Five motivations for users to follow TikTok

How can you attract Douyin users and become an internet celebrity in the Douyin circle? This article analyzes the core needs of Douyin users for content from five aspects: satisfying happiness, satisfying curiosity, learning and imitating, solving problems, and self-realization. You may want to use this as a reference to make a clear content positioning for your own Douyin account.

Tik Tok has been popular for a while now, and has made many people and things popular. Its powerful traffic pool has attracted countless brands to join this short video platform to reap the bonus period. However, to date, the operations of most brands and marketing accounts on it have not been ideal, and many of them have received very little attention.

The reason is that many of them do not have a clear idea of ​​the tone of their own content, but instead adopt a very simple and crude approach: that is, they follow whatever hot topics there are, hoping to create a hit to attract traffic.

However, this kind of hot-spot-riding tactics often do not solve the core attention behavior even if they gain short-term traffic exposure. Only by solving the most core problem can you create value for users, that is - why do users pay attention to you?

Users' behavior of following you is definitely not because you accidentally create a hit. This desire to maintain a long-term relationship is largely derived from your ability to continuously meet certain needs of fans.

More than 80% of this demand is triggered by the following five motivations:

1. Satisfy happiness – avoid negative emotions
2. Satisfy curiosity – provide topics for conversation
3. Learning and imitation - reference, design goals
4. Problem Solving - Getting a task done better
5. Self-actualization - the desire for success

1. Satisfaction and happiness

The reason why TikTok can make users addicted is largely because it can continuously satisfy users' needs for pursuing happiness, and the triggering of this need often comes from negative emotional experiences in life - that is, avoiding pain.

Think back, how many times have you opened TikTok because of boredom or annoyance?

Sometimes people perform this behavior unconsciously and automatically. The reason is that the primary brain, which dominates people's emotional desires, controls the human intuitive system, and seeking benefits and avoiding harm is the instinctive reaction of the primary brain. Therefore, if a user judges that a certain account will continue to satisfy his need for happiness, it will trigger his behavior of following it.

So, how can we continue to meet the needs of users?

On Douyin, this method is to create a clear personal positioning, which is especially important for funny accounts. Because when users form a fixed impression of an actor, they will think that you can continue to meet his needs and form expectations, which will lead to attention to you.

It's like, employees cannot form any expectations for a moody leader, because you don't know what he will do in the next second; but they will have expectations for a leader who is clear about rewards and punishments, because you know what he will do next. It is this certainty that allows people to form expectations.

For example, on Douyin’s “Tiantian Xiaoyuan” account, each character’s character creation and performance style remain consistent over a long period of time.

This kind of long-term consistent character creation not only makes fans feel expectations for the actors, but sometimes they also approve of the content because they like the actors.

However, for the same funny account, if the characters and performance styles are mixed for a long time, first of all, it will weaken the fans' expectations of the actors, and instead they will have higher requirements for the content and overall acting skills. This is undoubtedly much more difficult for a Douyin account that requires superb acting skills and long-term high-quality content to support.

A clear personality will easily make people form a specific impression, and ultimately they will associate everything that person expresses in a fixed direction.

For example, even if a comedian plays a very serious role, his every move may still be considered very funny. It is precisely because of this stereotype that fans have lower requirements for content.

2. Satisfy your curiosity

In addition to the funny accounts that occupy a part of the traffic on Douyin, there is another type of account that is equally powerful. This type of account provides some strange, fresh, and informative content to satisfy users' curiosity.

For example, there are some TikTok accounts that specifically focus on how foreigners comment on some things in China:

These interviews specifically conducted with foreigners all spoke fluent Mandarin, which formed a contrast with the public's usual perception and was particularly likely to attract attention.

The main reason why he has so many fans is that he satisfies people's curiosity about how foreigners evaluate some specific things in China.

Because humans are social animals, they are particularly concerned about how other people evaluate some specific opinions about things related to me (for example, there are often games in the circle of friends that allow you to see what your friends think of you).

For example, the Douyin account of "Global Village Tour Guide" mainly provides some novel and imaginative trivia to satisfy people's curiosity.

For example, one of its most popular works in the “Disappearance Series” is “Humans Sudden Disappearance”.

This knowledge not only satisfies people's innate desire to understand changes in their environment, but also provides people with topics for daily social conversation.

When people socialize in daily life, the most important thing is often to find topics to talk about. These mind-opening pieces of knowledge can not only easily become topics of conversation, but also reflect a sense of superiority.

Another example is some travel accounts, extreme sports challenge accounts, etc. These videos can become popular because they continue to satisfy people's curiosity to explore the outside world.

The reason why this type of information can satisfy people's curiosity is that, unlike the phenomena seen in daily life, the human brain has always been very sensitive to changes, but not to fixed things.

For example, a headline like "Jack Ma becomes the richest man again" is not as attractive as "Poor loser turns his life around in 3 years, XXX becomes the new richest man in China."

Therefore, if you can continue to provide this type of information to satisfy users' curiosity, it will trigger users to pay attention to you.

3. Learning and Imitation

There is also a particularly popular type of emotional account on Douyin, namely "other people's girlfriend/boyfriend". This kind of personality will make fans envious, and then fans will use it as a reference to imitate their behavior.

A typical example is "Deer-style Girlfriend", which attracts people's attention by portraying an image of a well-behaved and sensible girl.

These accounts are successful because we are wired to regulate ourselves by imitating the behavior of others, especially the behavior of groups we aspire to be like.

For example, people who aspire to become internet celebrities will learn from their dressing styles and skills; people who aspire to become experts in a certain field will learn from the learning behaviors of experts in that field, and so on.

This kind of "other people's girlfriend/boyfriend" is the ideal boyfriend/girlfriend that many people desire to have. Therefore, these people will regulate their own behavior by following their accounts.

For example, singles will use this as a criterion for finding a significant other, or they may want to become such a person in the future, or men and women will tag their significant others, saying, "Look at what other boyfriends/girlfriends do in this situation, and we should do the same in the future, etc...."

Therefore, if you can create an object that people aspire to be part of, then you are likely to attract people's attention. For example, the poor want to become rich, the rich want to become nobles, and so on...

So, how to do it specifically?

You just need to answer what group your current target group aspires to be like but cannot be.

For example, in the past two years, the world is so big and I want to see it, and many people want to be the kind of people who travel around the world all day long. Therefore, many beautiful internet celebrities attract a lot of attention by shaping the image of travel experts that people aspire to become.

4. Problem Solving

People always encounter various problems in life, and the emergence of these problems hinders us from completing a task.

For example, in the past people were unable to judge the quality of a movie in advance, but the emergence of some big Vs in the film self-media solved this problem, helping people to avoid spoilers in advance and playing a role in screening the quality of films.

So if you can solve a problem in people's lives and enable them to complete tasks better, then you can attract people's attention.

Some Excel skills, home furnishing matching, and food accounts. These accounts help people better complete the tasks of using Excel, home furnishing matching, and cooking to attract people's attention.

The biggest feature of this type of account is that it is instrumental, that is, people will not "think of him/her simply because of him/her, but because of other things."

For example, if you want to solve an Excel problem, you will suddenly remember that "Excel Office Tutorial" has solved this problem before, and then you will open Douyin to see how he did it.

The life cycle of tool-based internet celebrities is longer than that of other internet celebrities who only provide sensory stimulation, because no matter how good-looking or funny you are, sooner or later people will "adapt to the stimulation" and eventually become aesthetically fatigued.

However, tool-based internet celebrities are different. They are not designed to satisfy the emotional experience needs of fans, but are "tools" to help users better complete a task.

For example, WeChat and Alipay will not cause people fatigue because they are tools that allow people to complete social interactions more efficiently and payments more conveniently.

Moreover, this kind of demand will exist even without such internet celebrities.

For example, in the past, if you wanted to solve a problem in Excel or put on makeup, you had to search on Baidu or ask a friend, but with the emergence of these Internet celebrities, they have become "tools" to help you complete the task better.

5. Self-actualization

In addition to the first four types, there is a final type of content that can motivate users to pay attention, which is videos that specifically provide chicken soup.

Times make heroes, and in this rapidly changing era, what is most lacking is some dramatic personal success stories. These success stories are vividly presented to the public through media rendering, which stimulates people to pursue success and realize their self-worth, but also makes countless people feel extremely anxious about their current situation.

Chicken soup content provides people with a positive mindset of wanting to succeed.

For example, similar views can be seen on TikTok and other platforms.

• Success is about constantly pushing yourself to realize your potential
• "Jack Ma: You need to do these 5 things to make yourself better"
• Ma Huateng: If you do these 7 things, you will never be confused
• "Wang Jianlin: You didn't succeed because you didn't do these 5 things"

The reason why these positive thoughts are so convincing and are regarded as golden rules by many people is that, in addition to utilizing the authority of celebrities, the most important thing is that they can enhance personal sense of control.

A sense of control is like human nature. It is a basic human need, just like eating and drinking. Improving one's sense of control can help people have a more positive attitude towards life.

A study of nursing homes found that among the same group of patients, those who were allowed to move their beds and place flowers and plants themselves lived longer and were healthier than those who were taken care of in every way. Because for those who have everything taken care of, even the placement of flowers and plants is fixed, their sense of control over themselves is reduced.

On the other hand, when people feel that their sense of control is being taken away or that things are out of their control, they will experience anxiety.

For example, when people take the elevator, they will unconsciously choose a position close to the elevator buttons because this will give them a feeling that their surroundings are under control.

In real life, people will inevitably encounter setbacks, confusion, and even helplessness, which will create a feeling that life is out of our control. This feeling will make people anxious, and these positive thoughts make people feel that "the reason why it is like this now is because I didn't do these things. If I do them, I will become better and more successful", thus giving people a feeling that things are under control again.

These positive thoughts can bring spiritual comfort and temporarily relieve people of anxiety. Modern people's anxiety is like menstruation, which always erupts several times every month. Whenever anxiety arises, people need this kind of spiritual food to improve their sense of control. After eating it, people will seem to "regain strength."

Conclusion

When you want to attract users to follow you, you might as well answer some basic questions: Why do users follow you? What psychological needs of users can you meet? What motivates users to follow you?

The five demand theories provided in this article can be used as a reference to make a clear content positioning for your own Douyin account.

Author: Big Bun

Source: WeChat public account: mantousay