How to create a hit short video? What new ways to play?

Nowadays, short videos have become a new trend that people are competing for. Every entrant is ambitious and always ready to fight a beautiful content war on the cusp of the trend. However, it is not so easy to make a profit in the short video field, because whether it is the full network distribution of short videos or the creation of popular products, there are many skills and routines that need to be mastered one by one. One Frame Research Institute has compiled the super-dry stuff shared by Sun Junmin, the operations director of Canned Video, in the "Required Course for Short Video Lovers", hoping to provide some different perspectives and ideas for everyone's short video distribution across the entire network and the creation of popular products.

1. There are eight platforms for distributing short videos across the entire network. Have you chosen the right one?

I divided online short video platforms into eight major categories, the first four of which are more important.

The first is the self-media platform . We know that when you publish a short video content, Party A will ask you how many followers you have and how many interactions you have. In my opinion, self-media is the most convenient for everyone to interact. We know that other platforms may not have more space for users to communicate, but on Weibo and WeChat, you can directly send private messages and interact with your users. Of course, this also includes QQ official accounts and QQ spaces. Most of the users on these platforms are young people. If your content tends to be targeted at people born after 1990, you can delve deeper into these two platforms.

The second is the traditional short video platform . For example, Miaopai, Meipai, and Xigua Video are all traditional content platforms. On these platforms, I suggest that you create more vertical content. For example, if you are creating food-related content, then I suggest you create baking or cocktails related to food. More niche content will get better traffic.

The third one is the video website . Our short video content, when published on video websites, is actually competing for traffic with all its copyrighted content. As far as I know, when we are connecting with all the platforms, they are willing to cooperate with us first-hand and create some content with us that is more sophisticated than traditional short videos, because only this kind of content is worth watching on such platforms. First of all, they can provide a lot of users, and secondly, they can also provide us with a lot of revenue sharing, so I recommend that you make more refined videos on video websites.

The fourth one is the hottest one now, which we define as a short video platform . Platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou do not have such high requirements for the quality of shooting. They are more focused on promoting UGC content. We believe that the video clicks on such platforms will be far better than the results obtained from our refined columns. So if you think you are an interesting soul or your content is very unique, I suggest you get some traffic through this kind of short video.

The fifth one is comprehensive information . Like NetEase, Toutiao, etc., as long as your content is hot enough, you can easily get exposure on such platforms. For people like us who are in the lifestyle field, such as food and fashion, your volume will be limited on such platforms. But it doesn’t mean that you don’t have to do it, because if your content is sophisticated enough, it will get some recommendations.

The sixth is vertical APP . This aspect is actually ignored by many practitioners. You have to know that when we make short videos, in the end it is not about how much content you produce or whether you shoot 1,500 videos. In my opinion, the value of these videos is far less than the value of our users. Only users can pay us and realize cash for me. The APP has helped us screen a round of users. The users I get on platforms like Dayi Ma are definitely female users. These platforms actually provide a good way for us practitioners to get our target users directly from the platform.

The seventh is Internet TV . In fact, the Internet TV platform is a place worth entering, whether we are doing some PR promotion or deepening our brand.

The eighth is the e-commerce platform . In fact, whether it is Taobao or JD.com, e-commerce platforms are increasingly entering the short video market, especially Taobao short videos. It operates as a large business group, and our content can be monetized directly.

I strongly recommend that some of our accounts enter the e-commerce platform. If your content is related to purchasing something, such as food-related and some pots and pans, these things can actually get a good amount of playback in the Taobao short video system. Including platforms like JD.com, it will more often act as a platform to connect us with advertisers, saving us the pressure of commercialization and allowing the platform to directly help us monetize short videos.

In addition to online and offline platforms, allowing users to see you offline is the most important part of building a short video brand. The offline channels covered by our canned videos, including airplanes and subways, will play the high-quality content we have selected for them. Many users have sent us private messages saying that they have seen our content on these platforms, channels, and even in buildings.

After looking at so many platforms, not all content needs to be uploaded. I suggest that you choose a few key operating platforms according to your own characteristics. Through these key operating platforms, you can actually obtain enough traffic and accumulate enough users.

2. What qualities should an excellent short video operator have?

The first point is the user's perception ability . The things you take pictures must not simply be things I like, but things that are useful to users. However, users' fragmented time is not unlimited. As far as I know, the size of the entire network organization is about 30,000+, and there are more than 30,000 short video organizations producing these contents at the same time. Whether your content can compete for users' time actually depends on whether your content can solve users' pain points. This is actually the most basic requirement for our operators.

The second is content creation capabilities . We know that if you want to monetize short videos, the easiest way is native advertising. Advertisers will have many requirements for the content of our videos, such as whether your creativity is outstanding enough and whether you can fully integrate the characteristics of my product into your video. These are the basic requirements for our entire short video creative team. Whether we can meet the customer's requirements is something we need to consider.

The third point is actually the ability to operate users . After we have accumulated a certain number of users, these users can create value for us. For example, I want to organize an interactive event. Can you help me develop this event? Can you help me plan this event and organize customers to participate? If you don’t have a certain amount of user accumulation, you can’t do these things. Therefore, the ability to operate users is actually relatively important and advanced.

The fourth point is public aesthetics , which is easier to understand. Whether the pictures you choose are good, whether the texts you choose are good, and whether your cover picture is attractive, this is the most basic requirement.

3. Popular short videos all have routines. Do you know these characteristics?

We summarized some videos with more than 20 million views on the Internet and found the following four common points:

The first thing is whether your content is life-oriented enough . Is your content visible to users in their daily lives and not detached from them? The closer the content is to life, the more views it will get.

The second thing is whether the user engagement is high and whether I have left space for interaction with users in my videos. For most new media platforms, 80% of their traffic may come from the so-called long-tail traffic, that is, the traffic generated by the secondary dissemination of fans. For example, the content we create is forwarded by a certain account, or the content we create is tried out by a fan, who then shares it on his own new media platform, thus forming a secondary dissemination for us. This kind of exposure is actually what new media platforms like Weibo can provide us, rather than simply seeing how many fans you have.

The third point is IP going abroad . This is actually a pit we fell into before. We used to make lifestyle content and found a problem, which is to make a dish and then tell everyone that it is easy to make and you can make it at home with what you need, and that’s it.

This situation was fine last year and the year before, but it is not possible this year because more and more short video teams are participating in it. How can you stand out from the crowd? Your video planning is one aspect, and the other is whether you have an independent IP and your own internet celebrity. If you have it, you can create your own differentiation and avoid some new accounts copying you. Our feeling in operation is that you can make many people like you, but this is not important. You need more specific people to love you, and then they will pay for you. This is actually one of the key points of our IP outbound development.

The last point is to trigger media forwarding . As far as I know, the forwarding of these big media is very important to our MCN agency. We know that if the People's Daily with a 50 million account forwards your content, it is equivalent to directly increasing the exposure by 50 million.

I don’t know if you have noticed that the price of fans has been getting higher and higher since this year. That’s why we keep covering more platforms and want to accumulate users. We find that the cost of users is no longer the same as before. Therefore, how to produce more content that big media accounts are willing to forward is particularly important at this stage.

4. Short Video User Operation Logic

When we do user operations, we must first understand who your users are? We are also cooperating with the Yifang platform. We have many channels, and each channel has accumulated fans. Whether the portraits of these fans are the same, the Yifang platform can help us solve it.

Now that you have your own program and have distributed it, how do you get the first batch of users?

1. Four simple forms to get the first batch of users

The first point is to utilize existing accounts . If you also have an account in the same category, you should ask this account to help promote it. This will be very helpful for us to accumulate the first batch of fans.

The second point is to use the circle of acquaintances for promotion . After we create content, we post it to the circle of friends first. We use our circle of acquaintances and our own connections to accumulate users, so that the accuracy will be better.

The third point is to attract offline users to online . According to my observation, in the short video industry, there are not many opportunities for bottom accounts this year. If you are not affiliated with an MCN organization, you will face not only platform docking, but also many problems of commercial monetization.

I can share with you some examples. For example, some of the institutions we signed contracts with this year were originally offline training institutions with their own content. Now they want to expand their user base so they shoot short videos and then attract these users to their Taobao stores. Including some of the masters we have signed, they may be tea ceremony masters themselves, have their own classes, and have their own fans. I think one of the things that makes them promising in making short videos is that, first of all, you don’t have too much pressure to survive, and you have specialized fields. Many of them are attracting offline users online, and eventually accumulated the first batch of users.

The fourth point is to take advantage of the platform's activities . If the platform has some activities, for example, it is now the World Cup, there are actually two platforms in the country that have the World Cup copyright, in addition to the traditional CCTV-5 we mentioned, one is Migu, and the other is Youku. Only these two companies have the copyright to the World Cup. If corresponding short video content is produced on these platforms, these contents will naturally gain more traffic on the platforms, and some will even be supported by real money.

2. How to activate the first batch of users?

Now more and more third-party platforms can check how many real fans there are and how many fake fans there are, so once you have users, user activation is very important.

First of all, there must be targeted messages . Simply put, the platform will provide us with products such as private messages, comments, and replies, including many algorithm platforms. There is also an upgrade in permissions for the replies to your comments and the number of targeted messages you publish. You may not be able to see this score on the front desk, but in fact, the more you interact with users, the better your algorithm platform will be. Moreover, targeted messages can also make users feel that you are communicating with them as a friend, and that you are a person, not a column.

The second thing is to set the topic for discussion . The worst thing about making short videos is that people will just leave after watching them, without leaving any impression. What if users don’t know who you are?

We know that if you have a segment at the end of the video where you interact with everyone and have everyone participate in an activity, it will definitely be completely different from simply outputting content. You will find that your users are no longer just viewers of your content, but have become creators of your content. At the end of our canned videos, we will post discussions related to the video content. The user discussions you initiated yourself will be the greatest spiritual encouragement and support to them after they participate.

The third is regular activities , which is a relatively high-cost thing, at least much higher than the cost of pictures and texts. But what if my production ability is not very strong and I only have a small team? When I cannot realize it, I can actually do some activities that match me and encourage users to participate in the interaction of your program. What we are doing is also inviting our users to participate, so that more users know that they can interact in this way.

The fourth point is the sedimentation of the fan base . What we do is that we directly sediment to the official public account. One official WeChat account can add more than 5,000 people. We can post a circle of friends for these 5,000 people and organize them into fan groups of different categories, including QQ groups. These fans can actually achieve a purpose for us, allowing our program team, our IP, and our operations editors to be the first to receive user feedback and answer user questions.

Finally, I would like to share three suggestions with you:

• First of all, your channel is equal to your exposure, but the more is definitely not the better. When you decide to use a channel like Toutiao or Douyin, you need to understand the fan portrait of the platform.
• Secondly, a hit product is not actually luck. We can copy it, and the success rate of such copying is not low.
• Finally, content entrepreneurship is a long and arduous process. Only users can accumulate value for you, and only they can become the transmitters of your word of mouth.