik Tok, and it is unlikely that multiple consecutive pieces of content with high similarity would get a million likes without official human intervention and support.

In the operation of content platforms, it is a common operation method for the platforms to actively intervene and provide support, so that some accounts can grow rapidly.

For example, Xiaohongshu will focus on supporting a certain vertical content over a period of time, discover bloggers who can continuously produce vertical content, provide them with traffic support, and help them become popular quickly, thereby allowing this vertical content to produce rich content and making Xiaohongshu more valuable to users of this vertical content.

Tik Tok also has a similar strategy for supporting influencers. Each vertical category will have a corresponding operation team, which is responsible for discovering potential bloggers in this category by providing more traffic, etc.

The rural topics represented by Zhang and the medium-length video content formats are the content that Douyin is focusing on supporting this year. Douyin supports rural content to steal the market share of Kuaishou, and supports medium-length videos to steal the market share of Bilibili.

However, the platform only provides umbrellas when it is sunny and takes away umbrellas when it rains. The platform will only support you when you demonstrate your value.

Perspective 2 : Zhang’s video has a fast pace and creates a flow experience.

A shot switches every 2-3 seconds, and a 7-minute video usually has more than 200 shots, which is far more than the shots of a general short video.

When people continue to complete tasks of moderate difficulty and gain pleasure, they can easily enter the flow state and have a wonderful experience.

For example, when playing basketball, the fast-paced offense and defense allow athletes to enter a flow state. Even in the hot summer, when they sweat constantly, they forget about their fatigue and the heat and feel very happy.

When riding a bicycle, you keep pedaling to make the bicycle move forward, and you can see the scenery constantly changing as the bicycle moves forward, which brings a flow experience and makes people want to keep riding. But if the pedaling process is too strenuous, you will feel it is too hard and give up quickly. If the pedaling process is too easy, for example, it takes almost no effort on a suitable slope, it will feel boring.

The perfect level of difficulty, tight rhythm, and constantly changing angles allow people to experience flow.

The same is true when reading articles. If the text is too difficult, people will lose interest in reading. For example, articles written in classical Chinese, articles full of formulas, and papers full of rigorous long sentences make people not want to read.

Zhang's video, with its fast tempo, mesmerizing soundtrack, and moderately difficult images, brings us into a flow experience. Let's have fun.

However, this video shooting technique is used by many accounts. Although it is indeed effective, it is not enough for Zhang to create so many popular videos.

Perspective three : In terms of content, Zhang used scenes that are common among rural people to arouse resonance among people who have common experiences.

Most people who are currently using TikTok still have experience of rural life. Many people have either experienced the scenes presented by Zhang or have seen people around them have similar experiences.

Let’s take an example and dissect the scene of Zhang’s indoor vegetable garden.

I won’t list the rest here, as each scene is based on the author’s careful observation, and each scene can resonate widely among a group of people. Without plagiarizing him, would other creators be able to compactly present so many resonant points in one video? It's difficult.

One idea for making videos is to repeatedly stack shots that evoke the same emotion within a short period of time, so that people will have strong emotions.

When I just graduated, I worked with the company's photographer to shoot the first video I planned, and the number of views was 10 times that of the company's previous videos. I was actually quite new at that time. I just used a few basic techniques to tightly stitch together a series of shots that would evoke similar emotions in the audience, thus making the audience feel strong emotions. That’s when the audience gets caught and expresses their love.

The scene described by Zhang is the past and present of the countryside, so the potential users may be two-thirds of the people who use Douyin. The account Zhang had previously created in collaboration with others, [Ba Ling Leng Zi], describes rural scenes in the 1980s. Its target users may be only one-third of the people, and it is unable to arouse such widespread resonance among Zhang. In fact, many of Ba Ling Leng Zi’s videos have received little response on Kuaishou, with many of them reaching 20 million views. However, Balinglangzi only has one million fans on Kuaishou and only a few hundred thousand fans on Douyin.

Perspective 4 : Student Zhang is very capable.

Since October, Zhang has maintained a pace of producing a video almost every one or two days. According to the estimate that one video is 8 minutes long and has 200 shots, it would take at least 10 hours for one person to work non-stop. The position of the lens needs to be constantly adjusted, some shots may need to be shot repeatedly, and it is necessary to plan which shots to shoot. After the shots are shot, they need to be edited, and then exported after editing. The workload is not easy.

Student Zhang said that at most he could think of jokes for 6 accounts at the same time, which is an extremely strong work ability. Perhaps Xiao Ce, the director behind the scenes of Zhu Yici’s account before, did not have such a strong working speed.

3. What will happen after Zhang becomes famous?

By December 13, Zhang had more than 16 million followers. But what does it mean to have so many fans?

[The Boring Life of Zhu Yici] with 7 million followers has rarely been updated this year. The reason behind this is actually that it does not make money and it is difficult to get advertisements. [Xiaoying and Her Husband] with 6 million followers became famous last year because of their dancing. They are from rural Wenzhou and were also popular on Douyin for a while. However, they rarely received any advertisements and mainly rely on live streaming to sell agricultural products. This is also unlikely to generate high income. Therefore, there are no traces of the team's operations now.

On TikTok, fans come because of your content. When the content data is not good, TikTok will not recommend the content to others, and even not all fans will be recommended. When doing advertising, one must consider the possibility of a sharp drop in the number of views and the possibility that many fans will not buy into it.

[Ba Ling Lang Zi] His usual works have around 1 million views on Kuaishou, but this advertisement only had 160,000 views. Assuming that 20% of people are still watching this video when the ad is broadcast, then only 30,000 people have watched the ad. Assuming a conversion rate of one in a thousand, then only 30 people have been converted. This is a second-hand recycling software download. Assuming the customer acquisition cost is 200 yuan, then this advertisement is worth 6,000 yuan. From a personal perspective, it's pretty high. But from a commercial perspective, this type of account is not very valuable.

Mr. Zhang’s current offer on Julebao Star Map is 300,000, with an expected playback volume of 30 million, but he still finds it difficult to get advertising. However, if there is official promotion from Douyin, the prospects will be better than other similar accounts.

Student Zhang just took on an OPPO mobile phone advertisement on December 12, and the data went off the charts, with 1.77 million likes in one day, which is even better than the data of many of his videos that did not take on advertisements. Oppo phones are popular in rural areas because they have extensive offline channels, a high proportion of rural buyers, a high average price per customer, and focus on photography. For those who want to take videos and post them on TikTok, they may decide to update their phones after seeing Zhang change his phone.

For OPPO, as long as this advertisement sells 1,000 units, it will obviously make money. Based on the 1.77 million likes, the video has at least 3 million views. It should be easy to achieve a conversion rate of 0.3 per 10,000.

4. Who will be the next person to ask Zhang to do advertising?

I tried to list a few options: Pinduoduo, Taobao Special Edition, vivo, Honor, and Xiaomi.

There aren’t many options actually.

• It would be best if this brand has a relatively high average customer acquisition cost, for example, the customer acquisition cost of apps like Pinduoduo is hundreds of yuan, or the profit of a single product is relatively high, for example, the gross profit of an OPPO mobile phone reaches thousands of yuan.
• It would be best if this brand targets rural people or middle-aged people.
• It would be best if the brand is easily accessible, such as having extensive offline channels in rural areas and towns, or having convenient access paths.
• It would be best if this brand has a strong appeal to this group of people, for example, it has a high cost-performance ratio.

From this perspective, there may not be many brands that can advertise through Zhang.

Another issue that needs to be considered is that the number of video views may drop sharply after the video is embedded with advertising. Are other brands suitable for such a smooth embedding method? Whether the brand is willing to take this risk.

However, since Zhang happened to be popular at the right time and has been made into a multi-millionaire internet celebrity representing rural life by Douyin, it is possible that Douyin wants to take advantage of the opportunity to make Zhang a typical case of brand advertising and encourage more brands to try advertising on Douyin.

5. What is the reference value of Zhang’s fire?

1. For brands

It’s time to start re-evaluating advertising on TikTok. Brands that used to advertise on TV, iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video, in elevators, and on pirated film and television resources can now consider finding Tik Tok bloggers to do their brand advertising. The automotive industry has already done a lot because the benefits are obvious to them and are absolutely correct, and they can generate obvious benefits even if they do it with their eyes closed.

3C consumer products can also be considered. It is also possible to consider building a shopping platform. In fact, Du App and Vipshop have already done a lot this year.

Offline brands such as Nayuki Tea have already done a lot, and various restaurants are also generally running Douyin advertisements this year.

Brands in many industries can explore a strategy with an OK input-output ratio while everyone is still afraid to find KOLs and KOCs to advertise on Douyin and while many prices are still low. When TikTok officially starts promoting it, it will become a red ocean.

Those with higher average order value, higher profit margin, higher cost-performance ratio, and unique product selling points can consider researching Douyin advertising.

2. For self-media people

If you want to create a Douyin account and take advertisements in the future. Then you have to consider why the brand wants you to advertise.

1) What group of people are you targeting? In the past, in the television era, which brands or products would advertise to target this group of people? For example, Zhang’s vertical focus is on the rural population or the population who have memories of rural life.

2) Do you want to focus on a certain region? Will this region become a battleground for brand advertising? For example, first-tier cities and new first-tier cities have large populations and are places where brands must compete. It is more valuable to create regional vertical accounts. Because many brands will focus on competing for the markets in these cities and penetrate these cities, they may concentrate advertising and marketing in a certain city during a certain period of time.

3) Is your content suitable for embedded advertising? For example, some accounts are about dancing. How should advertisements be embedded in such content? It's difficult. Student Zhang’s content records a day’s rural life, so advertisements may be embedded in scenes related to rural life. This time he went to Oppo to buy a mobile phone, next time he might go to Pinduoduo to buy things, the next time he might change to an electric car, and the next time he might drive a Wuling car.

Author: Jiang Liu

Source public account: Jiangliu