New media operation skills: How to become a blogger with millions of followers?

Although the author is not a top blogger, the number of fans and views on his Weibo, Xiaohongshu, etc. have exceeded 10,000. How did she, who came from a completely grassroots background, become a blogger with millions of followers step by step? Below, the author will tell you in detail about his wild operation skills.

Has Weibo’s bonus period passed?

Until now, I still think that Weibo may be the easiest platform to build. It is like a big square. As long as you speak out, there is a possibility that you will be seen.

In the more than two years that I have been using Weibo, my fans have increased from a few thousand to 1.55 million, the number of readers in a single month has exceeded 100 million, many of my blog posts have been on Weibo's hot search list, and the number of interactions has exceeded 10,000. After one month of using Xiaohongshu, Toutiao and Douyin, I have accumulated 110,000 fans.

Although it is not a top account, I started from scratch and built it up step by step, and it will become a highlight-worthy part of my resume in the future.

After graduating in 2016, I started to operate Weibo, and I have experienced three major waves in a relatively complete manner: marketing accounts, building personal IP, and becoming an original blogger with stable output.

In the process, I took a lot of detours, learned a lot of painful lessons, and also summed up some methodologies that you may be able to use.

01 Marketing account period: initial accumulation of fans

The most common thing marketing accounts do is to check Weibo, look at the hot search lists, and analyze and summarize: Why are they on the list? What kind of topics are easier to get into? If we don’t go up, can we take advantage of the hot spot? What angle is the most appropriate?

It was probably during that period that I developed some sensitivity to hot topics, which was very helpful for the topic selection and planning of original content later.

If you don’t have many fans, there are two ways to become popular:

1. Take advantage of the hot spots;
2. Summarize the popularity patterns, create high-quality content, and then find plug-ins to brush up the data. You should be able to get on the list if you get tens of thousands of likes.

So you will often see many comments under food posts saying: This toothpaste is really easy to use. Or, reply under a beauty post: This is really delicious. It's really funny.

This stage lasted for about half a year. The number of fans increased from a few thousand zombie fans to more than 600,000 who could talk and interact. However, there were also obvious problems, such as low activity on Weibo and poor fan stickiness.

02 Crazy period of building personal IP

The key to enhancing fan stickiness is to build a personal IP, and the account must feature real people. At that time, some particularly eye-catching KOLs had emerged and seized the opportunity, such as Rishiji, Office Xiaoye, and Liziqi.

Therefore, it is imperative to create a differentiated but equally eye-catching character IP image, otherwise we will be left behind in this race.

We have made many attempts, and I have also planned many projects accordingly. I have spent hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on trial and error to gain experience, and now I will tell you about it for free.

Round one content positioning: hardcore cooking tutorial

Video style: Urban fresh

Character tags: A rough man from Beijing; never worried about money; great cooking skills; pays attention to quality of life.

Specific content of the video: The blogger is a professional chef with superb knife skills and acrobatic skills. Each video contains a tutorial for a home-cooked dish, and you can taste the flavor of a restaurant chef by following the tutorial. The picture style and music are fresh and beautiful, and they emphasize aesthetics.

Achievements: Several videos became very popular and were widely circulated at the time, sparking discussions across the entire network; I was invited by many publishing houses and have plans to publish books; I was invited to record programs on many TV stations, which increased my exposure. The number of fans has reached more than 800,000, and the fan activity has increased to a certain extent.

Lessons learned:

After reading this, you should be able to see the main problem. The blogger’s character is a sturdy northern man. If you want to portray him as an artistic youth, the result will be neither fish nor fowl. It is difficult to combine down-to-earth and practical tutorial videos with the aesthetic and fresh style, and the style attributes cannot stand. If you want everything, you will get nothing.

Now thinking about it, if we had been more down-to-earth and focused on making home cooking instructional videos and paid attention to practicality, we might have been the early food writer Wang Gang.

Round two content positioning: story + food production demonstration

Video style: Warmth; Aesthetic

Character tags: Beijing rough man; good cooking skills; warm man

Specific content of the video: The blogger has his own courtyard in Beijing. In every video, there are diners who come to his courtyard and tell the blogger about their joys and sorrows. The blogger will prepare delicious food for them according to their mood. There are story lines and conflicts between characters, and the blogger will use classic quotes and delicious food to comfort the hearts and stomachs of diners.

Achievements: The number of fans exceeded one million, fan stickiness increased, and click-through rate and interaction data increased significantly.

Lessons learned:

This attempt was not a failure. The combination of stories, chicken soup and food was a relatively novel choice at the time. However, the setting of the storyline, whether the characters' quotes can resonate with people, and whether the combination with food is awkward all need to be strictly controlled. Although the data is stable.

But it did not become the top account in this vertical field. The goal of the leadership and team was to become an overnight success, so after trying a few issues and failing to become popular, they gave up. Unfortunately, the subsequent popularity of Laohei, who followed the same approach on TikTok, also confirmed the feasibility of this plan.

Round three content positioning: outdoor + food; self-driving

Video style: original ecology; natural; reality show

Character tags: strong living ability; good cooking skills; love adventure

Specific content of the video: The blogger drives his own car on a self-driving trip, takes care of his own meals during the trip, and cooks his own meals using local ingredients. Under limited conditions, he is able to make delicious food, which is a major attraction in itself. The interesting things that happened during the journey and the beautiful scenery on the road ensure the richness of the content.

Achievements: The initial planning was highly anticipated, and an exclusive cooperation agreement was signed with Douyu Live. Video websites such as Tencent and iQiyi also reached cooperation intentions. However, in fact, the video was taken offline after only two episodes.

Lessons learned:

The biggest problem in the execution of this project is that the blogger was changed, which was certainly not within the scope of the plan.

This resulted in a huge gap between the account and the blogger, which was difficult for fans to accept. In addition, the new blogger found it difficult to understand the format of the show. Reality shows always focus on the "show" and even find actors to play passers-by, artificially creating conflicting effects, which changed the original intention of the show. So, the show was a bleak success as soon as it went online.

While we were exploring this stage, many MCN agencies had already appeared on Weibo and started to incubate IPs and build matrices. The era of fighting alone is almost over.

03 Original blogger stable period

After constant troubles, inconsistent style, and changes in bloggers, the account was severely damaged. At this time, the leader announced that if this account could not make a profit, both the person and the account would be laid off.

With business goals and pressure, I decided to completely change the content direction of my account, from cooking tutorials to reviews and recommendations. This makes it easier to attract the attention of brands and facilitates advertising monetization.

First, it uses pictures and texts, without showing the blogger's face, to give the account a chance to recuperate. At the same time, with Weibo as the center, we output content in all directions to multiple platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Toutiao, Penguin, Sohu, etc., increasing the chances of content exposure. When there is no ability to create a vertical matrix, arrange it horizontally and distribute it on multiple platforms to form a full-network matrix for a single account.

After writing steadily like this for a month, the account's exposure increased dramatically, and various brands and businesses began to knock on my door. Later, due to content and business needs, I also started shooting videos and became an overseas blogger.

Last year, the account’s advertising turnover exceeded one million, and it also built its own sales platform. The team expanded again, and the number of fans exceeded 1.5 million, and the account was on the right track.

04 Conclusion

I have been operating Weibo for two years. There are many things I have to do, but they can be summarized into three aspects: polishing content, account promotion and commercial monetization.

1. Content

• Diversify the content format, try various forms such as pure text, pictures, and videos, and stick to the established style;
• Refer to the popular lists more often, analyze them, find out the inherent characteristics, and then find the right one for you;
• You still need to learn some copywriting skills, such as using questions at the end, which can effectively increase interaction.

1. Promotion

Don’t think that you are made of gold. It is only a matter of time before you shine. While creating great content, you must also be aware of promotion.

(1) Cooperation with official platforms

With the support of the platform, the effect will be twice the result with half the effort. At the beginning, participate in more platform activities, contribute articles, send private messages, find ways to contact relevant operation personnel, and establish good relationships with them. This can help you better understand Weibo's recommendation mechanism.

For example: a Weibo post must cover a specific topic and have over 100 likes and reposts to be eligible for recommendation; the operations staff can help you increase the weight of your account, or give you an exclusive recommendation position, so that your exposure is guaranteed.

(2) Mutual conversion and resource exchange

By building good relationships with bloggers of the same type, you can not only increase your exposure and keep abreast of the latest developments in this content circle, but also introduce resources to each other, recommend clients, etc.

(3) Multiple platforms enter and promote each other

The choice of platform depends on whether there is resource support, whether it is a bonus period, or whether the tone matches. After joining the platform, you need to customize the content according to the characteristics of the platform.

For example, Weibo is more inclined towards lifestyle, gossip, entertainment, and celebrities; Xiaohongshu tends to share health, skin care, and life experiences, and focuses on the beauty of the pictures; Toutiao is more down-to-earth, and the content must be discussable, and sharing some local specialties and curious things is more popular.

(4) Maintain good fan base and encourage spontaneous fan fission

Reply to daily private messages and comments; regularly reward active fans; add WeChat to form communities and build life scenes in the circle of friends to narrow the distance between fans.

1. Monetization

(1) Commercial Advertising

Promote large media platforms. Media platforms and advertising companies are the main sources of customers, such as Weibo, Weiq, Xinbang, etc. Establish a good reputation in cooperation and maintain good relationships after work, which can effectively increase the amount of advertising.

(2) Self-operated products

First of all, you need to be conscientious and value word of mouth. Try to choose products related to the content on Weibo and pay attention to sales skills. First, plant grass or do evaluations, and then cooperate with sales in the later stage. This will not only make it easier for fans to accept it, but also avoid many after-sales problems.

The fairy tale ending should be: I, a girl who graduated two years ago, became a food blogger with millions of fans. I made money by eating and drinking every day and lived a happy life ever since.

But in fact, I left and the blogger changed again... (I won’t tell you the reason)

Source: Operation Xiaokaxiu (ID: yunyingshow)