One TikTok video generated 100,000 new app activations and 1 million followers in 58 days. How can we seize the benefits of TikTok?

Last year, at the annual meetings of major companies, long-legged young ladies were everywhere dancing the C哩C哩. During the Spring Festival, TikTok occupied the first place in the "Photography and Video" category in the App Store. In the increasingly calm Chinese Internet sector, TikTok became the undisputed dark horse of 2017, stirring up trouble for the bigwigs.

The rise of each platform will bring a wave of dividends. Taobao , Weibo, and WeChat have all created countless multi-millionaires. As existing platforms become rigid, the booming TikTok has become a new opportunity that new media professionals cannot miss. According to internal information obtained by Xinbang , Douyin has begun to commercialize celebrities on the platform.

In less than a week, three short videos on Douyin contributed more than 100,000 new users to an app; in 58 days, Douyin reached 1 million followers; now, with 4 accounts, the total number of followers has exceeded 3 million. How did Lying Duck do it? The following is a behind-the-scenes story shared by the team’s founder. As TikTok becomes increasingly popular on social networks , the experiences and thoughts contained in this story are very worthy of reference for new media professionals.

On Christmas Eve of 2017, I was lying in bed watching Tik Tok. Like many people, it was hard to stop once I opened Tik Tok. Suddenly, a video of a user with the last digit of Tik Tok number 2003 (I won’t mention the specific name to protect her privacy) came to my mind. This person was not an internet celebrity, but an ordinary girl who didn’t even have a Tik Tok signature. She had 12 works, 10 of which were taken and uploaded to Tik Tok after she learned how to use an App. She hoped to share the skill with everyone, as the video length of ordinary Tik Tok users is 15 seconds, and it is difficult to make one thing clear in 15 seconds, so she used 10 videos. The cumulative number of likes is about 300,000, and the number of views should exceed 8 million.

Before this incident, I didn’t pay much attention to the likes and views on Douyin. Just like the reading volume on Weibo, I always felt that it was inflated. But my previous instinct in making apps still made me go to the App Store to check the ranking of this app, and I was shocked.

She posted this video on December 21st, and the curve suddenly broke through the rapid growth of 100. This kind of video to new conversion rate is something I have never seen in all my long years of App promotion . It is not an exaggeration to describe it as shocking.

I immediately got up and told the core members of Lying Duck that we must immediately invest manpower to operate on Douyin as soon as possible. From the curve in the figure, we can see that the overall ranking of this App began to decline during Christmas , which shows that the life cycle of a short video on the Douyin platform is about one week.

The story does not end there. On December 25, Tangdaoya formed a Douyin assault team and uploaded three original videos to Douyin. The content imitated the previous videos and was also about the content of that App. We miraculously achieved over 5 million views. Looking at the curve chart of this app on December 26, yes, it went up again.

These three short videos directly contributed more than 100,000 new users in less than a week. This brought great confidence to the team and gave me more to think about.

1. The number of views on Douyin is real and really huge. What should we do?

2. It means opportunities for operators, especially new media content producers. Tangdaoya already has nearly 4 million followers on WeChat, and we also need to make further breakthroughs.

3. For companies that make apps, hardware and other products, short videos mean a more cost-effective and controllable way of brand promotion .

We then made a few decisions:

1. Pay attention to the original production of short videos and invest at least 5 people.

2. All employees will learn about Douyin and participate in Douyin shooting and operation, so that colleagues in content production can better understand young content and platforms.

3. We want to reach 1 million followers on Douyin as soon as possible.

2 months later, here we are:

1. We have created 4 accounts, 2 of which have reached 1 million followers, and the other 2 have around 500,000 followers each.

2. The total number of views exceeded 400 million, bringing good exposure to the brand of Lying Duck.

3. Editors and planners who don’t know how to shoot and edit videos can independently complete the shooting and operation of Douyin videos. What’s more, our editor-in-chief Qingqing even achieved 1 million followers on Douyin account by herself under the guidance of others. Applause.

Some people must be wondering, can such a large number of views convert users ? I think the picture below should be able to illustrate the problem.

If we put the same video on Kuaishou , it can get over 1 million views.

When did Tik Tok become popular? Let’s take a look at the changes in the search index of the word “TikTok”.

Tik Tok was launched in September 2016 (see the picture below). It really appeared in the public eye in March 2017. Since December 2017, the popularity of TikTok has spread like wildfire.

Let’s look at a few more product examples that have become popular on the Douyin platform:

Case 1: Xiao Ai

Xiao Ai is a smart hardware, a typical example of Xiaomi smart speaker that has been spread on Douyin - Xiao Ai. People who often use Douyin will definitely see users teasing Xiao Ai.

Xiaomi must be smiling secretly, its sales must have exploded. There are a large number of users on Douyin teasing Xiao Ai just like they tease Siri. This is the experience that artificial intelligence brings to everyone.

Case 2 : Movie "Ex-Files 3"

In December 2017, Ex-Files 3 was released. I don’t know the official data, but Ex-Files 3 had very good results in terms of attention, exposure and box office (2 billion). What's interesting is the rating of this movie.

I am making a subjective judgment without any basis - the jokes and music videos on TikTok are the key to the box office success of this movie.

The first song "Dignity"

The second song "Let's Go"

The popularity of these two songs comes from: Douyin's original music short videos. A large number of users created original videos using the two songs and the scenes of users crying after watching "Ex-Files 3" in the cinema. Those who are interested can go to Douyin and search: Dignified, Break up and Ex-Files 3 to experience it. People who often watch Douyin must have felt it. A common challenge attracts tens of thousands of participants.

The following is just one of the thousands and thousands of original videos. The number of views should be over 3 million. There are more than hundreds of thousands of short videos like this one related to Ex-Files 3 on Douyin. One can imagine how much exposure Ex-Files 3 has received across all platforms.

Case 3 is a song called "Guangdong Love Story"

The author is Guangdong Rain God. You may not have heard of this singer, but you should have heard of this song.

Just go to TikTok and search: The Challenge of Guangdong Love Story and you will understand. This is a singer and song that became popular purely from Tik Tok.

Case 4: Practical mobile phone skills

This case was made by Tangdaoya himself. It is a mobile phone usage skill published around January 5th.

Look at the Baidu index of this keyword after it was promoted. The number of views of this video has exceeded 10 million.

All of the above illustrates one issue: the short video platform with Douyin as the core has huge traffic and has in-depth operational value. Whether it is for new media, apps, smart hardware, company brands, etc., as long as the content is cool and creative enough, there is a chance to obtain large traffic and exposure.

From the results, what did Dandaoya do right to quickly gain 1 million fans and 400 million views?

First of all, the brand awareness of Tangdaoya is not very high in China, and a large number of people don’t know Tangdaoya. Therefore, when we do this, we are at a disadvantage compared to some brands that already have a high degree of popularity and can gain hundreds of thousands of attention through just one video.

1. The decision to execute was fast enough. The decision to create TikTok was made on December 24, and a team was formed the next day. Three original videos were uploaded on December 25, and received 3 million views on December 26.

2. Work together. Fully communicate with everyone the importance of opportunities and value so that everyone can reach a consensus on the goals.

3. Good execution ability. Although we have no experience, we have not stopped original updates for a single day since December 25th. We have been updating videos during the Spring Festival.

4. Seize the bonus period. Douyin is still in the stage of wild growth and has a lot of room to grow. We have also made preparations in advance in the area of ​​video production and have our own video team.

5. Everyone who keeps learning and making videos is an in-depth Tik Tok user and can discover hot topics and combine them with their own content to create creativity.

6. The IP image gives users a refreshing experience. A cute little duck can teach everyone a lot of tips on using mobile phones. We do unboxing and evaluation, and tinker with smart hardware.

In 58 days, the number of fans increased from 0 to 1 million. What can be called operational experience ?

1. Timely optimization and adjustment of content positioning

In less than two months, the content direction went through three stages. It took about 15 days from 0 to 300,000, and we only produced content vertically related to mobile phones. In order to enrich the content and maintain the speed of increasing fans, we quickly entered the second stage, and the number of fans increased from 300,000 to 600,000, which took about 16 days. The content direction was adjusted to mobile phone skills and hot topics. Later, we tried to make the videos more creative and professional. On the 58th day, we exceeded the plan and completed the goal of 1 million fans.

2. Flexible topic selection mechanism

We have a Douyin operation group. When everyone is browsing Douyin and finds good ideas, they will immediately forward them to the group to discuss how we can combine them. For example, how to save power on mobile phones, how to take photos, and unboxing smart hardware. Brush your eyes until they are swollen and blind, stay awake and brush until the early morning, do quick research, and keep up with hot topics. For a period of time, there is a very popular content on Douyin. We will associate the hot topic with skills, and then make a content that fits the positioning of Lying Duck. For example, for "Ten Years of Love Story in Guangdong", we will shoot a video with GarageBand playing.

3. Stable update mechanism:

Since the first video was made on December 25th, we have never stopped updating, including during the Spring Festival holiday, and the content will be synchronized to short video platforms such as Meipai and Kuaishou; it is concluded that the best time to upload is between 6 and 8 pm, but there should be a half-hour interval between each video. From 7 to 10 posts a day at the beginning to around 5 later, the guys in the Douyin operation team were able to withstand the hard work and not fall behind, and they could also lose weight.

4. Invest passion in your existing fans

Fans will constantly ask questions in comments and private messages (dependence and trust), and we arrange for our colleagues to respond and answer them in a timely manner. We encourage fans to comment and send us private messages to ask questions. We try to reply to all fans' comments and private messages, and get new topics from the comments. For example, if there is a lot of demand for how to record the screen with a mobile phone, we will quickly produce related videos to satisfy fans and make them dependent on us.

5. Find some good-looking girls and puppies to be on camera

For real-life appearances, Douyin attaches great importance to the quality of video shooting, including some camera techniques, mobile phone skills, and general real-life appearances related to life skills. They are shared from the user's perspective and try not to be preachy. The content is entertaining and light-hearted, with a variety of forms. Compared with the content itself, the soundtrack is equally important.

We still have a lot of room for improvement, such as the professionalism and creativity of our videos and the cultivation of influencers. However, these two months have allowed the team to think more about how to play with new media. We believe that there will be more room for imagination in 2018 and everyone’s operational and content production capabilities have been rapidly improved.

My thoughts: What opportunities and values ​​does short video operation bring to Internet products?

1. App

In 2012 and 2013, domestic distribution channels could still increase traffic and widen the gap with competitors through first launch , optimization within channels, and activities. As long as manpower was invested in research and breakthroughs in channels, it was relatively easy to attract users based on a good product experience. Just like in the PC era, webmasters could use SEO techniques to get traffic without spending any money. Now the traffic in the distribution channels is more concentrated, and the traffic is mainly in the hands of BAT and manufacturers, including Huawei, OV, and Xiaomi. Moreover, as the channel's commercialization capabilities mature and there are more and more apps, it becomes more difficult to acquire new users through distribution channels. Acquiring new customers through short videos or even new media with only manpower investment may be a new opportunity in 2018. I am also leading everyone to do this in the company, and hope to summarize and share more experiences and cases when I gain more experience.

2. Smart Hardware

Xiao Ai is a very good representative. The experience and creativity of smart hardware are very novel to users, which is in line with the trendy and cool characteristics of Douyin. Young people are also happy to explore new products. I think it's worth a try to combine the cool black technology products such as smart cars, smart medical care, smart government and enterprise services, smart robots, and VR with creativity to make short videos for dissemination.

3. New Media

Video itself is a type of new media content, and many leading new media accounts have made videos very professionally. In addition to some professional MCN agencies , many new media teams make videos for brand promotion and user acquisition. Some new media brands with their own IP attributes, such as animated characters, have become big names on Douyin, such as Yichan Little Monk.

Finally, can Douyin make money?

Our answer is yes. Not many yet, but I believe that the Douyin platform will definitely give good returns to excellent content producers. In addition, in March, Toutiao has merged the fans of Huoshan, Douyin and Toutiao (as shown below). If you have 1 million users on Douyin, it means you have 1 million users on both Toutiao and Huoshan. In the future, it may also gather traffic from Xigua Video, Wukong Q&A and other platforms. There is more room for imagination.

The author of this article @张克男 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, advertising platform, Longyou Games