How to operate short videos? Let’s talk about these 4 aspects!

Nowadays, the popularity of Tik Tok has attracted many people to join the short video army, and the importance of operation is also receiving more and more attention. In this article, the author starts from work practice and shares how to operate short videos well from four aspects for your reference and learning.

Douyin is a short video platform owned by ByteDance. It has cutting-edge content, is extremely popular, and has a user base covering multiple cities. In the current bonus period, many self-media individuals and enterprises want to get a piece of the pie and build their own marketing accounts. Among them, many Douyin has made the leap to the big V level.

How did they do it?

Let's analyze it from four dimensions: positioning and naming, algorithm logic, recommendation mechanism, and content push:

1. Positioning and naming

When making short videos, the first thing to do is account positioning. What is the idea behind this? Here we recommend that if it is a personal account, you should choose the skills or hobbies you are good at to position yourself; if it is a company, you should position yourself according to your own brand and market demand.

For example:

1. If you are a photography enthusiast, you can name it xxx photography;
2. If you are good at product operation, you can name it as xxx and talk about product operation;
3. If a company provides paid knowledge services, it can name itself xxx Academy.

Account positioning needs to grasp two core points: content output and monetization path. From the very beginning you should think carefully about what kind of effect you want to achieve at each stage and don't give up halfway.

To output content, you need to find a point that you are good at, such as your industry, and continue to produce content; it is recommended to work in vertical segments, focus on content, and gradually build fans' awareness of you. The content must be continuous, which is the key to improving user stickiness and an important way to increase the number of fans.

The monetization paths mainly include paid knowledge, live streaming, e-commerce Taobao, training, paid communities, traffic advertising and other types. You have to choose a good way to monetize your area of ​​expertise. The most important thing is to have fans. Once you have fans, you don’t have to worry about monetization.

2. Algorithm Logic

Understanding the short video platform algorithm is an important part of short video operations. Only by knowing yourself and your enemy can you win every battle. Since the algorithm logic of each platform is different, the push mechanisms presented are also very different.

Douyin's recommendation mechanism is centralized, relying on big data models to make recommendations. It focuses on more avant-garde content and updates instantly, with its main audience concentrated in first- and second-tier cities. Kuaishou, on the other hand, focuses more on individual stickiness and user experience, with its main audience in third- and fourth-tier cities.

Let us first understand the algorithm mechanism of Douyin: for example, when you post a short video, Douyin will give you a basic display volume (such as 100) and then the system will evaluate these indicators (mainly forwarding, commenting, likes, completion rate, dwell time, dwell trajectory, account activity, and number of fans) through a big data algorithm model. If the ROBOT robot determines that this short video is popular, the system will recommend this content to a larger traffic pool (such as 1,000) for display. If the performance continues to be good, it will be put into a traffic pool of 100,000 or more for display at the million level. And some may be recommended multiple times, so that’s how short videos with tens of millions of views come out.

In addition, the big data system will perform a weight analysis on your account, which is a bit like the PR value of SEO. If your weight score is high, the content you post will most likely get more traffic recommendations. If your score is low, it will be less visible.

3. Recommendation Mechanism

The key indicators recommended by short video platforms include forwarding, comments, likes, completion rate, stay time, stay trajectory, account activity, number of fans, etc. Next, we will break down several key indicators to help you get more recommendation opportunities.

1. Forward

Reposting is based on the user's preference and willingness to share the content with friends around them. If you want to get more recommendations, you need to encourage your friends to forward your content. This is a core point of Douyin’s recommendation mechanism.

The recommended idea is to join more related WeChat groups, be active in these groups more often, share some content that matches the groups when you have nothing to do, and send out red envelopes; as soon as the short videos come out, share them in these groups, and everything will go smoothly.

Or you can set up a special Douyin interactive group, where whoever posts new content can share it with each other. It is probably a win-win situation that all members will be willing to share.

2. Completion rate

Being impetuous, stressed and impatient are the characteristics of today's young people. They watch short videos to relieve stress and have fun.

If a video is 15 seconds long and the user scrolls away before watching it to the end, the system will think that the video is not very popular; so even if the 60-second limit is now available, if the content is not attractive enough, it is recommended to still shoot a 15-second video.

When selecting materials, you must get straight to the point. In the title, you should remind users to read to the end and say that the highlight is at the end to attract users.

3. Comment/Like

Comments and likes are also important criteria for the recommendation mechanism. Here you need to work hard on the title copy. First of all, the title needs to guide user comments. There are many ways to do this, such as using a question-and-answer format, a controversial title, a voting title, etc.

Another highlight of the comment section is that you will find that the comment section is often more exciting than the content of the video. Therefore, we should attach great importance to the role of a great comment, which can make an ordinary piece of content popular. The same goes for the connotation and jokes of the video.

If there are very few comments, you will have to use a small account to see how to make good use of it to attract users to the comment section.

4. Activity/Number of fans

What I want to say here is that first of all, your account should maintain a certain level of activity every day. You don’t necessarily have to update content every day, but you should keep logged in, watch videos, like some videos, or follow others, comment on popular videos, follow popular bgm, add internet celebrities on WeChat and join their fan group, all of which can attract fans. With high activity and a large number of fans, the weight will naturally be high.

5. Duration of stay/stay trajectory

When you see an interesting video, many people tend to click on your homepage to watch it, or even keep watching it until the end.

This operation will also be recorded and will add points. The account positioning mentioned above must be the same type of vertical content, repeated, repeated, and repeated. Even if you just write a quote with a pen every day and match it with the latest popular music, you may become popular if you persist in it for a long time.

Some accounts make short story videos or leave suspense in the videos to guide users to watch the next video. This is also a way to increase the length of stay.

4. Content Output

Ensuring continuous content output is a very simple yet very difficult task, especially for personal and corporate accounts on Douyin. Fortunately, everyone is working as planned.

The continuous output of content on a personal account is a process of overcoming laziness, which requires persistence. Therefore, it is important to create content that you are good at so that you will not feel boring and tedious.

Let’s take a look at which types of content are more likely to attract fans?

1. Stay close to the hot spots

Or you can seize the current hot topic, for example, the recent hot topic of the rampant Porsche female driver is very popular. If you promote more content with positive social energy, it is easy to attract fans.

2. Unique

The thing about characteristics is that you have to be different. You should be the type that can be identified at first sight in a crowd of people. This type of person is either extremely beautiful or extremely ugly.

She is beautiful, has a good figure and is multi-talented. It is easy for her to become famous wherever she goes. For example, the bearded guy who imitates the cat's meow, Ximen Piaopiao, Kong Kong, etc., their popularity is without exception due to having their own icons. Even if they are ugly to a certain level, it is still impressive. As the saying goes, everything will turn into its opposite when it reaches its extreme.

Moreover, if you look at them often, you will gradually ignore their appearance and instead discover their inner qualities and shining points.

3. Technical effects

It is not uncommon to have some technical skills, such as PS, animation production, photography, editing, special effects, and copywriting. Integrate these through a series of technical means and reach new heights.

People like Black Face V, Dai Mei Shi, and Chen Shixian all play very sophisticated roles, and the brand advertisements they take are also very high-end. It depends on which one suits you.

4. Play the emotional card

Knowing more about the physical and mental needs of today's young people is either to touch the deep hearts of today's people. Most people working outside are hard and lonely. The copywriting and music should touch people's hearts and get to a certain point, which may bring you unexpected gains.

Related reading:

1. 8 tips for creating a popular account through short video operation!

2. How to attract new users and retain customers through short video operations?

Author: Minghang Talks about Operations

Source: Minghang Operations