How to create a popular short video with high exposure

Tik Tok, the short video app that has exploded in popularity this year, has been known to many people and is used every day, but do you know how those simple videos are created?

Why do photos of cats and dogs taken by their owners become hits? Why do young men and women get millions of likes for just a casual selfie? And you've performed the seaweed dance 100 times but no one cares...

Many things look simple, but in fact, when you actually do them yourself, they are not up to standard at all.

In fact, by learning the key knowledge points of shooting popular short videos, you can make significant improvements.

The key knowledge point is "insight". Whether we are shooting short videos or doing other artistic creations, it is very important to have good insight first.

The following article will explain to you how to improve your insight when shooting videos. I believe it will be of great help to you.

Last year, a video titled "No matter how big the world is, it's not bigger than a plate of scrambled eggs with tomatoes" went viral on the Internet . Airbnb's video advertisement "Celebrate My New Year This Year" was also well received . So why are they so hotly discussed? How did the director realize that the public would be interested in this type of video?

To get the answers to these questions, you need to first have a clear "insight".

What is insight? The materials for our creations and writing are all obtained through observation and discovery.

Insight = Observation + Discovery

What exactly do you want to present? Do you want to present happy people? Or a confident person? Or is he someone who appears confident on the outside but is actually insecure on the inside? This requires you to observe, discover, and then output it.

Therefore, to be a short video director, you must have good insight to observe and discover good explosive materials.

Let’s look at an example of excellent insight: Chongqing, a popular city on TikTok.

1 Insights from Chongqing, a popular internet city

The key to a hit short video is to discover the audience’s subconscious mind and discover a potential demand.

Why are Chongqing’s light rail and Hongyadong so popular? In fact, these landscapes have always existed. Why did they become so crowded during the May Day holiday after the emergence of TikTok? How did it become a fashion landmark?

In fact, everyone is learning a routine, which is to find the place where urban culture and users are in tune in the subconscious of the audience.

For example, in Zhao Lei's song " Chengdu ", the city of Chengdu gives people a sense of inner peace and leisure, and many people are thinking about poetry and distant places, facing the sea and seeing spring flowers blooming. The city culture and users are in sync, so "Chengdu" became popular.

For example, Chongqing gives people a sense of magic and fantasy because of its topography. It has beautiful scenery that is not available anywhere else, and this is what tourists from all over the world want to see. As a result, some scenic spots in Chongqing became popular on Douyin.

2. Mi Meng ’s Insight Method

Mimi Meng once said something very interesting, "90% of our feelings are wrong, and user insights cannot be based on guessing."

Her method is data analysis and interactive interviews.

This is a 10,000-word data analysis report on a phenomenon written by Mimi Meng. 5,000 people voted, and 100 titles were given to each title .

Why do you find every one of Mimi Meng’s titles so heartbreaking and able to touch your inner pain points or soft spots?

Because it was selected from 100 titles.

In addition, she spent a lot of time doing interactive interviews. It means taking your own materials, constantly testing them, constantly being rejected, and finally discovering better insights.

Insight is first and foremost observation, and it is an in-depth accumulation of materials.

Insight is to see the essence through the phenomenon . Once you become interested in the phenomenon, you need to constantly accumulate knowledge, make new discoveries, ask others, be denied, and do all kinds of homework.

Like Mimi Meng, come up with 100 titles for each, let 5,000 people vote, keep trying, and be rejected. The unique thing that is finally obtained and has the label of the times is the unique insight.

This is why every article of Mimi Meng can touch us . No matter we say that she is a Zhiyin style or a sad culture , every one of her titles hits the pain points and key points of today's people.

3 Ways to Get Good Insights: Get Rid of Prejudice and Disorder

1. Prejudice

Directing is an artistic creation, a work of discovery and reprocessing, a work of observation and insight, so directing is first and foremost a calm technical job.

Tik Tok often provides routines for hot topics, but the director’s observation requires calm thinking. What does the director have to overcome in this process? It is the big data of self-experience, called prejudice.

Each of us has many empirical judgments in our personal life journey, and empirical judgments will hinder the occurrence of new things in our entire thinking system, hinder your curiosity, and hinder you from discovering new points of cognition . Therefore, we must not have prejudices.

To give an example, everyone knew that the first season of " Where Are We Going, Dad?" was a hit. However, just a few days before the show was aired, its main sponsor withdrew its order because it was difficult to confirm the sponsorship. In a market full of singing and dancing variety shows, how could a studio variety show, as bland as an outdoor reality show, have a chance of success?

The main sponsor looked at the new thing "Where Are We Going, Dad?" with prejudice , because no variety show had ever attempted such a thing before. So they looked at the new thing with prejudice, causing huge losses.

On the contrary, the executive team of "Where Are We Going, Dad?" did not have any prejudice. They had good insight and were able to see that in Chinese families where fathers are always absent, fathers are an important role needed by the general public.

2. Disorganized work

We also have to overcome disorderly work.

Creative people often come up with an idea today and another idea tomorrow, but these are just fragments.

This alone cannot form a complete insight system, nor can it output a complete insight concept.

Our work must have its own values, which account for 60% of the work's weight. But relying solely on scattered ideas is simply not enough.

So we have to overcome empirical prejudices and disorderly work in order to learn what the director's true insight is.

4 Deep V Workshop:

How do you gain your insights as a director?

As a director, how do you gain insight?

In fact, it is nothing more than the same as Mimi Meng, to truly immerse yourself in practice and life to find it. In this process, I summarized two principles.

Principle 1: Everyone is equal in the face of creativity

Don't easily deny any good ideas. This is actually breaking down the prejudices in your heart.

We usually encounter problems like this:

When the leader called us to a meeting to discuss short videos, we started brainstorming . Xiao Zhang, Xiao Wang, and Xiao Li sat together, and no one spoke. At this time, Xiao Li proposed a plan, and everyone thought it was unreliable. The leader stopped him and said, "Don't waste our time, let me share an idea."

Okay, the brainstorming session is over.

Sorry, but this is clearly the wrong way to do the job.

When we do insights, we don’t need a leader. In the team, we only need calm observers to summarize all ideas and goals and record all materials.

Principle 2: Good ideas are accumulated

We often make a mistake in the insight process, which is to start easily once we get an idea.

However, even for a 15-second video, from the generation of a good idea to the actual expression, exploration and discovery of this insight, it must be an accumulation of good ideas + good ideas + good ideas.

Take Airbnb’s advertising video as an example.

The creative team behind this video may have done something like this:

At the beginning, I only realized the point of not going home during the Spring Festival.

However, the second person said, what about the parents? Let’s think about it, shall we?

The third person said, why not take your parents out together?

If parents go out together, some people might object. How can this be possible?

In the end, we decided to travel together so that parents who have objections can also get to know young people.

This insight is the creativity accumulated from many ideas. Don’t underestimate the 15-second short video. In fact, it is also the result of the continuous accumulation of ideas + ideas + ideas.

5 Insight into what?

1. Pain points, pleasure points, and itch points

Having mentioned so many methods, what exactly do we gain insight into? In fact, it is what is often said in product marketing nowadays: insight into users’ pain points, pleasure points, and itch points.

What pain points are being met? Pain points actually satisfy fear. When something becomes uncertain, it becomes a pain point.

For example, can my child be admitted to the ideal junior high school? When it becomes an uncertain issue, it will become a pain point for many parents whose children are going from primary school to junior high school.

What's the cool point? The cool thing is instant gratification. Is there any way that can make me satisfied faster than others?

For example, ordering takeout can satisfy our needs and is more convenient than eating out.

What is the itch point? It is to satisfy the inner self of a virtual self.

For example, many boys like to watch beautiful women on live broadcasts and reward them with virtual currency, which is actually a kind of virtual satisfaction.

In fact, all products are satisfying the seven deadly sins of primitive human needs. All products boil down to taking advantage of human weaknesses. Our ancient philosophers and prophets summarized it into seven deadly sins.

The seven deadly sins are: stinginess, greed, laziness, debauchery, arrogance, envy, and anger.

If we think about it carefully, many products nowadays have done a lot of work on these seven issues, and then satisfied users' pain points, itch points and pleasure points.

Many products are meeting such human needs.

For example, greed has led to the emergence of Internet finance with terrifying returns, as well as group buying activities when you shop online.

For example, laziness has led to the development of games and takeout.

For example, debauchery gave rise to gossip and vulgar jokes.

For example, jealousy has led to the development of circles and communities where people show off their personalities.

For example, anger has given rise to the online conditions for keyboard warriors.

······

So when we make a content product, do we also look for pain points from this perspective?

I think media products are not actually like this, or rather, as a communicator, our ultimate mission is not like this.

If we keep this in mind and original intention, and use the seven deadly sins, the darkest side of human nature, to create our content products, we will not be able to create a hit.

2. Warm spot

The end point of the director's insight should be the warm point . Why do you say that?

Warm point is a new word I coined. Why do I call it the warm point?

Let me tell you the reason. This is what a celebrity said.

In fact, Heidegger's words clearly explain the essence of drama, which is that drama imitates and reflects human actions.

What do we want to express? It is the power of living in the face of death. Only in the face of such persistence in living towards death can the nobility of man and the greatness of human nature be revealed.

In other words, the seven deadly sins may be the animality in human genes. What is the fundamental purpose of our art?

It is a process in which people overcome these difficulties, overcome their own desires, overcome the dark side that people are born with, and finally become a better self.

(The original creator of this video is the Douyin account: Xiaozhu Peichen)

For example, this video on Douyin has 1.65 million likes. There are actually three insights behind this video of just a few seconds. They are:

1. Differences in life concepts between young people and old people.

2. The old man is interesting and cute.

3. The young man did not complain, but happily watched his grandfather cut his pants.

These three insights are all positive and warm. The combination of these three factors allowed an unknown Douyin account to receive 1.65 million likes.

6 Conclusion

To have good insights, you can’t just guess, but use scientific methods , such as the ones listed in this article:

1. Use a large amount of data and surveys to get to the bottom of the users.

2. Abandoning prejudices and disorderly work will enable you to gain better insights.

3. Delay judging some creative ideas and don’t reject them immediately. Good insights are the result of the accumulation of many ideas.

4. When it comes to insight, we should not only focus on pain points, pleasure points, and itch points, but also pay attention to warm points. The most fundamental expression of art is people overcoming difficulties and becoming a better self.

Source: Mantou Business School (mantousxy)