From the perspective of influencer monetization, let’s talk about the three main monetization models: advertising, rewards, and e-commerce.

As a user product, short videos have unified the demands of multiple parties: users enjoy wonderful content, influencers gain massive fans, and platforms can take further steps in product data such as daily and monthly activity and online time.

This is why it has become popular again this year. After the live streaming bubble burst, 2017 became a year of fierce competition among major short video platforms.

However, as a commercial product, neither the short video platform itself nor the influencers on the platform seem to have figured out a clear and stable commercial monetization model.

The "Short Video Expert Development Trend Report" recently released by Meipai shows that female users account for 76% of the platform, and users in first- and second-tier cities account for more than 60%. Based on its 160 million monthly active users, it still proves its potential in brand, content and business as a UGC community product.

However, I noticed another trend in the report: the more vertically segmented the content is, the easier it is for the influencer to monetize it.

For example, teaching and recommending cosmetics, evaluating and guiding cars (especially used cars ), movie reviews and secondary processing, etc. Since the fans of these influencers are precise enough, as long as they have enough influence themselves, KA sponsors with large budgets are often more willing to find such influencers and start a series of cooperation with them around the brand.

Although their absolute number of fans is not as high as that of general entertainment talents, talents in vertical fields may even have higher incomes.

I have previously talked about the breakthrough points of major short video platforms and the real purpose behind making short videos. Today, I will talk about the three main monetization models of advertising, rewards and e-commerce from the perspective of influencer monetization.

1. Take the advertising yourself? Business sales ability is as important as content planning ability

The content planning ability of short video influencers is generally unquestionable. Most of them have gained a massive fan base because they can continuously produce a certain type of content that fans like to watch and do a good job in interaction.

But, can this guarantee income every minute? No.

If you want to earn good advertising revenue, the influencer’s commercial sales ability and content planning ability are equally important.

Yesterday I saw an article by Teacher Xiaoma Song titled "Why I don't take advertising anymore? ”, with deep emotion, excerpts are as follows:

"And for this 100,000 yuan turnover, I have to receive more than 10 quotes and inquiries on whether to post ads on QQ every day, even though my quotes are clearly written in the automatic reply of the official account. They are like they are afraid of being blackmailed for prostitution. Even if the madam has already quoted a price, they still insist that the girl herself tell them the price before the prostitution. You see, it is really difficult to do business seriously nowadays. As for the ads that they want to post, they are also varied, but what is certain is that 80% of them are brands that I don't like, so I just reject them directly. "

Mr. Xiaoma Song, who has been in the advertising industry for many years, has encountered such embarrassment, not to mention many short video experts who are just starting out and have little experience in "taking on jobs."

When it comes to content production, these people may indeed have some skills, but when it comes to commercial monetization, there are still many pitfalls they need to step into.

Except for top influencers like Papi Jiang , who are able to take on KA-level customized advertisements after independent financing and setting up studios, most influencers have a very hard time earning advertising income.

In fact, from the perspective of product form, short videos are very suitable for soft advertising implantation. Because in video products, not only is there a lot of room for operation and many implantation points, but the presentation form is also much richer than pictures, texts and audios.

For example, perhaps in response to the difficulties faced by influencers in monetizing advertising, Meipai launched the M Plan, which is to match transactions between influencers and advertisers from the perspective of a platform.

This kind of matchmaking can not only solve the difficulties that influencers face in monetizing their advertisements, but also meet the demands of advertisers in finding high-quality and accurate influencers. On the one hand, Meipai helps influencers find suitable advertisers to take orders, and improves advertising plans based on the situation to make up for their shortcomings in business sales capabilities. On the other hand, advertisers can use the data advantages of the Meipai platform to more easily find the right influencers, develop advertising plans suitable for publishing on the Meipai platform, and track real-time data effects.

2. The reward function has become a standard feature, but the effects vary greatly from one company to another

Nowadays, almost all short video platforms have a standard reward function, but the effects vary.

Because the core motivation of users to give rewards can always be traced back to the psychological level.

Without referring to specific data, we can see three phenomena from a macro perspective:

1. The reward function of WeChat public accounts has been opened for a long time, but it is far from enough to support authors with even a hundred thousand or more.
2. In ecosystems like YY and Kuaishou , tipping can become the mainstream model, and YY is more profitable than Kuaishou.
3. In Momo’s live broadcast, the efficiency of monetization of rewards is also stronger than that of its short videos.

From this we can draw the following three conclusions:

1. Users don’t reward simply for quality content, but rather reward for the feeling of interacting with others.
2. In terms of reward efficiency: live broadcast > short video > pictures and text;
3. Users in lower-tier cities are more motivated to give rewards than users in higher-tier cities.

It can be seen that live streaming is the most efficient place for the reward monetization model, but as a commercial product, live streaming does not directly help the volume of users and content. Therefore, since last year, live streaming has gradually become a supplement to short video products on many platforms.

At the same time, unlike Kuaishou and YY, products like Meipai and Yingke , whose user groups are mainly women in first- and second-tier cities, have good revenue growth from tips, but the overall scale is still far behind those of products mainly in lower-tier cities, and influencers generally cannot support themselves through tips.

3. Joining MCN is the best way

On most platforms, if influencers want to monetize, whether it is traffic acquisition, content positioning, or commercial sales, it is almost impossible for one person to do it alone.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to fight alone. If you are a top leader, there is nothing wrong with setting up your own studio. But for most mid- and low-level talents, joining an MCN agency becomes a rational choice.

The MCN model is actually quite popular on Youtube abroad. Each MCN company is like an Internet celebrity company, helping single video creators and providing one-stop services from content planning and positioning, brand packaging and promotion , traffic content distribution , and investment attraction. Of course, MCN companies will also get a share of the influencers’ advertising and e-commerce revenue.

There are many examples before, so I won’t list them all. The recently popular Office Xiao Ye was incubated by Onion MCN. According to Meipai's February original list, it has surpassed Papi Jiang to become the first.

Ono is the first IP launched by Onion MCN. It is reported that Ono’s colleague, “Office Works”, the second product of Onion MCN, will be launched for testing in the near future. Next, Ono’s boss, Ono’s clients, and Ono’s other colleagues may also be included.

Magic TV from Xinpianchang, Papitube created by Papi Jiang, and Meipai's self-entertainment company, these MCN organizations have gradually been able to streamline the processes of scriptwriting, creativity, shooting, editing, etc., and have established their own content industry systems.

The industrial assembly line of content production means that MCN has the ability to provide strong support to influencers who want to enter the short video industry and their peers who have reached a bottleneck in their development.

4. E-commerce monetization needs to work with the platform

Selling goods is the ultimate pursuit of many influencers, no matter they are Weibo celebrities, Meipai influencers or Kuaishou influencers.

There used to be a very popular celebrity on Kuaishou called @手砖小伟, who became famous through his fitness videos at construction sites. Many people thought that his content was good but his job was too low-level and he might be poor for the rest of his life. In fact, some people have already achieved financial freedom by relying on WeChat business to purchase parallel-imported sports shoes.

An article revealed that the celebrities on Kuaishou basically make a lot of money through micro-business, and their main products are counterfeit and parallel imported goods. In the long run, such a model is completely out of the control of the platform, and there are also legal and ethical risks, which does not benefit the platform at all.

At the same time, scenes like the one shown below are also common in major short video products. Compared with original high-quality content, although there will indeed be fans willing to pay for it, the damage to the overall content atmosphere of the platform is inevitable.

In the early days, Weibo had also blocked Taobao ’s diversion links. How could the influencers who had been supported with great difficulty leave such a profitable part of e-commerce outside the platform? This is unacceptable in any way. Whether it is traffic charging, supply chain cooperation or revenue sharing, platforms must make good use of the advantages of native influencers.

For influencers with more than 100,000 fans on the platform, Meipai provides them with the ability to buy while watching. While users are watching short videos, they can place orders based on the products recommended by the influencers. In this way, combined with Meitu 's Meipu and other products, a Meipai influencer can complete the entire chain from content production, fan acquisition, community interaction to the final product ordering.

However, in the past, TV shopping and long video websites such as Youku have already had the function of buying while watching around large screens such as TVs and PCs, but the effects have mostly been very poor.

But I think that the watch-and-buy feature of short video products, combined with the characteristics of fragmented consumption in the mobile era, may have the opportunity to become a new explosion point. Because this form is more like commercial advertisements in the information flow (rather than banner advertisements inherited from the PC era), it can completely achieve a balance between user experience and commercial interests.

Why did the watch-and-buy features in the past mostly not work well?

First of all, previous watch-and-buy models were all attempts in the long video field, such as TV series and movies. Similar to the reason why interstitial ads are not effective, users’ attention has already been immersed in the content of these videos that are at least 30 minutes long, and they are naturally quite averse to the ads placed next to them.

Another reason is that we usually go to video websites such as Youku and iQiyi to watch a popular TV series, such as Ode to Joy 2 . Therefore, users at this time all have clear goals. When we open short video products, we usually don’t have a clear purpose. It is more like when we scroll through Weibo or Moments . We don’t expect to see anything specific, we just want to hang out and kill time.

Therefore, when it comes to product placement in short video content, because the video content itself does not bring such a high level of "immersion" to users, and users are more likely to accept new things on such platforms, users will not be so disgusted by some hard advertising placements at this time. If the influencers can also combine the video content and product attributes well, the order conversion rate can be increased accordingly.

5. Are large-scale platform subsidies useful?

Looking at the subsidy issue in isolation actually makes no sense. Who doesn’t like money?

The good thing about the short video platforms compared to the taxi wars is that they often provide subsidies of billions of yuan, but these subsidies have not yet been used on C-end users. For example, if you watch a certain number of videos every day, you will be given some money (which is quite scary to think about). Whether it is Yingke or Huoshan Video , the subsidies are mainly targeted at the B-side of content production.

Then we have to see whether the B-side on your platform originally produced content for money and platform resources before the subsidies?

I think for most platforms, no.

For example, Momo’s content production is for social interaction , Kuaishou is for recording and sharing one’s life (it’s not illegal), and Meipai is for editing and compiling a better MV.

Only one type of subsidy is useful, that is, the B-side on the platform is of the nature of a PGC union, such as YY. Since they have already established an organization, they are here for the money. I will go to the platform of whoever gives more money. It's that simple.

However, the platform has weak control over such B-side platforms. They move from one place to another after each shot, and cannot create solid content, so in the end, most of them will not have a particularly ideal result.

Influencers should also rationally choose platforms that match the tone of their content, and avoid sacrificing greater possibilities for the sake of a little profit. Subsidies can help some people reduce their worries when they are hesitating about whether to become a full-time short video content producer from a part-time job, but they still have to rely on themselves for the rest of the journey.

6. Future: Experts in vertical segments are closer to money

In the future, I believe that most people who are interested in creating short video content must occupy a certain vertical segment. This is not only a prerequisite for survival, but also a necessary condition for monetization.

Reese, the founder of positioning theory, once said: "The customer's mind is the battlefield. You need to occupy a valuable position for your product in the customer's mind."

In other words, when a vertical content field is mentioned, whether it is a user or an advertiser, the first thing that comes to mind is your content, then this thing is a success.

From the perspective of content production, only by operating in specific vertical segments can we ensure continuous content output, such as beauty, fashion, cars, etc., so that there will be a steady supply of materials and the video presentation will be more vivid and specific.

From the perspective of fan acquisition, as long as the content is vertical enough, users have completed the screening of target users when watching, and the demand for related products is very natural. Among them, some reviews that include shopping guide recommendations may have better effects and be one step closer to making money.

If 2016 was the year when pan-entertainment content occupied the minds of more short video users, then in 2017, in-depth exploration of different vertical segments will be the main theme of the short video industry.

In fact, the transformation of the short video industry from general entertainment to vertical segmentation is very similar to the development of other content forms. For example, in the form of pictures and texts, from the earliest pan-entertainment-oriented selections of cold jokes and the army of joke tellers, to the current emergence of a group of influential self-media in almost every vertical field.

With the growth of content supply and the maturity of distribution technology, the massive influx of vertical short video players is an foreseeable trend.

In fact, Office Ono’s short videos are vertically segmented content. It makes a single breakthrough from the office scenes of white-collar workers, conducts secondary creation and dissemination of daily scene content happening to white-collar workers, and produces humorous and funny content to gain more fans and traffic.

Regional attributes and dialects are actually a form of vertical segmentation. The cat of Meipai expert @nG attracted attention on Meipai as a "cat lover". Eventually, it became a real hit thanks to its "bilingual skills" of switching between Mandarin and Wuhan dialect at any time. Its interesting, funny and highly personal creative style is deeply loved by fans.

Faced with the trend of vertical development, short video content that digs deeply into a certain industry field will always have more opportunities to attract fans and generate revenue.

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising

This article was compiled and published by @刘胖胖(Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting! Site Map