Analysis of Tik Tok, Xigua and Huoshan short video products!

Tik Tok, Xigua Video and Huoshan Video are all short video apps under ByteDance. Many people are not clear why ByteDance wants to make so many video apps. Are they too "homogeneous"? Or differentiate and position user groups? Should they compete internally to seize the market or work together to explore and occupy more market share? Next, I will take these doubts with me, experience these three apps one by one, analyze their respective characteristics in a targeted manner, and finally give the answers to the above questions.

1. Market Analysis

1. Development status of the short video industry

Since the rise of short videos in 2016, various platforms have been exploring commercial realization and other aspects. With the cultivation and incubation of short video-related technologies, concepts and user habits in the TV and PC eras, short video marketing with stronger interactivity has risen rapidly, and its realization model has gradually been recognized and ushered in a period of rapid development in 2018.

Recently, iResearch Consulting released the "China Short Video Marketing Market Research Report 2018". The report stated that the short video marketing market size reached 14.01 billion yuan in 2018, with a year-on-year growth rate of 520.7%. It is expected that the market size will reach 55 billion yuan in 2020.

2. Short video user scale

As can be seen from the above figure, the number of short video users has basically maintained a continuous upward trend. (Data source: Analysys)

2. Basic Introduction

• Tik Tok: A music-based short video social software that can shoot short videos. The software was launched in September 2016 and is a community platform focusing on music short videos for young people.
• Xigua Video: A "personalized recommendation short video platform" under ByteDance, it uses artificial intelligence to help everyone discover their favorite videos and helps video creators easily share their video works with the world.
• Huoshan Video: A 15-second original life video community incubated by Toutiao. It helps users quickly obtain content, show themselves, gain fans, and find like-minded people through short videos.

1. Basic information comparison

2. Function comparison

3. Distinction Analysis

1. Different user groups

As can be seen from the above figure, the user group of Douyin short videos is generally young, concentrated between the ages of 25 and 30. Most users in this age group have entered society for several years, generally have strong consumption power, high level of cognition, and are more receptive to new things.

Xigua Video has more female users, mainly young users aged 25-30, which is similar to Douyin. Xigua Video was originally a video function of Toutiao, and was later separated out to run as an independent app. The main video content covers a wide range, basically involving all aspects of life.

The number of male users of Huoshan Video is far higher than that of female users. This is because the video contents it mainly promotes are all created by female users. It is not difficult to understand that opposites attract. The age of users is concentrated in the middle-aged group aged 31-35, because the age of female video creators is mostly similar.

2. Different content orientation

1) Tik Tok short video

Most of the videos online are original, and there are no restrictions on the content involved. As long as they do not violate relevant laws and regulations, they can be put online after review. So in principle, Douyin will not classify videos, but video recommendations are based on relevant recommendation algorithms. At present, the popular videos are mainly about food, music, dance, creative tips, beauty, emotions, and life.

2) Xigua Video

The videos are divided into many categories (games, short videos, vlogs, music, variety shows, farmers, food, pets, children, funny, fashion, car-oriented, sports, entertainment, culture, handicrafts, technology, square dance, parent-child, emotions, travel, NBA, military), and all kinds of videos are available.

The main attraction is PGC (professionally produced content), which are mostly TV dramas or movie clips played on relevant video websites, or small theater performances by relevant professionals, while user-generated content is classified as "short video" category. At the same time, the video categories it covers are also quite broad.

3) Volcano Video

Most of the content is about eating shows, jokes, and skills. Huoshan also does not categorize the videos uploaded by users. However, based on its target user groups, the content tends to focus on topics that attract middle-aged men, such as women, family, square dancing, and comedy.

The content is more down-to-earth or vulgar, which is also in line with the characteristics of its user group.

In general, Douyin and Xigua Video will specifically cultivate some professional content creators such as IP, Internet celebrities, KOLs, etc. in order to encourage them to produce more high-quality videos to improve user stickiness, while Huoshan Video is more inclined to UGC.

3. Video lengths are different

• Tik Tok short videos: initially only 15 seconds long, but as the number of fans grows, they can be up to 60 seconds long.
• Xigua Video: upgraded from Toutiao Video, most of them are about 5 minutes long, with relatively complete content and strong storytelling;
• Huoshan Short Video: It is only a few tens of seconds long, and most of the content overlaps with TikTok.

4. Why does Toutiao want to separate out so many video products?

1. Accurate positioning (user group positioning + content positioning)

The user groups of Douyin and Xigua Video are more similar in age and can both be classified as young users, with a smaller difference in the ratio of men to women. However, Douyin users are distributed in China's first- and second-tier cities, while Xigua Video users are distributed in third- and fourth-tier cities. The users of Volcano Video are relatively old, mostly middle-aged users, and are distributed in third- and fourth-tier cities.

The videos on Douyin are mainly music, dance, and skill sharing, and they are all UGC. The content on Xigua is mainly film and television clips and short dramas, most of which are PGC. However, both of them have cultivated dedicated IPs, KOLs or content producers to attract as many users as possible and increase user stickiness.

The main content of Volcano Video is life and emotions. The content is relatively down-to-earth and vulgar, and is all UGC.

A few words to describe the differences between these three apps:

• Tik Tok short video: PGC+UGC; high-quality content; young women in first- and second-tier cities.
• Xigua Video: PGC+UGC; wide range of content, PGC is more professional; users in third- and fourth-tier cities.
• Huoshan Video: UGC; low-quality content and an older population in third- and fourth-tier cities.

2. Maximize market share

It is precisely because of the precise positioning of these three apps that different groups of people who like videos are attracted to Toutiao products, which has led to a dramatic increase in the number of Toutiao users and maximized market share. At the same time, videos can easily make users "immersed" and consume a lot of their time.

Conclusion

A tree that stands out in the forest will be destroyed by the wind. The market and user time are limited. Toutiao’s products have already occupied a large amount of users’ time. It is easier for the company to realize user monetization if the user’s usage time is long, while products with short usage time naturally face tremendous pressure. When trying to grab food from the tiger's mouth, there will inevitably be competition, which is also the reason why Toutiao has been suppressed by other companies.

In addition, on September 3, 2019, Toutiao integrated Xigua Video and Huoshan Video into the app, making them the key targets in addition to the recommended news with pictures and texts on the homepage. It can be seen that the development of Toutiao is about to reach its ceiling.

The bonus of the competition in graphic news has passed, and the number of new users and daily active users has stagnated. Toutiao needs to make timely adjustments, so it connected with Xigua and Huoshan. Xigua’s videos cover all walks of life, which is very suitable for Toutiao’s content positioning. Huoshan is more down-to-earth and is also an important measure for Toutiao to expand into the user market.

Author: Ledo

Source: Ledo