Financial short video creation methodology

1. Introduction: The essence of communication is hacker intrusion

Everyone in the information field understands one common sense: information dissemination, the spread of infectious diseases, and the spread of computer viruses share the same SIR infection model.

As a practitioner and observer in the securities information industry for many years, I believe that not only does group communication have the characteristics of a viral invasion, but individual communication is a typical case of hacker invasion, and the most effective method is emotional hacking.

The process of virus invasion of cells includes: contact-breaking defense-fusion-replication. The dissemination of information to individuals also follows such a process, using "topics" to "contact", "emotional hackers" to "break defenses", "dry goods, resonance of concepts" to "integrate", and "emotional value" to "copy".

The most difficult step among the four stages of invasion is "breaking the defense". Friends who like Bilibili must have often seen comments such as "broken defense", "tears", "everyone stand up", and "you have coins", which are signs that a video work has successfully broken through the user's defenses. On the contrary, if you only see comments like "definitely next time" or "successfully got it for free", it only means that the up-master's ability to break defenses needs to be strengthened.

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"Emotional hacking" is a judgment based on cognitive science, psychology, and communication. It is based on human cognitive characteristics and covers a variety of communication forms, not limited to text, sound, video or live broadcast.

Next, we will explore the theoretical basis of "emotional hacking", explain the social phenomenon it causes, and talk about its application in the field of financial short video creation .

2. Human cognitive inertia brings cheating opportunities for emotional hackers

Why do ordinary people always chase stars by “starting with appearance, falling in love with talent, and becoming loyal to character”? Can the order be reversed?

Why were the first videos popular on Tik Tok videos about beautiful girls, and later on news and knowledge videos became popular?

Why do people use appearance, acting skills, and IQ as the three criteria for evaluating an excellent film or television work?

Everything is related to the physiological structure of the human cognitive system, which brings about a series of cognitive characteristics.

Human cognitive characteristics are objective, but the theories that explain them are very diverse. For example, the popular theories of "reptilian brain", "emotional brain" and "rational brain" in the field of cognitive science, the "fast system" and "slow system" theories of Nobel Prize winner in Economics Daniel Kahneman, and the popular theories of "physical process", "emotional process" and "thinking process" in the psychology circle.

Among all the theories, I think the one with the most unique perspective and the easiest to understand is the three driving modes of human behavior proposed by Han Qingfeng, the founder of Uncle Leo Relationship School. He calls them the three driving modes of human behavior: brain, heart, and kidney.

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"Going with the body" is everyone's default system, and everyone loves addictive things that arouse desire; "going with the heart" is a set of emotional evaluation systems, and everyone has times when they are moved; "going with the brain" requires extra work to function, so serious readers are always a minority.

Both Marx and Keynes had imagined what human life would be like in an era of abundance, and believed that people would explore and improve their spiritual world more in the future. In fact, DNA determines that the human brain will always follow the principle of minimum consumption and do everything possible to avoid thinking. In an era of abundance, everyone has more choices, and most people will only choose a simpler, more direct, and more exciting life rather than a deeper experience. Profundity is often a choice that has to be made under heavy pressure. In an era of abundance, simplicity, superficiality, and greater susceptibility to the influence of peer communication and mass media are the ultimate destination.

As reflected in mass consumption, addictive consumption such as low-alcohol fruit wine, e-cigarettes, electronic music, milk tea, and blind box toys are making young people fall for it.

Reflecting in content consumption, Internet companies have discovered more and more traffic passwords. Among the top ten websites with the highest traffic in the world, four are related to the body (two porn sites + ins + youtube), two are related to the heart (Facebook + Twitter), and only one is related to the brain (Wikipedia).

3. Application of emotional hacking in content production and dissemination

The so-called "emotional hacker" is a means of quickly spreading information and influencing users' minds based on human cognitive inertia and laws. Generally speaking, emotional hackers always use "sentiment" to attract users to complete "contact", use "heart" to break psychological defenses, and use "brain" analysis to integrate users' inherent ideas, ultimately bringing resonance to users and promoting copying and dissemination;

In the field of content production, we can understand it like this:

All the new and cool, exciting and addictive things, including the shocking headlines, are all about sex and are the easiest to break through defenses and invade;

All the golden sentences, philosophical sentiments, stories and fables, including famous quotes, are from the heart. Once the invasion is successful, the effect will last long.

All the dry insights that teach people how to fish, including anxiety-mongering, are playing with the brain, which has the highest defense and is the most difficult to invade;

In a word, in terms of traffic distribution, it must be kidney>heart>brain, without exception. If you want to break through a person's defenses, using his or her body or heart is definitely a shortcut.

Marketing guru Kraut once proposed the "Positioning" theory which has swept the world. In essence, it is also an emotional hacker that bypasses the rational defense system and allows the distinctive brand image to directly invade the user's mind, forcing the user to make associations.

The directors of all Hollywood blockbusters are also emotional hackers. They will tickle your itch, satisfy your pleasure, and poke your tears. The 180 minutes are full of excitement, occasionally touching your heart, with non-stop special effects and fighting, and your blood rushing, making you unable to extricate yourself from watching the entire film.

Many Chinese film and television directors are negative examples, failed emotional hackers. They look for high-value popular stars to attract attention, forcibly arrange various emotional lines to attract the heart, and create stupid and brainless plots. This is a typical example of emotional hackers failing.

When it comes to the creation rules of financial short videos, we have to mention some of Bilibili’s popular videos and representative up-hosts.

4. What emotional hacking methods are used in the popular videos on Bilibili?

There are often popular videos produced by masters on Bilibili. What are the characteristics of these popular videos?

1. Going to the kidneys: sexy and interesting soundtracks, animated pictures, video materials and language narration;

2. Heartfelt: Very positive outlook on life, a clear attitude, and a lot of sentimental rhetoric such as parallelism and aphorisms, with brilliant writing and high level of sublimation;

3. Brainstorming: analysis of underlying logic, structure, and evolution trends, solid argumentation process and data basis;

The most typical one is "Hardcore Half-Buddha Immortal", which is not only prolific but also of extremely high quality. He used emoticons constantly throughout the whole process, the background music was pleasant, he kept talking nonsense, his whole state was very frank, and he ate very naturally. The analysis is simple and easy to understand, and tells you clearly what to believe and what not to believe. This is clearly a combination of "applying the kidneys", "applying the heart" and "applying the brain", a three-pronged approach to break through defenses. Few people could withstand this and they all surrendered by paying their coins.

Another characteristic of Banfo is that he frequently comes up with golden sentences and wonderful metaphors, making him a master of language. "Metaphor" is a typical expression that goes with the heart, while "golden sentences and jokes" are typical expressions that go with the heart, and the underlying logic and data of the industry are typical expressions that go with the brain. When all these means of expression are combined into one, a hit video for general audiences is born.

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I once talked with the co-founder of Bird Brother's Notes about the criteria for a good article. He proposed three points: "interesting and attractive", "reasonable", and "makes people slap their thighs and shout "Wow" after reading it". This standard is for evaluating articles and is also suitable for short videos. Now it seems that these three standards are actually "going with the heart", "going with the brain" and "going with the heart", which I call the emotional hacker triangle of content creation.

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It is said that the writing ability of the experts at Bilibili is very strong, but if they are not strong, how can they write a powerful article with three prongs? The writing of Banfo has been refined through thousands of times and is completely natural. This is due not only to his talent, but also to the fact that he turned text creation into a skill that he has honed over and over again, constantly honing it and finally mastering the art of "emotional hacking" to perfection.

5. Application of emotional hacking in the creation of financial short videos

Combining research and analysis with my own experience in short video creation, I have three typical applications of emotional hackers in financial short videos:

1. Polish the text and revise it at least three times.

The first draft should be written with your brain, like a scholar, with clear logic and solid arguments. It determines whether the video has valuable content and whether it brings value to users. The second draft should be heartfelt, target the emotional needs of the audience, create golden sentences and witty remarks, and pursue resonance and trust. The third draft should be exciting, full of laughter, anger, and scolding, with distinct personalities, making users feel as if they are in the story and having a great time.

I had the honor of working with two top domestic financial influencers. The first one was an institutional investment director, and the second one was a first-generation stock analyst. Their text creations are very representative. The characteristic of the first big V is that he pays great attention to the first draft. He will read a lot of research reports, market analysis, and market trends. He is also more attentive to the second and third drafts, but they are not as good as the first draft. The characteristic of the second big V is that he does not spend much energy on the first draft, but spends huge efforts on the second and third drafts. He has many golden sentences, likes to use poetic rhymes, has rich emotions, and has a sonorous and rhythmic voice, which is very contagious. Both of these big Vs have distinctive styles and have made outstanding achievements in the market.

There are also many failed cooperation cases, mainly involving professional analysts who only have the first draft and are completely unaware of, or cannot write, the second and third drafts. They appear to be professional and profound, but are actually boring and lengthy, and they blame the users for not knowing the goods.

This "three revisions" creative method is widely used, and the course instructors of "Get" basically do the same when creating audio courses.

2. IPs that appeal to the heart are easy to increase followers, IPs that appeal to the brain have high conversion rates, and IPs that appeal to the heart are good at breaking defenses and retaining users.

This is another conclusion I came to after working with various financial IPs.

The commercial monetization of financial short video IP may be securities account opening, investment advisory services, knowledge payment, insurance, financial management, physical objects, etc. The IP that goes after the kidneys increases its followers quickly in the early stages, but it is not accurate enough and its conversion efficiency is not high in the later stages. It looks beautiful. Although the popularity of IPs increases slowly in the early stages and their audience is narrow, they are relatively accurate, and have high subsequent conversion efficiency and retention quality. Whether it is an IP that appeals to the heart or the brain, if you want to gain user loyalty, you must learn the skills of "appealing to the heart".

Overall, financial expert-type internet celebrities have greater commercial value than general financial internet celebrities. The prerequisite is that financial experts should learn from pan-financial influencers how to "go with their heart" and "go with their heart" to improve their ability to break through defenses of emotional hackers.

3. Choose a short sentence with less than 10 words.

The titles of "brain-swiping" are like those of academic papers, which are accurate, rigorous, but stereotyped, such as "On the Impact of Addictive New Consumption on Generation Z". "Heartfelt" titles tend to convey feelings and emotions. Some people may feel involved, but many people will not, such as "Post-95 factory girl: I rely on low-alcohol fruit wine and electronic music to relax every night." The "kidney-dripping" headlines try to bypass the user's rational defenses and use traffic codes to induce the user's impulse to click. The most representative of these are shocking titles, such as "Addicted to consumption, hunting down young people!"

The above three techniques are all very practical. Let's use a case to illustrate. Take the short video "Global Screen Sweeping, Wall Street's Revenge" from the IP "Financial Lin Meimei" under the well-known financial MCN Chengyi as an example. The technique she used is a kind of kidney-stimulating technique that seems to be brain-stimulating. The 1 minute and 50 second video is like a storytelling. The first 15 seconds tells a strange story to attract users to continue listening. The middle 45 seconds quickly goes over the cause and effect. The last 30 seconds analyze the meaning and scold Wall Street gangsters. The last 20 seconds use the joke about a gambler having his arm dislocated to deepen the user's impression. The plot is grand and dramatic, with emotions downplayed, and the tone is decisive and slightly sarcastic, giving users a bird's-eye view of controlling everything, making the author appear cool and making users feel great. This is essentially a high-level form of sexual intercourse.

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Let’s take another example of a short video on a brokerage app. Some columns of "Individual Stock Encyclopedia" and "Planet-Academy" on the Fangdegang US Stock App are more in line with the requirements of emotional hackers. Both types of videos are aimed at novice users, so the requirements for "fun and attractiveness" are as high as "substantial content". For example, before starting a futures course, there will be a short situational story, which is a step-by-step guide to prevent users from giving up too early. For example, for well-known listed companies such as "Tencent" and "Ali", their individual stock video introductions are completed in situational dialogues rather than boring lectures.

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6. Conclusion: Storytelling is the key to emotional hacking

Emotional hackers always use "physical" tactics to attract users to complete "contact", use "heartfelt" genuine attitude to break through psychological defenses, and use "brain-based" analysis to integrate users' inherent ideas, ultimately bringing resonance to users and prompting copying and dissemination.

The smallest unit of an emotional hacker is actually a complete story: bizarre plot, novel expression (touching the heart) + real and rich emotions (touching the heart) + revealed truth (touching the brain).

The gullible brain is always unable to resist a good story, and every excellent short video creator must be like a film director, using emotional hacking techniques that touch the heart, the brain, and the soul to tell one fresh story after another.

Author: Ji Qianjiang

Source: Zhang Kanshan