Kuaishou Advertising Creative Guide for 2019!

Driven by multiple forces including users, platforms, and brands, the current short video industry has become a new territory for mobile marketing. Ordinary users grow into KOL celebrities through their creations, brands create a screen-sweeping effect through content marketing, and platforms also achieve monetization goals through various means such as advertising, e-commerce, and live streaming in this carnival. At the same time, the marketing and monetization products of each platform have been basically developed and perfected.

Among them, Douyin's layout in information flow, DOU+, enterprise accounts, etc. provides important marketing support for the healthy operation of the content ecology. Another industry leader, Kuaishou, finally created the "Kuaishou Marketing Platform" eight years after its establishment to disperse the pressure of live broadcast monetization, optimize the revenue structure, and gradually clarify its commercialization ideas.

Kuaishou’s restrained and cautious commercialization attitude is determined by their long-standing philosophy of accessibility, simplicity and non-intrusiveness. The acceleration of commercialization undoubtedly sends an important signal to the majority of creators and brands: now is a good time to focus on Kuaishou. This article will analyze Kuaishou’s advantages and characteristics in commercialization and provide some ideas for practitioners in content creation and commercialization.

1. Kuaishou’s commercial advantages

Kuaishou's advantages in commercialization are mainly reflected in three aspects: user coverage, community culture and sustainable development.

1. Wide user coverage, large number, and great consumption potential

After 8 years of user accumulation, Kuaishou has already gained a clear advantage in user reach. The popularity of the short video industry in the past two years has pushed it directly to the position of industry leader. Official data shows that Kuaishou's daily active users have reached 130 million, with an average daily usage time of more than 60 minutes. More than 15 million short videos are uploaded every day, generating 15 billion views and more than 300 million likes. Secondly, the distribution of Kuaishou users basically matches that of China Mobile Internet users, covering the entire country.

In addition, with the listing of Pinduoduo and Qutoutiao, the potential of emerging markets represented by third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities has attracted a lot of attention. Seeking breakthroughs in emerging markets has become a small trend in the current mobile Internet field. Kuaishou has a high penetration rate in these emerging markets and has great commercialization potential. From these dimensions, Kuaishou has a large number of users, wide coverage, high activity and great consumption potential. Kuaishou has become a "national-level" application.

2. Unique community culture and “old iron economy”

I believe that most practitioners were impressed by the “Kuaishou Sales King” event before last year’s “Double Eleven”. On November 6, the Kuaishou celebrity "Sanda Ge", who has 42 million fans, sold goods live on the Kuaishou platform. The number of online users exceeded 1 million at one point, driving sales of 50 million in 3 hours and a turnover of 160 million on the day. Among them, Liangmianzhen toothpaste worth 19.9 yuan sold 30,000 units in one minute; Septwolves men's thermal underwear worth 59 yuan sold nearly 100,000 sets in just over ten minutes; and 10,000 Redmi 6 mobile phones priced at 658.9 yuan were sold out in seconds... This set of data refreshed the perception of many practitioners on the ability of Kuaishou celebrities to bring goods.

Figure: Kas Data - "Sanda Ge" data details page

Behind the super strong ability to bring goods is the strong trust relationship between celebrities and fans. The trust relationship is the key factor in driving the conversion of traffic into sales. After 8 years of user accumulation, Kuaishou has retained a large number of loyal users. This community culture with strong trust and loyalty and the "old iron economy" are the characteristics and advantages of Kuaishou.

3. Sustainable development of user experience and commercialization

Not disturbing users and focusing on user experience is the concept that Kuaishou has always adhered to. Therefore, in terms of commercialization, in order to prevent excessive disturbance to users, Kuaishou has independently developed a set of commercialization mechanisms - a user experience quantification system, which accurately measures the relationship between commercialization, user experience and platform value. This mechanism is the technical foundation for Kuaishou's large-scale commercialization, and it is also a guarantee for achieving sustainable development of user experience and commercialization needs.

2. Why are Kuaishou celebrities so good at selling products?

1. Grassroots identity, easy to build trust

The basis of trust is a sense of identity and belonging. Kuaishou celebrities are different from the glamorous beauties and handsome guys on other short video platforms. They are ordinary people in life. The content they create has a strong sense of life and is more approachable, just like enthusiastic friends around the audience who are willing to share. The more down-to-earth content characteristics have brought the audience closer to these celebrities. Through interaction, the audience has gained a sense of identity and belonging, and gradually built up a sense of trust. Based on a sense of trust, viewers can easily make consumption decisions, which not only satisfies their own shopping needs but also allows them to support their favorite influencers.

2. Big data accurately matches users and content

Decentralization is a notable feature of Kuaishou. There are very few top celebrities, and a large number of users are concentrated in the middle level. Since most of the content on Kuaishou is a record of life, the life records of mid-level users from all walks of life constitute the bulk of the content. The more segmented the content is, the easier it is to achieve precision marketing. With the help of big data, users can more easily see content with high matching degree.

3. The audience’s herd mentality

For a long time, live streaming has been an important source of income for Kuaishou. A large part of the audience's consumption behavior takes place in the live streaming rooms of celebrities. Whether it is giving rewards to celebrities or buying goods, these are choices made in the context of group carnival. In this process, the verbal encouragement of celebrities and the consumption behavior of other audiences will influence consumers' decisions to a certain extent.

3. What kind of content is more likely to go viral on Kuaishou?

1. Interesting life records

Unlike other short video platforms, Kuaishou's content is more life-oriented, such as cooking, carpentry, or some interesting life sitcom adaptations, which make it easier for the audience to identify and feel a sense of belonging.

2. Creative content

Imitation and shooting the same style are not the main ways to play on Kuaishou. Kuaishou users have high requirements for the creativity of content. In addition, highly creative content has a greater advantage in terms of content thresholds. The hard power of creativity is conducive to improving the overall competitiveness of the content and going further. For example, Kuaishou’s top celebrity “V手工～庚” is loved by many Kuaishou users, especially young audiences, because of his excellent craftsmanship, modification skills and magical video style. Therefore, after "V手工～庚" joined Bilibili, he was still able to find his own place with his highly creative content. Currently, his number of fans on Bilibili has reached 580,000.

3. Content that triggers emotional resonance

Grassroots groups usually find it difficult to have a say, but they have the desire to express themselves. The rise of short videos has provided favorable conditions for grassroots groups to speak out. Therefore, the audience wants to release their desire to express themselves, and also hopes to hear opinions that help them express their true thoughts. This requires influencers to directly hit the audience's pain points when creating content, trigger the audience's resonance, and elevate the content. Expressing values ​​and triggering emotional resonance are common creation methods used by a large number of content creators, and this is no exception for Kuaishou celebrities. It is worth noting that due to the length limit of the video and the different levels of audience understanding and acceptance, in order to quickly gain attention, the opinions need to be straightforward and clear.

To sum up, since its birth in 2011, Kuaishou has accumulated a large number of loyal users in the field of short videos, forming a unique community culture and "old iron economy". Although the commercialization process is cautious and slow, in the long run, taking into account business needs of user experience may be conducive to the sustainable development of platform commercialization. For creators, before joining a new platform, they need to have a comprehensive understanding of the overall tone of the platform. Kuaishou is a more life-like record of life. Interesting, creative and resonant content is more likely to be liked by the audience. Against the backdrop of Kuaishou’s accelerated commercialization, perhaps now is a good time to focus on Kuaishou.