How to operate Douyin for your business from 0 to 1?

When companies first start using TikTok, they often face these confusions: How to get started with corporate TikTok? How to build a team? How to position the content? This article will answer these questions for you in detail step by step.

1. The history and current situation of TikTok

I believe everyone knows how popular Tik Tok is right now. The reason why Zhang Yiming was able to carve out a path for himself under the noses of the three giants BAT is not only Toutiao, but also the trump card of Douyin. How fast is TikTok growing? Douyin, which was launched in September 2016, took only 7 months to surpass Kuaishou, its "big brother" which had been ranked first for many years and had been deeply involved in the short video field for 3 years.

The past year can be said to be a period of full-scale explosion for TikTok. At the beginning of 2018, the momentum was very strong, and the monthly active users jumped from 69 million in December 2017 to 100 million in one fell swoop. This process took only one month and maintained continuous growth.

On November 8, 2018, ByteDance Vice President Zhang Fuping revealed at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen that as of October 2018, Douyin's domestic daily active users (DAU) had exceeded 200 million, and its monthly active users (MAU) had exceeded 400 million.

Recalling the end of the 2018 Spring Festival, people who had just returned to work were still questioning the future of the suddenly popular Douyin. At that time, many companies did not know that Douyin was about to break the solid circle of the "two Weibo" and become one of the standard official accounts of the "two Weibo and one Douyin". And now, the first batch of companies that dared to rush into Douyin with their teams a few months ago when the benefits were not yet clear have already reaped a wave of traffic dividends. What remains are those anxious companies that want to enter but don’t know how to start.

2. Should companies use TikTok?

My answer is yes, and fast, for the following reasons:

1. Tik Tok's rapid growth has not stopped, and the traffic dividend has not been fully released, so there is still room for growth;

2. Douyin's monetization capabilities are getting stronger and stronger, and its efforts in helping influencers and enterprises to monetize are obvious to all. Since the first batch of 100 Douyin shopping cart internal test accounts were opened in June 2018, it has quickly polished its functions, accumulated data, and connected its ecosystem within half a year, and has continuously expanded the scope of internal testing;

Currently, there are more than 60,000 celebrity influencers and corporate Blue V accounts that have opened and used the shopping cart function.

On the Double 12 day of 2018, shopping cart application permissions were opened to all accounts that met the requirements on the entire platform. Real-name authenticated accounts that had posted more than 10 videos and had more than 8,000 followers could apply for activation by themselves and could use it after passing the review. At the same time, advertising functions and services are becoming more and more mature, and even a separate advertising value-added team has been established in Shenzhen. 2019 is bound to be a big year.

1. From the perspective of the video industry, the future is still very hot. The 5G era is coming. Even if the Internet is changing with each passing day, it is not ruled out that a new video APP will emerge. Even so, with a team and content foundation, it is not difficult to quickly transfer to a new platform.

2. Tik Tok’s decentralized distribution model makes it entirely possible to catch up as long as your content can capture the hearts of users.

3. How to create corporate Douyin?

How does corporate TikTok go from 0 to 1? How to build a team? How to position the content? This is the confusion that many companies face when they start using TikTok. The author initially divides the development of corporate Douyin into three stages:

3.1 How to start corporate Douyin?

The exploration period is crucial. What key issues need to be addressed at this stage? First, at the planning level:

3.1.1 Key question 1: Should we lay out the matrix?

If you are asking whether to build a Douyin matrix? I suggest that this be determined based on actual business needs, products, and team members. If the number of personnel is limited, it is recommended to make a breakthrough in a single area first and then replicate the successful model.

However, if you ask whether or not to layout a short video matrix, my answer is yes. Be sure to create accounts on different social media platforms and distribute content simultaneously. After all, producing content consumes manpower and material resources, while distributing it to Kuaishou, Toutiao, Xigua Video, WeChat, etc. with one click requires basically no effort. Sometimes, the explosive growth of a certain content on a certain platform may even exceed that of TikTok. This situation has occurred many times in the accounts I have managed.

3.1.2 Key question 2: How to position content?

The most important thing is to find content entry points that meet the needs of the general public. (Pay attention!) This is the lifeblood of your account’s content, which determines its survival.

The author found 6 representative high-quality corporate accounts with millions of followers. Let’s first refer to their content positioning and number of followers. This is the data as of January 9, 2019:

It can be found that for corporate Douyin accounts, the content can basically be divided into three types: the first is knowledge explanation type, the second is entertainment theater type, and the third is sensory experience type.

Taking Dingxiang Doctor, Weiyi Custom Home Furnishing, and Pandora English by Qingke as examples, medical education and home furnishing products can be knowledge-explaining, reflecting professionalism and authority, but it is important to start with topics that are close to life to avoid too high a learning threshold for users;

Take the Rolex watch as an example. The entertainment theater style is in line with the tonality of the TikTok platform.

Taking Blue Babe as an example, beauty and apparel products can adopt the sensory experience approach and gain traffic and sales by mobilizing users’ sensory cognition.

Of course, the same account can be divided into multiple columns and run in parallel.

The author has collected data from these six high-quality corporate accounts for your further reference, and the data is also as of January 9, 2019:

Some rules can be found (for enterprise accounts):

1. Knowledge explanation type: The update frequency is the highest, because the content production is easy, the average number of fans per video will not be particularly high but relatively stable, the number of fans of the account can grow steadily and sustainably, and the relevance to the product is high;
2. Entertainment theater type: The update frequency is the lowest, and it is difficult to produce high-quality content. It requires higher creative ability from content personnel. Good content can increase the number of fans per video, but the growth stability is not necessarily strong. It is difficult to grasp the relevance to the product, and it may be difficult to undertake subsequent monetization.
3. Sensory experience type: The update frequency is moderate, the requirements for shooting and post-production are higher, the details of the product can be more intuitively displayed to users, and the subsequent monetization capacity is strong.

Therefore, when choosing content positioning, you need to consider factors such as the tone of the brand and product, the team's content production capabilities, and the team structure. If your monetization goals on Douyin are high, please note that the content must be strongly relevant to the product. Otherwise, it is entirely possible that the content is very popular, but the back-end monetization cannot be connected, and the goods sell extremely poorly. This is something that you need to think about clearly from the beginning, rather than waiting until the content is produced.

3.1.3 Key question three: How to build a team?

The first dimension is to see how much resources the company can invest and how much it can gain.

According to the resource input and target requirements, I configured it into high, medium and low levels. In the early days, there were almost no people who could assign specific people to each position.

Generally speaking, the most cost-effective is a mid-range team of 2-3 people, one to control the overall content operation and one to produce the video. If the requirements for the people appearing on the screen are high, at least one actor must be deployed. If a company only needs to promote on Douyin occasionally, has no particularly high exposure requirements, and no monetization goals, it only needs a universal editor.

The second latitude depends on what route you plan to take.

If a company’s Douyin account wants to have long-term sustainable development, content is crucial.

First of all, we need strong content talents. Our goal of creating corporate Douyin is by no means to attract attention or be a flash in the pan. Even if funds are very limited, please be sure to select talents with content creation capabilities. After all, content is the soul of the video. However, if the content operator has strong comprehensive qualities and is both an actor and video producer, he or she can quickly get started.

Secondly, actors are naturally very important. If your product needs to highlight professionalism, then it will be more convincing if professionals appear on screen, and appearance may be secondary. If your product needs to highlight beauty, please be sure to choose actors who match the product's temperament and have good appearance.

As for video producers, if they have high requirements for special effects, lenses, etc., or occasionally need to make a guest appearance, the corresponding requirements naturally cannot be low.

The preliminary framework plan has been formed, but please note that this does not mean that the layout, positioning, and route of the content have been completely determined. The next step is to officially enter the execution and verification part of the exploration period.

This can be said to be a trial and error period. The account was established, filming started, and content was uploaded. There are a few points I would like to talk about during this stage:

1. Please be prepared for failure. The division of labor may be a little chaotic at this stage. Allow yourself and your team to make mistakes. Perform AB testing in a planned and strategic manner. Most high-quality accounts are forged through hard work.
2. Be result-oriented and pay attention to data. Review the results in a timely manner regardless of whether they are good or not, and make timely and flexible adjustments. Pay special attention to content with more than 10,000 likes and conduct focused analysis.
3. Pay attention to the content, but don’t ignore the operational strategy. The quality of the content should be balanced with the frequency of online posts. The time of online posts, responses to comments, etc. will also have an impact on the data.

If you slowly find that the number of fans increases by at least 30,000 to 50,000 every day and it lasts for more than a week. Well, congratulations, it means you have found the right content positioning! Gradually entering the growth period.

3.2 What should companies do during the growth phase of Douyin?

As I have experienced in my work, the initial stage of making Tik Tok was very chaotic. The avatar, cover, and content type of the entire account were often changed, and internal communication was often not in place, resulting in repeated revisions. As a result, both the impression presented to the outside world and the internal work were chaotic and disorderly, and the efficiency was relatively low. Therefore, at this stage where certain effects have been found, it is necessary to sort out all aspects simultaneously.

At this stage, you need to improve the quality of content, output efficiency, and operational strategy in all aspects. Here are three things you need to do:

1. Forming content templates;
2. Improve and efficiently produce content;
3. Sort out operational strategies.

3.2.1 How to create a content template?

Generally speaking, we divide an article into three parts: introduction + main text + conclusion, and the same is true for videos.

Two types of content can be set at the beginning. One is the slogan/self-introduction/other content that highlights the personality/purpose/characteristics of the account, and the other is the introduction to the main content, such as questions, or the introduction of scenes; the main body can fully display the content to be expressed; the ending can guide users to interact (follow, like, comment, etc.) or display their image. Allow users to have a complete video viewing experience step by step.

The author uses Dingxiang Doctor’s article “Is the Internet-famous eyewash really useful? 》Video as an example, reverse the content template table for your reference:

👆Click to play video

You need to set the specifications for each content in advance, such as:

(1) For the cover image, it is recommended to use the color tone of the corporate logo to maintain the consistency of the entire UI, be concise and clean, and avoid being blocked by the interactive area on the right after going online. When it is made into a cover template, you only need to replace the text later;

(2) Title: Summarize the key points that are easy to understand, with a word count of no more than 12 words, and try to keep it within two lines when it is made into a cover;

(3) The main text should be in simple and easy-to-understand language. It is recommended that the time limit be within 30 seconds.

(4) For subtitles, use a highly recognizable font of moderate size that is not obscured by floating content on the page.

Then you will find that in fact only the red part changes each time, and the copy is actually very simple, only about a hundred words, and the daily output can be as high as several. When the specifications are clear and the partners have enough tacit understanding, some performance and editing details may not need to be mentioned at all.

3.2.2 How to organize an efficient content production process?

First of all, let’s talk about why we need an efficient production process?

In addition to saving manpower and material resources to quickly complete the common goal of KPI, there is another important reason - the online frequency will greatly affect the weight of the account and affect the system's recommendation index when each of your content is online (looking back at the data table of 6 high-quality corporate accounts with millions of followers, you will find the importance of update frequency).

The specific distribution rules of Douyin may only be known to a very small number of internal personnel, but the impact of the online frequency on the recommendation of the content is traceable. A classic case is Lu Chao, who quickly gained 3 million fans by posting thousands of copies of the same video.

Efficiently producing content and striking a balance between quality and quantity will make your account score higher and higher in the system, making it easier to get recommendations.

As for how to sort out an efficient content production process, let’s take an example from my previous work:

An example of daily division of labor:

A team of 3 people can produce 2-3 videos every day, which is very productive. In actual work, we also often make flexible adjustments. The shooting work that is not difficult is often done by the screenwriter, and the actors may also produce scripts. The boundaries of the work content are not particularly clear, and the daily update of two high-quality content is the standard.

If your shooting location is not in the office, you can adjust it to a continuous shooting time of one day and adjust it as needed.

If your team has more than 3 people, one actor can appear in multiple roles, and the efficiency is also very high. Remember to prepare the content at least 2 days in advance to leave some time for review and optimization.

3.2.3 How to sort out the operation strategy?

Key question 1: When will it go online?

The same content, with different publishing times, may have quite a big difference in effect. After a Tik Tok video is released, the effect can be seen within 1 hour, so it is important to choose to release it during the peak browsing period of users.

There are two peak time periods every day, namely from 12:00 to 1:30 noon, and from 20:00 to 23:00 in the evening, which is basically lunch time and the rest time before going to bed after dinner, which is basically the same as the peak usage period of Weibo and WeChat.

Key question two: What operations can be used to improve the effect?

• Interaction: Actively and quickly respond to fan comments within 1 hour after posting content, which can increase account activity and help increase content playback volume;
• Music: Choose popular and fast-paced background music;
• Topic: Add hot topics to increase exposure channels
• …

Only a small part is listed here, and you need to continue to explore more according to your account and local conditions.

3.3 About Monetization

When your company’s TikTok account can continuously produce high-quality content and has a steady growth in fans, the next step is monetization.

Since Double 12 in 2018, Douyin has fully opened its shopping cart function. The application threshold is very low, and the links from content to monetization have been opened up. Regarding the subsequent issue of how to improve monetization capabilities, I will have the opportunity to introduce this topic separately in the future.

IV. Conclusion

So far, the author has combined actual cases of multiple different types of companies to fully introduce how to build a corporate Douyin account from 0 to 1.

The author divides this process into exploration, growth and stabilization periods, focusing on analyzing the key issues in the first two stages, especially the four aspects of content positioning, team building, process streamlining and operational strategy. The author also provides corresponding cases and data as a reference for each stage, and shares with you some successful experiences from the author's previous work.

The original intention is to hope that everyone can take fewer detours in the process of building corporate Douyin from 0 to 1. Finally, I would like to give you a reminder that I hope you will be more flexible in adjusting according to the actual situation when working from 0 to 1, and do more thinking, more testing, and more review.

If there are any shortcomings in this article, please feel free to point them out.

In addition, there are many topics about new media operations, which will be shared with you later.

Source: Xinxin Sauce