How does Tik Tok short video operate?

There is no doubt that short videos are a good trend, and it is also an area I plan to invest in in the future. However, for me personally, now is not a good time.

Of course, I am not worried that the so-called dividends will pass. There are dividends in different periods. Different people have different degrees of grasp of the same dividends. What matters from the beginning to the end is one's comprehensive ability.

I got into self-media in the middle of last year and opened up the market with one or two articles. Up to now, I am still in the stage of content accumulation. However, for Zhihu and official accounts, which have only updated more than ten articles in total, the current data and income should be equal to or even exceed that of many friends who have updated hundreds of original articles in two or three years.

So I would like to combine my past content creation experience and my nearly 10 years of experience in Internet marketing, and talk about my understanding and thoughts on short videos (mainly TikTok) only in terms of platform strategy and user needs.

I always update some practical and thinking-oriented articles, and occasionally I also want to insert some content about insights and ideas. Of course, this is definitely not the completion rate and like rate that we often see in the market.

This is a strategic-level thinking, which considers the strategic direction of the operation of the new short video account from a strategic level. If the feedback is good, we will continue to update the tactical-level approach.

From the platform perspective

About account maintenance

Many training courses or online earning tutorials will tell us to maintain an account. However, from the perspective of the platform and using common sense to think, we will find that maintaining an account is meaningless, unnecessary, and even counterproductive.

Account maintenance is just an occupational disease for us marketers, but over time it has become a problem of misattribution, mistakenly believing that good account data is due to correct account maintenance, but in fact:

Good account data performance is not because the account is well maintained. On the contrary, following the account maintenance tutorials found online step by step does not mean that the platform will give us massive traffic just by posting some videos.

What should we do to keep our account in the best condition? It looks nothing more than a normal user without any risk, but isn’t that how it should be? This does not seem to have any necessary connection with whether you can get a lot of recommendations in the future.

From the platform's perspective: Which platform wants users to maintain an account before they can experience its functions normally? Is it the purpose of the platform to require users to create an account before using it?

If we are people who produce content normally, if we do not post content that is illegal or against regulations, if we do not post a video as a new account and have to leave our QQ number, WeChat number, or mobile phone number in the video, text, or comments, why does the platform have to restrict our traffic through rules?

On the other hand, if a normal user "plays" Tik Tok, who would register an account and then fill in all the relevant information, even change the avatar and banner, like good videos and not like bad ones, occasionally leave a comment, and forward and download every video? Would a normal user be so "cooperative"?

So why is it said that maintaining an account can sometimes even have a counterproductive effect?

The common operations involved in account maintenance are what the platform hopes users will do normally, but normal users who really use the platform to "play" don't care about the platform's many expectations. Only those who want to grab the platform's traffic will be so "obedient".

Previously, a friend who was in charge of content risk control and review on a certain platform came to the discussion group. They will also formulate corresponding strategies and mechanisms to deal with illegal content. Through such a position, we can also understand that:

Our friends in the marketing circle will try to figure out the platform's rules, but conversely, the platform's auditors will also collect common violations by marketers. The streets are full of "XX platform account maintenance rules". Will those front-line product personnel and basic auditors have a copy?

It is even possible that they circled out the marketing accounts through these behaviors!

In addition, when it comes to simulating user behavior, I saw an answer from Zhihu:

Regarding point 4, let’s not talk about how many times we have done AB tests to come to this conclusion, nor do we care whether each AB test ensures that other indicators remain unchanged. Let’s look at the logic of account maintenance in point 5:

He liked and commented on 30 videos on the recommendation page every day. He knew that he had to do it in time periods, otherwise it would seem unreasonable, but what he said next made people feel even more unreasonable...

I have no problem with my friend ordering 10 each in the morning, noon and evening. He is just sharing his own opinion, but I really want to say something: Have you ever seen a normal person who watches Douyin at such a regular time and quantity? Is this because of watching TikTok or taking medicine?

We will find that many tutorials and suggestions on the Internet are just as easy to come by!

Speaking of watching videos, if we take a closer look, many big and small Vs don’t watch videos at all, and the number of likes is 0 (not blocked).

But this is normal. People are busy all day long studying what content to create, interacting with fans, and doing live broadcasts. They don’t have the time to watch videos. It makes no sense for the platform to think: If you want to post videos and want recommendations, you should watch videos regularly and in a certain amount before I will give you traffic. In fact, you are the one who produces content, and you just need to produce good content.

If you have to talk about maintaining an account, then continuously and steadily updating content (even if it is not of high quality but as long as it does not violate the rules) is the best way to maintain an account. Of course, before that, you must first read through all official statements and rules information, and you must also know the basic issues that should be avoided.

It is normal to have no traffic at the beginning. The platform produces a large amount of content every day. Why must we give a new account a large amount of traffic? Why is this so?

The platform holds big data and is well aware that the vast majority of new accounts will eventually fail, and the proportion that can stably and continuously produce high-quality content is extremely small. Accurately recommending high-quality content to users who want to see it is the basis of all algorithms. There is no need for the platform to gamble on probability with us.

In fact, we will find many unscientific training suggestions on the market. If we carefully look at the official statements of the platform, we can find many unreasonable aspects of these suggestions.

For example, some people emphasize: one machine, one number, one IP, do not switch accounts, but in fact:

The authorities have given us this function, why do they give us this function and then restrict us at the same time?

The only problem with an account is any violation of regulations, and it has nothing to do with whether the account is maintained or not, whether the phone or IP address is changed.

Changing IPs and switching accounts is something that normal people do occasionally. Only marketing accounts and zombie accounts will only use one IP all day long.

Summary: Be natural, don’t be deliberate, and posting videos normally is the best way to maintain your account.

About originality

We also see that many training courses tell us to insist on "high-quality originality". There seems to be nothing wrong with this seemingly "politically correct" truth, and it is a term that Teacher XX likes to mention.

But at least one thing is clear: Douyin encourages plagiarism! ! !

Why? The simpler reason is: Douyin has a "shoot the same style" function:

This question is actually a discussion on the understanding and meaning of "originality".

Let’s talk about the meaning of originality first: For a platform like Zhihu, we obviously know that Zhihu rejects plagiarism and encourages originality, and even rewriting is not welcome. Why?

No one likes to read exactly the same content, be it knowledge, science, experience, or insights. Not to mention that the text is exactly the same, if the overall views, meanings, writing style and paragraphs of the article are basically the same, it is already considered not original. Here: the meaning of originality is very important and necessary.

On the other hand, short videos are just an entertainment-oriented platform, and it doesn’t seem to make much sense to emphasize the complete difference. For the same lip-syncing segment, if you shoot it in your own style, you will get rave reviews, and if I “copy” you and shoot it in my style, I will get a lot of attention.

Even though the jokes are exactly the same, who would bother with that? Just for your entertainment! So here: being completely original is not that meaningful or necessary.

Isn’t there a special effect like this recently:

An eagle is chasing the one below (I have no idea what animal it is). You take pictures, I take pictures, and he takes pictures. They are all the same, with almost the same expressions. For similar props and special effects, the platform gives you a "take the same picture" button.

What I want to say here is what I mentioned above: understanding of originality!

At least in short videos, videos shot by different people are original, regardless of whether the jokes, special effects, dubbing, music, etc. are exactly the same.

If the platform rejects "plagiarism and copying", it means that we are uploading an original video file that has already been uploaded by someone else. This is meaningless. For other videos, even if the similarity is 99%, the platform will not mind if you upload them repeatedly.

Because the platform has other considerations when recommending such a video to users. I believe everyone has had this experience: after liking a video, you receive another video that is almost identical (maybe with slightly different duration, subtitles, etc.) posted by another person a while later.

Summary: Correctly understand "originality" and correctly understand the platform's attitude towards "originality" and "non-originality". You must know that originality is not justice!

In principle, the platform supports innovation and quality, but it does not mean that hard-earned original work is good, politically correct, or should be widely recommended.

About content updates

Verticality is definitely needed!

Although from the perspective of product experience, users can post whatever they like and verticality does not necessarily make sense, from the perspective of product strategy and technology, the platform can only encourage verticality.

Because of the constant switching of various contents, the recommendation system will find that the labels are always changing, which makes it impossible to accurately locate us and make accurate push notifications.

After all, ignoring other conditions, the highest criteria of the algorithm are to accurately push the best content to the users who want to see it the most and to deep link it. It also does not want to affect the user experience, so for the sake of conservatism it will probably not recommend it to us.

The recommendation system uses so many sophisticated algorithms just for the purpose of “precise push”. We also do things that confuse it. It might as well give priority to certain accounts.

Stability is also needed!

I recommended you to so many people, but you disappear every other day. If everyone does this, the user's attention behavior will lose its value and become meaningless. It would be better to just look at the recommendation page.

From the platform's perspective: the platform hopes that someone can stably update content that can retain users. You are responsible for the user's stay time, and I am responsible for your traffic. Conversely, I will give the traffic to people who are capable of retaining users!

Of course, long videos are encouraged.

As "short video" platforms gradually open up restrictions on video length, "short video" has become almost a pseudo-concept. Whether it is the platform, users, or authors, everyone understands that a short 15 seconds can only satisfy the sensory experience, and only videos of sufficient length can express richer viewpoints and connotations.

The essence of the platform is to seize user time. A stable update volume, high-quality long videos, and spiritual experience are undoubtedly the best. The platform is not limited to hoping that users will only think of it when they are killing time. It even hopes that users will open it for a while even if they are wasting time. From the perspective of operation and growth, this direction is not wrong.

So “short videos” will still exist, but they will be more of a condiment.

We will discuss “content positioning” in the “user perspective” section later.

About traffic distribution

It is true that many things conform to the 28 principles, and traffic distribution is roughly the same in the end. We will find that the "decentralized" algorithm eventually accumulates "centralized" data, that is: a very small number of top Vs and the industry presents a pyramid model.

However, the platform obviously does not want only a small number of kols to dominate the majority of the traffic, as this would make the platform subject to the control of others, and the platform will also have many corresponding policies to curb this phenomenon.

For example, Simba of Kuaishou. According to insiders, Simba often puts the platform at the center of negative public opinion, which actually makes the platform very uncomfortable. During the time when Simba stopped broadcasting, many new anchors who sell goods emerged.

The platform is the emperor and the kols are the ministers. Of course, there must be checks and balances when one platform dominates the market, just like Mr. Du Zijian: he has tens of millions of fans, but when he posts a video, the number of likes is so small that people suspect that his fans are bought.

This is not a targeted traffic limit by the platform, but the platform needs to distribute the traffic to more large and small kols. So I think if very good data feedback cannot be accumulated in its own fan pool, the platform will most likely not actively push it to more people.

Summary: Except for some special cases where the platform will intervene manually, the algorithm does not discriminate against any content creators. The platform also hopes to distribute traffic to more people, which is friendly to newcomers.

PS: I think the traditional Baidu bidding mechanism easily leads to vicious competition among advertisers. In the short term, the platform will be the beneficiary, but after the storm, most of the SMBs will choose to leave, and the remaining KAs will occupy the industry traffic and reduce their budgets and unit prices. In the long run, these two phenomena will damage the platform.

The strategy of Toutiao's information flow is to stagger competition and allocate traffic to more suitable advertisers through algorithm learning models. This is a win-win situation. The platform, users, and advertisers will all be the ultimate beneficiaries. Although it is not perfect now, it is a good direction.

From the user's perspective

From the user's perspective, I think content positioning is of paramount importance, it determines 80%. As for other aspects, I personally don't care much about them.

About content positioning

Recently, I happened to see Da Lan’s live broadcast and found that he had started a short video training class. The fee seemed to be several thousand or something.

In fact, from my personal understanding, the most important two points of Dalan’s short video operation strategy in the initial stage of increasing followers are:

1: Chatting in a luxury car

2: They only talk about rich people

If we have to talk about some techniques, the exaggerated tone at the beginning of the video, the incongruous scenes (such as speaking loudly and quickly into the phone and then jumping into the swimming pool), and the shocking words are the key points to keep the video playing.

Of course, his ability to express himself and his overall image are also good, and his fast-paced expression will make people more patient to listen!

I saw a new account some time ago, which was very interesting:

A man "records" his daily life sharing a house with two (now it has developed into three) young ladies. I believe some of my friends have also seen it.

I think such teams are really smart, because they have found human nature, which should be said to be a beautiful appeal in the hearts of men. Let me ask:

How many men have the opportunity to share a house with several young ladies in their lifetime? This is not sharing a single room where everyone lives separately and can't even see each other when they look up or down, but really living together, doing housework together, eating together, talking about work together, encountering various things together...

The men are always the ones taking the photos, so we don't know what they look like (they and we don't think it matters anyway). The girls are all beautiful with the help of beauty filters, and this perspective always makes the viewers feel as if they are sharing a house with these girls.

The existing data is: two months, less than 50 videos, and about 2.5 million fans.

I put double quotes around the word “record” above, because we all know that this is for a CD. In one video, a fan joked: Hurry up and sell the products and don’t waste time. The owner of the account replied: Just recording life (covering face and laughing).

This is of course impossible. Most people who pay attention to it know that it is a packaged show by the team, but many people still like to watch it. Some fans even joked: Who would refuse a boy with a camera on his head? (Including many people now question: Why do those who pick up cats and dogs turn on their mobile phones to record the whole process when they find the cats and dogs)?

I also found that they would record according to a certain script, and would refer to fans' comments during the process. For example, in the comments everyone said they liked one of the girls and thought she was better.

Then the plot slowly develops that this young lady is inexplicably nice to the male protagonist, gentle, considerate, good-tempered, understanding and easy to talk to, while the male protagonist is always foolish and slow to realize things.

Oh, this is really...

Of course, as everyone "wished", now that several futures have been brought out, the familiar games of getting things and receiving welfare have appeared again!

Through these two examples, I actually want to express the logic of content positioning:

From the perspective of human nature: think about what kind of lifestyle ordinary people are unlikely to experience, want to experience, and yearn for. Such content often attracts a lot of attention.

It is difficult for us to think of content forms that others cannot think of, but we can achieve content forms that many competitors cannot achieve, which means raising the threshold for content production!

Whether it’s the big blue Maserati or the three young ladies who play a house-sharing role with you, this is a threshold for many people, and this threshold can help them stand out from many competitors.

If we have the resources in this area, then don't hesitate, just imitate the existing up-masters and go straight to it. They will verify the content format and the size of the audience for you.

Plagiarism? Looking back at the above understanding of originality, you can imitate pixel by pixel with peace of mind. When you imitate, for many people, yours will be the first video of this type they have seen. Don’t doubt it!

What if we don’t have these hard resources?

We must believe that the above logic is generally correct. You should have seen this kind of video:

A mountainous area, an old village, streets, houses, rain, and music that brings back memories!

What kind of people are these videos targeting? White-collar workers who are busy in the city and entrepreneurs who are frequently frustrated in business are very tired and really want to have a chance to get away from these trivial matters and go to remote mountainous areas to feel the nature, even though they know it is unrealistic.

You should have seen this kind of video:

The scene is very simple, and even the actions in each video are the same, which is to make a rich, expensive midnight snack for yourself, usually various seafood and hard dishes, open a beer, and eat and drink comfortably in front of a funny movie.

Similar comments are often seen under such videos: When I pay off my debts, I will also have a big meal like this.

In fact, due to time, financial, family, work pressure and other issues, it is basically impossible for many office workers to have a rich and somewhat expensive midnight snack every day comfortably and without worries.

There are no real people in this type of video, and the author doesn’t even say a word during the video, but Star Map ads and the like are still accepted, and there is no problem with linking to WeChat, so there are many ways to monetize.

If we put aside the moral issues, the logic is: film what human nature desires but cannot obtain.

I think if I were to operate a new account, I would spend a month, two months, or even more time just to do one thing: thinking about what everyone desires in their hearts.

Why is there a market for so many food broadcasts? After all, a lobster that costs thousands of dollars is not something that ordinary people can eat casually. If you can't eat it, you can at least take a look at it.

All tactical-level operational skills are not as important as correctly understanding human nature!

In another direction, if we don’t plan to operate an IP, it doesn’t matter how sticky the fans are, and we just want to monetize the traffic, then I think we don’t need to think too much, there is only one strategy: shoot the same style.

That is to say, it is a simple and crude imitation of popular trends. There is no distinction between good and bad content in this kind of content. The platform will always allocate traffic to you, whether it is a large amount or a long or short period of time.

This is also why there are so many film and television editing accounts. As long as they keep posting, as time accumulates, a single work will always get thousands of likes, and the account will always have tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of fans.

If we are a platform, how do we distribute traffic to these accounts?

From the platform's perspective, are there any advantages or disadvantages to this type of account? There is no question of quality and originality. Should we give priority to giving more traffic to the first batch of accounts that did this?

Why do this? Their videos are no different from others. What he can do, others can do as well. The traffic is given to certain people. What if these people gradually stop posting for various reasons? What if these people violated the rules?

For the platform, traffic is like eggs, and they will not put all of them in one basket to avoid uncontrollable problems. When there is no obvious difference between the good and the bad, the best strategy is to distribute opportunities evenly, and the rest can be left to the users to vote.

In most cases, it is often difficult to distinguish between the good and the bad, so the platform will always give you a chance.

When it comes to the question of quality, we can't help but think: What is good content?

Whether it is the author or the user, everyone has seen the same content (almost the same video), some people become popular after posting it, while others do not.

Is this really just a simple question of originality or order? Obviously not. There are many people complaining in the comment section or in the copy that "originality is not popular but plagiarism is."

After all, the quality of content and the quality of people are the same thing. It is a relative issue, not an absolute issue.

You have to know that no matter what the content is, there will be an audience. There is no absolute elegance or vulgarity. It is just a matter of whether to promote it (give it traffic or not).

Some friends may complain that the video is obviously very good, but why is there no traffic?

This actually shows a misunderstanding of the platform. The platform's obligation is to push good content to users, but the so-called "good" does not refer to a specific category or even a specific video.

In other words, as long as the platform ensures that what it gives is good, it doesn’t matter which “good” it is. From a global perspective, the platform should take care of as many content creators as possible, but from a local perspective, the platform has no obligation to consider a specific author.

Therefore: If we look at the platform's strategy and logic objectively, we will not have too many complaints and will be able to operate this business objectively.

Of course: the platform will also manually intervene in traffic at any time according to policies and relevant strategies. Don’t regard the algorithm rules as everything. They are just a means to serve "commercial companies" and not a natural law. So don’t be surprised when you see strange and illogical phenomena.

One last thing about content: the higher the production cost of the content, the higher its fan value tends to be, and vice versa!

In fact, there is no necessary connection between the two, but it will be caused by indirect influence.

Generally speaking, when the production cost of a certain field is high, this will lead to relatively fewer authors who can produce this type of content. At this time, when advertisers hope to send orders to fans in this field, they will find that there are not many available traffic sources, so it is natural that the price will rise and cause a chain reaction.

Most cheap things have conditions attached, such as content that is easy to increase followers: beauties, emotions, funny things, etc., but it is obvious that their fan value will also be much lower.

Why are funny fans so worthless? Because any normal person can attract this kind of fans, there are too many such account owners.

About Copywriting

Hearing is not as good as seeing. This sentence can fully reflect the importance of copywriting!

A sentence that can touch people's hearts is better than all kinds of routines. We will find that even when watching videos or TV series, no matter how clear the sound is, many people are accustomed to staring at the subtitles, because they may hear it wrong by listening, but they will not see it wrong by watching.

Copywriting is also a great tool to guide comments, interactions and private messages!

Logically, copywriting is very important, but unfortunately: copywriting is something that has no copyright or patent. Although you can write, I can only copy.

So relatively speaking, the value that this easy-to-perform action can bring is always limited.

About appearing on camera

If you want to create a personal brand IP but cannot appear on camera for various reasons, my advice is not to do it. Due to the limitations of the short video format, it is difficult to create an IP without real people appearing on camera.

I know there are IPs that don’t show their faces, but don’t ignore issues like probability and survivor bias unless you are very confident in your content.

If you don't create an IP, but just collect traffic, accept advertisements, and lead external sites, I think it doesn't matter whether you appear on camera or not. There are various forms of expression and ways of monetization.

About Interaction

I think good interactions (comments, private messages) are certainly the icing on the cake, but if you don’t consider the IP and fan stickiness, it doesn’t matter. I don’t think it is very important and don’t expect more interactions to bring more recommendations.

A more current strategy

Having said so much, are there any specific operational strategies that can be used as reference at the strategic level? I think there is, here are my thoughts:

In 2018, when we launched second-tier e-commerce on Toutiao, we encountered a situation where the account had no volume. Of course, this is a very normal situation, and it should be said that many second-tier e-commerce merchants will encounter it.

After communicating with the official people of Toutiao many times, their suggestion was to change the corporate qualifications and open a new account. In fact, the new account had a good effect, and the same plan and creativity were running very fast.

Last year, when I launched a "form collection" account on Douyin, I also encountered the problem of low volume. At this time, the official advice was very clear: open a new account, the qualifications are the same, switching is very convenient, and it is OK to open as many as you want.

It’s okay to change accounts when there is no volume, but to be honest, I don’t like to open new accounts continuously. It’s very troublesome to manage. During many communications, the official staff told me a piece of information:

The system’s strategy when facing a new account is: Believe that this is a good account!

I don't know if you understand the general logic:

For a newly opened account, the system has no historical data to judge the quality of the account. If the current evaluation criteria are used, most new accounts will be dead.

Therefore, when facing a new account, the system defaults to giving the new account a relatively considerable expected value. That is to say, assuming that the historical performance of this account is good, the system has higher expectations for it.

In this case, the planning system for account delivery will provide a larger traffic space. If there is no problem with the creativity, it will be relatively easy to achieve results. If there is no quantity, no matter how good the quality of the creativity is, it will be useless.

I think this kind of strategy is correct whether it is used in information flow recommendation or advertising recommendation. New accounts should be given more relaxed evaluation criteria and more room for testing, so that as many high-quality creators as possible can be discovered.

Based on this logic, my idea is:

1: Fully consider human demands

2: Determine the positioning of the content

3: Shoot the best quality video you think

Next: You don’t need to maintain a new account, just post directly (as long as it is not a violation of regulations or marketing).

Although you don’t maintain an account, new accounts all have certain risks in the eyes of the system. While evaluating the quality of the content, the system is also on guard against creators, so it won’t give volume immediately.

During this period, there is no need to publish works frequently. One work every three to five days is enough. This is actually telling the system that we are normal and risk-free creators (strictly controlling the quality of the video determines the system's impression of us. Although we do not give a large number of recommendations and there are no user votes, based on the existing recommendation algorithm, the system should have some hard and quantifiable basic indicators to predict video quality).

If we have posted 5-10 videos and there is still no volume after 10-20 days, it means there is something wrong with our content. At this time, we should not work hard on this account.

To give an inappropriate analogy: the system feels that it has been "cheated" by us. I believe that you are good, but it turns out that users don't like it, then I will not easily recommend it to you next time.

In this case, don't explain, because explanation is just covering up. Instead of trying to tell the system that we are really good by using better works (in fact, if we had any, we would have published them long ago), it is better to just change the account.

Works of similar quality failed to get off the ground even though they made a good “impression” at the beginning, let alone when the “impression” deteriorated later.

If we change our account, the system will recognize us again and give us better expectations. At this time, we have to re-examine our work, and our content direction must be wrong.

Reposition, reshoot, optimize details, and publish the most satisfying work!

Repeat this cycle until the account starts to gain volume. At that time, we may be able to determine that the direction is right.

In the final analysis, we want to use the best work to test user feedback when the system meets our best expectations. If you want to shorten the time cost, then we can test multiple accounts simultaneously.

This is what I think is a more scientific testing logic when there is no resource support.

What is the so-called starting amount? There is no standard, but I don’t think it will get dozens or even single-digit likes, which means it is a work that has not been launched.

It is not uncommon for a work that is produced in the right direction to earn tens of thousands for the first one, or even more.

Of course, since I haven’t actually implemented it myself, you have to make your own judgment on this logic. Everyone is welcome to communicate and discuss.

Other details to consider

1: Search. From the perspective of UP hosts, it is a traffic supplement; from the perspective of the platform, it is a functional supplement. However, relatively speaking, search is not a high-frequency scenario for information flow products. Do not spend too much energy on this channel, and it is a by-product of the traffic.

2: Cooperate with the platform and follow whatever the platform launches or whatever is popular. For APP applications of the same level as Tik Tok and WeChat, any changes to the details are based on a lot of analysis and research results from the team.

So if the platform launches a certain function, it will to a certain extent be something that has a large audience. It will never be wrong to follow the trend. There is no reason for the platform to be unwilling to provide user traffic for things it recommends, and they also need data feedback to verify.

3: Don’t try to take shortcuts blindly. For example, knowing that the completion rate is important, you ignore the actual quality of the content and use a lot of copywriting and comments to induce users to watch to the end, without realizing that users may choose to jump directly to the end. If the end is not as "amazing" as we described, you can imagine the user's reaction to being deceived. Technically, the platform has many strategies to identify this process.

4: We may habitually pay attention to indicators that can increase the number of recommendations, such as likes after the broadcast, but ignore factors that will inhibit the number of recommendations. Similar to Zhihu's "dislike", short video platforms will also have similar mechanisms. The obvious ones include "not interested" and unfollowing after watching, and the hidden ones include: fast forward, directly scrolling past, and even "editing" a few words in the comments. Although these indicators are not easy to notice, they are enough to show the popularity of the content.

Especially in such a scenario, imagine: some young ladies follow, like, and comment as soon as they see a handsome guy, and play it over and over again. The system thinks: these young ladies like handsome guys, and then recommends a certain "handsome guy"'s posed photo to these people. Unexpectedly, when most people see this guy, they just swipe past him. In the eyes of the system, he may not be handsome...

This seems to be quite serious, because these users obviously like this type of video, but they just don’t like this type of him. Then this is his problem, not the user’s problem! ! !

You should know that the system responds very quickly to our likes, and various similar videos will appear immediately. However, regarding our dislike expressed by us, the system is cautious except for obviously clicking "not interested". We will find that if we directly scroll past some videos that we don't want to watch, similar videos will appear next time because the system is also wondering whether we still like this type of video. It's just a problem with a single video.

5: Don't be superstitious about the so-called weights. Scoring does exist, but it must be dynamic, scenario-based, superimposed, and combined. All single, tricky, and low-cost changes are absolutely not enough to be effective. This makes many training tutorials on the market meaningless.

For example, adding topic tags in the copy may help the system calculate keyword tags for your video and may be helpful for retrieval, but it will definitely not have any obvious effect on the recommendation volume. It is better to consider it from the perspective of common sense: this operation does not have any threshold or cost, and anyone who can read can do it. Why should someone add a lot of traffic?

Despite such a simple truth, there are still many people who want to play Tik Tok and spend a lot of money to buy the so-called skills from Teacher XX.

I still want to reiterate the point that it is presumptuous not to expect that an amateur can bring about huge changes by simply performing some strange and erotic techniques.

Author: Jun Yan Xi Yu

Source: Junyanxiyu