3 formulas for B station to become popular with over 1 million views!

A cool designer, a low-key female writer, and a red dress glowing in the moonlight.

The story begins when she breaks into a clothing store to avoid the spotlight. The female writer falls in love with the designer at first sight, and the two communicate through the red dress in the window and the sticky notes on the window. The gentle and romantic sentences are talking about clothes but not really about clothes. As the writer walked away, only the fallen lipstick hinted at the "prototype" of this video - an advertisement.

This advertisement, "The Wounded Swan and Her Red Velvet", released by B Station UP host @艺术菜花, has attracted many users to check in because of its movie-like visual effects. Currently, the video has been played 2.58 million times on B Station, far higher than the average level of daily works of this account with 250,000 fans.

Image source: @Art Cauliflower

As Bilibili continues to advance its commercialization path, more and more creators are being noticed by brands, and the distinctive personal styles of UPs have also created a variety of ways to make money.

01. Are UP hosts making creative advertisements?

@艺术菜花's creative path has been different from other creators from the beginning. As a pure advertising UP, he would make some wonderful combinations of product performance and the theme of the work, while advertising without losing the artistry of the work.

For example, in a skin care product advertisement, a girl who lost her happiness and herself due to work pressure had obvious spots on her face at the beginning. With the help of "God's Quick Service", she awakened the vitality of life and found her beauty again. The theme that pops up at the end of the video, "May you keep that natural and happy trace", touches the user's soft heart.

Image source: @Art Cauliflower

For example, in the casual wear advertisement, the top that had a "little temper" due to the hostess's messy matching was about to be cut up, but it received help from the hostess's friend. This not only allowed the clothes to show their comfortable performance, but also made the owner understand that "freedom can be so enjoyable."

Analyzing the video style, the color tone and composition are extremely artistic. Many scenes are similar to the movie "The Grand Budapest Hotel", which brings a strong visual enjoyment to the audience. In addition, the dubbing and BGM of the video are also just right, which further enhances the viewing experience of the video.

Image source: @Art Cauliflower

According to Kas's observation, many of the UP's fans come from other platforms. Knowing that the videos he posted are advertisements, they still follow the comments section, come to Bilibili, follow and check in, and even read all the contents of the account. The reason for this may be explained by the comment of @我233一笑 from Bilibili: this may be the Chinese advertisement that combines commerciality and artistry to the extreme in my limited memory.

Image source: @Art Cauliflower Comments

In addition to @艺术菜花, some other UP hosts’ “eating postures” have attracted our attention.

Some of these UP hosts win by relying on their professional knowledge and hardcore technical strength . For example, the well-known car UP host @极速拍档, the content of his account includes car reviews, old car modifications, food restaurant visits, etc., and there is no lack of commercial content in his videos. Because of their strong professional qualities, even if it is "paid content", they will objectively analyze its pros and cons and present good content to the audience, and have accumulated a very good reputation in the industry and among fans.

Another example is @老师好我叫何同学, who went viral on the Internet some time ago for making airdesk. He spent three months intensively researching and releasing an advertisement that won the applause of netizens with its hard-core technical strength and romantic imagination, and even caused Lechuang's market value to surge by 500 million on the same day. Currently, the video has been played more than 17 million times on Bilibili.

Image source: @Hello Teacher, my name is He Xuexue @Extreme Speed ​​​​Partner

There are also some UP hosts who win by relying on video creativity and the creators' feelings . For example, @Director Xiaoce, whom Kas wrote about some time ago, stood out among a group of creators with his works that relied on the unique combination of classic movies and rural scenes, as well as the extraordinary expressiveness of grandpas and aunts, to create a new "square universe".

Image source: Director Xiaoce

The success of these UP hosts in making money is because the tone and direction of their content are highly consistent with the promoted brand, so even commercial content can gain extremely high attention. As of now, the number of views of many videos has exceeded 10 million.

02. Eating food has the potential to be more risky

In the third-quarter financial report just released, Bilibili's advertising business revenue reached 1.17 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 110%. As a gathering place for young people, Bilibili is being seen by more advertisers.

At the same time, we can also clearly feel that compared with other platforms, the overall atmosphere of Bilibili is more tolerant of creators accepting advertisements. It is a happy thing for fans that their favorite UP hosts can receive advertisements.

"Congratulations on the meal", "Thanks to the brand", "Already purchased, thanks for the recommendation" and other comments often appear in UP's meal videos. Most users can understand that UP hosts need commercial cooperation to support content production, and will even act as "tap water" to help them forward and purchase.

But on the other hand, Bilibili users have more stringent requirements on advertising quality. If the quality of the UP host's cooperative content is obviously lower than the usual level, or the advertising placement is too abrupt, or there are problems with the product quality itself, users will denounce it as "making money by cheating".

In 2019, @十音shiyin, one of the top 100 UP hosts in the cross-border gaming and fashion areas, launched a vote to investigate fans' opinions on embedded advertising in UP hosts' videos. The final result shows that about half of the users do not care whether there are advertisements as long as the video quality meets the standards. Among them, 42.89% of users support hard advertising, and only 9.12% of users accept soft advertising.

In March 2020, knowledge zone UP host @硬核的半佛仙人 and @老蒋巨靠谱 discussed the issue of "rationality of soft advertising". Putting aside the monetization issue, the limitations that soft advertising places on creators’ expression space, the impact on user experience, and the erosion of fans’ trust are also issues that UP hosts need to face when making money.

For example, in the collaboration between @特效小哥studio and a mobile phone brand, the video attracted a large number of clicks from the audience by reproducing the battle scenes from "Ultraman Tiga", the childhood memories of countless people. The work maintained the blogger's consistent technical level, and the short film's ideological concept "It is always ordinary people who save ordinary people" was also well received. However, due to the abrupt insertion of the advertisement at the end, it was accused of consuming "memories" and broke the artistic conception of the entire short film.

Image source: @特效小哥studio Comments section

03. What kind of “posture” makes it easier to eat just the right amount of food?

Kas believes that in order to be successful, every creator must first consider their own actual situation before creating content. Generally speaking, the type of promotion you can receive is closely related to the account’s fan base, average playback volume , and region . Of course, there are many other factors involved, such as time factors, platform activities, etc., but generally speaking, these three factors are the main ones that can be controlled by the creator himself.

Among these, the partition determines the direction of the account content and is the tone of the entire account. A reality is that areas like beauty, fashion, life, and the gradually emerging knowledge area have high user attention and high brand adaptation rates, so brands are more likely to place advertisements on ups in these areas.

However, no matter which track is chosen, high-quality account content is the magic weapon for creators, and the content will directly affect the number of fans and video views. Making the account vertical, in-depth and interesting and attracting a more precise fan base will be more conducive to creators receiving commercial cooperation.

After receiving the cooperation, every UP host faces a big challenge, that is, to meet the advertising needs of the brand while meeting the fans' requirements for content.

Brands place advertisements mostly for two reasons: one is to increase sales, and the other is to expand brand voice or adjust the direction of public opinion. For advertisements aimed at increasing sales, the video content should highlight the product selling points to attract more viewers to place orders; for advertising collaborations aimed at increasing voice, the focus of the video should be on soft content such as brand history, image, and personal opinions.

So, after creators have created commercial content that satisfies the brand, how can they maintain the tone of their account so that fans will not be disgusted even if there are advertisements? This requires creators to pay attention to two things: the frequency of advertising and the quality of advertising.

Regarding advertising frequency, relevant sources revealed that the advertising rate threshold generally accepted by B station viewers is 30%, that is, there is a maximum of 1 advertisement in 3 videos. Exceeding this value may make users feel that there are too many advertisements and the viewing experience is not good.

Regarding the quality of advertising videos, Kas believes that creators should consider the following three points when creating relevant videos.

First, give users a sense of reality. Fans buy products recommended by bloggers because they trust them. Whether it is for promotional purposes or to maintain their personal brand, bloggers should evaluate products from a true and objective perspective. The blogger’s promotion should only serve as packaging. It should not be exaggerated, let alone blindly bragging.

Earlier, the top UP host in the gaming area @敖厂长 recommended the game "The Monkey King: Hero is Back". In the video, he promoted the game as having a strong sense of impact and a good feel. However, users did not have the same gaming experience after purchasing it and believed that he had engaged in "false advertising". Fans who felt deceived were disappointed and unfollowed him. In just a few hours, @敖厂长 lost 50,000 fans.

Secondly, provide users with a sense of entertainment and organically combine products and content. The predecessor of Bilibili was the largest two-dimensional community in China. Even after it broke out of the circle, sections such as animation and games are still the core content of the community. This background has made Bilibili users have extremely high requirements for the entertainment and innovation of content. Only by learning to combine commercial content with the platform's native entertainment content can the path to monetization be smoother.

Finally, give users a sense of gain. The products recommended by bloggers are unlikely to impress everyone, but the video itself needs more exposure and likes, which will be conducive to the continuation of the cooperation. Therefore, UP hosts need to provide users with information input beyond product content, either to resonate with life emotions, or to provide knowledge, or to broaden their horizons, or to provide better visual enjoyment. Combining commercial content with user value will also be a major trend in content marketing.