Copying the routine of Tik Tok's popular content, why is it not popular yet?

What are the usage scenarios of short videos that occur in fragmented time? This may be the biggest misunderstanding about short videos.

01 What are the usage scenarios of short videos that occur in fragmented time?

This may be the biggest misunderstanding about short videos.

When do you usually watch Douyin or Kuaishou?

We usually say that mobile communication makes use of everyone’s fragmented time, and usually think that the scenes occur when people are waiting for a bus, waiting for an elevator, or chatting while having a meal. But is this actually the case?

Let’s first look at a set of data. We can find that short video consumption scenarios occur during entertainment after meals and before going to bed at night, which are both complete time periods.

It’s the time to smoke a cigarette after a meal, the time to eat some fruit and chat, and the most terrifying time is before going to bed at night. It’s a bottomless pit. You’ll often see people in the circle of friends saying that they’re scrolling through the day and it’s already dawn!

Look everyone, which of the first four items can be called true fragmented time?

Bathroom time? That's when it comes to tuba. Did you find that there are some differences from our understanding?

Nowadays, short videos surpass long videos in all aspects! Data shows that the usage time of short video users has increased 4.7 times in the past year to 726.7 billion minutes, which is now on par with the usage time of online long video users.

How to make a short video of 15 seconds each?

I can tell you a real piece of data. A senior executive of ByteDance told me at the beginning of the year that among their daily active users, the average time they spend on TikTok is around 22 to 25 minutes, which is already scary.

According to data from just a few months ago, the average usage time per person has reached 75 minutes.

What is 75 minutes?

A complete episode of Running Man, a complete episode of Story of Yanxi Palace.

so

Short videos ≠ fragmented communication

02 The “soil” for creative and popular content is the operator

We say that China started by creating a model. Now many variety shows are still in lawsuits with Koreans. Our initial idea for short videos was to copy YouTube. Those big MCN companies all have their own databases and they are all copying.

But now, whether it is Tik Tok or Kuaishou, including Alibaba and Tencent's corporate short video platforms are all going overseas, and the number of APP downloads ranks very high.

yy once ranked first in APP downloads in the Thai market within one month.

Kuaishou and Douyin have created platform-operated products in the short video field, which have strong dissemination capabilities and long viewing time. This is not available abroad.

It is impossible to succeed in China by simply "copying". What the platform needs is large-scale imports over a long period of time.

Previous video platforms were for the distribution of single videos. That is to say, it was OK for me to watch a video for 5 minutes, 2 minutes, or 30 seconds, but then the next video would not be strongly related to the video you had just watched.

When it comes to producing popular short videos, we all know that content is king!

It includes two parts: "creative explosive content" is produced by creators, but "the soil for creative explosive content" is the operator.

It is precisely because of the operation of the entire video page that China's short video industry has been truly pushed forward.

Before the rise of Tik Tok and Kuaishou, we have seen the distribution of various short videos by Papi Jiang, Akelili, etc., including earlier products such as Diaosi Nanshi. Why did it not cause an explosion of short videos? But platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou have done it?

03 The content logic of "addiction mechanism": immersive dramatic scenes

When we criticize Kuaishou, we say it is vulgar, but when it comes to Douyin, we say it is addictive?

What is addiction?

A psychology student told me a few days ago that when one of your behaviors is constantly encouraged to a certain extent.

For example, when you feel tired and scroll through Tik Tok, you feel relieved and comfortable. You scroll through it without having to think about it, and you continue to gain pleasure and recognition. The feeling this behavior brings you will form a brain circuit in your mind, which keeps circulating and you don't want to stop, and it becomes an addiction.

Let’s talk about the essential insight into TikTok’s content production.

The "addiction mechanism" of Tik Tok is based on immersive and dramatic scenes.

Who provided the scene?

It is provided by the operator of this platform.

The more complete the scenario is, the longer it can occupy the user's time.

The iPhone X advertisement at the beginning of the year is a pure and classic director's teaching film. The arrangement of the plot makes you watch it continuously. You should be unable to take your eyes off this three-minute video.

You can analyze "Three Minutes" from an analyst's perspective, how many plots he designed, his composition, and how he linked them together.

A mother's self-narration: the task has come out. She hasn't seen her child for a long time, but she can only see him for three minutes at a time.

Before the car stopped, the mother knocked on the window and called her child's name. This is an emotional scene, one of longing for something and missing it. The important theory of tragedy is that something is longing for something and yet it is missed.

The countdown on the screen is a very important structure that gives you a sense of urgency.

The boy is attracted by the little dinosaur, which adjusts the tense rhythm and adds a casual moment. If the rhythm remains the same as before, you might not watch it.

With this, the emotional climax begins. The boy thinks that if he can't memorize the multiplication table, it will be more difficult for him to see his mother in the future, so during their short reunion, the boy tries hard to memorize the multiplication table. Now they are the only ones left on the platform, creating a sense of tension as if the train is about to leave.

It can't end like this. The scenes of family reunions at the train station sparked emotions in every viewer.

After watching Sing! China, why do we film the hugging of their families after they leave the stage? It means that the director needs to touch the audience one last time and help you release all your emotions.

I think this is a particularly good teaching plan. Director Chen is an outstanding and excellent director and he made a very neat film.

It is a short film and cannot be called a short video. It has not sunk to the level of being a carnival for everyone. Its dissemination effect may not be as good as a funny short video of a cute pet. Of course, it is wrong to use this to demand a film director.

But everyone will be immersed in these three minutes of content, and it will touch your heart, making you stay and willing to spend time watching it.

What is worth learning here is the movie-like plot design, that is, the immersive dramatic scene.

The operators of Douyin apply this to the push of short videos. The arrangement logic of the push and the scenario-based screening of each content actually bring you into the habit of long-form viewing. I think it's amazing.

TEST

Do a little experiment:

You can spend an hour on Tik Tok at night, and record every piece of content it pushes to you, and then do a comparative analysis, you will find it very interesting.

I have made such a record before. The first short video I opened on Douyin that day, which you must have seen, was a scene abroad where a street performer was performing.

Then the second one is also a foreign scene, but it’s a Chinese girl dancing in front of the Milan Cathedral. Characters begin to appear, and the first short video is laying the groundwork for you.

Then the third point, they will never push any overseas content to me again. Instead, they pushed a piece of content from our company’s own Douyin account, which I usually follow and is still maintaining its account. It has only a few hundred fans. This allows acquaintances to enter your environment and pique your interest again.

Then some are to create atmosphere, and some are like the blank space in the short film "Three Minutes" just now, which constantly adjusts your viewing rhythm and uses short videos to form the ups and downs of the plot.

In fact, it’s the same when watching "Story of Yanxi Palace". If you split an episode into parts, some are foreshadowing, some are side topics, and some are the key points. They are all made up of such a plot.

For our short videos, platform operation is the drama, content production is the plot, and the introduction, development, climax, and scene suspense are all indispensable.

04 The common secret of a hit product: discover the audience’s subconscious and stimulate potential demand

In this era, no one will miss short videos, and no one will miss this new communication channel.

Taking the light rail, buying milk tea, and eating Haidilao, how did this become a hit?

The genes for content blockbusters need to see the essential needs through phenomena. A hit product must satisfy the user's subconscious choice.

There is a typical example, "Where Are We Going, Dad?" Everyone must know this program, which created a big joke in the industry before it was broadcast.

Three days before the broadcast, Midea Air Conditioner cancelled its orders.

At that time, the popular variety shows on the market were all singing PK types, with particularly cruel competition systems. Midea felt that the content of "Where Are We Going, Dad?" was too deserted and the risk was too great, so it withdrew its order three days in advance. Then Xiaoer Sanjiu Cold Remedy took over. Everyone knew about it later, and Midea was completely dumbfounded.

Our society needs fathers who can go home. This is a potential demand. Xie Dikui was previously the director of "Super Boy". His insights on the educational level are deeper than those of ordinary directors.

He realized that the role of father was too lacking in Chinese families, and then approached the issue from this perspective. What was the reason for the overnight popularity of "Where Are We Going, Dad?"

I didn’t even know who Zhang Liang was at that time. What he relied on was not a big-name traffic star, but the potential demand of the audience!

“Hot” ≠ Worth spreading ≠ Being noticed

"Popular" + "Calm Thinking" = Possibility of a Hot-selling Product

A hit product must satisfy the user's subconscious choice.

05 Conclusion

It may seem that one piece of content is competing with tens of millions of pieces of content, but in fact it is not.

75 minutes is the average online time of the average person on Tik Tok every day. Each piece of content is 15 seconds long , so there are about 300 pieces of content in 75 minutes. In fact, your real competitors are these 300 people.

(Some videos are longer than 15 seconds. When you reach a certain number of fans, you will be given the right to make a one-minute video. It is not easy to make a one-minute video, and the longer the video, the more information it contains, and the more effective it is.)

If you can break through these 300 people, you will stand out from the competition, so you need to understand both the top-level logic of explosive products and the underlying interaction logic.

As advertisers, we must see clearly and not blur the relationship.

We may think that Xiao Zhang in the company is very popular on Tik Tok recently, so you try to imitate him and shoot a video. This usually will not be successful, as you will actually become an ordinary fish in their traffic pool. But what you need to do is to be the turtle that is put in.

Therefore, you not only need to find good content, you also need to understand the logic of platform operation, how we deliver it, or how we connect with our suppliers and the platform when we deliver it.

Don't just follow the crowd and shoot whatever is trendy. Instead, you should conform to the dissemination rules and addiction mechanism of the delivery platform, become the content at the outbreak point, and enter the platform's process. Only then can it help your product, assist your product, and enable your product to enter a field that is of concern to the audience.

Only then will it have the potential to become a hit content.

Source: Mantou Business School