A guide to creating automotive-related short video content!

Hou Wenliang, 43, never dreamed that his interest in browsing forums and reading posts when he was young would become his skill for making a living on Kuaishou.

About four years ago, Hou Wenliang transformed himself into "Second Brother" and began talking about and reviewing cars through short videos and live broadcasts on Kuaishou. The reason why he was confident that he could do it was, firstly, because of his seniority. He was born in the 1970s and was a veteran driver who had driven many cars. Secondly, because of his strong professionalism, he developed the habit of hanging out on forums and reading posts to learn when he was young, which made him a "civilian" automotive know-it-all.

When he first started live streaming, his wish was very simple. He just hoped to pass on his experience to more friends who want to buy a car, so as to reduce the difficulties and detours they might encounter when choosing and buying a car.

It was a somewhat "willful" attempt, but it established his status in the world of car commentary on Kuaishou. Today, @二哥评车说车 has 3.57 million followers on Kuaishou. On his homepage, we can see a series of introductions to his personal honors, including: head of Kuaishou’s largest MCN agency in the automotive category, Kuaishou’s top 100 anchors of the year, etc. Among them, the most dazzling one is the "first person to group buy new cars on short videos" on the headlines. It is understood that as of the end of 2020, Erge has sold nearly 3,000 cars on the Kuaishou platform. The outstanding results have also helped automobile manufacturers find a brand effect model on Kuaishou that combines exposure and e-commerce conversion. With the growth of its own IP, @二哥 also established an MCN of the same name, incubated and cultivated 55 car review anchors, and even established his own live broadcast base, with more than 70 million fans under his anchors.

▲ Screenshot of @二哥说车评车 homepage▲

In addition to @二哥, on Kuaishou’s car channel, KuaiShuoChe, which has 150 million daily active users, we see that there are more “二哥” with different positioning being born. Among them, there is @Niu Ge Shuo Che, who is from Guangzhou and focuses on serious car talk and review; there is the new force @Wan Che Hao Shifu who uses and plays with cars; there is also @Dake Shuo Che, who pioneered the funny car talk style on Kuaishou. These native car creators with different backgrounds, qualifications and content creation styles have built a unique content landscape of "Kuai Shuo Che".

At the same time, the big Vs in the car circle that we are familiar with, such as @猴哥说车, @虎哥说车, @车哥测评, etc., also achieved good results in 2020. A typical example is @猴哥说车. According to Kas data statistics, his fans on Kuaishou have increased by more than 3.849 million in the past year; another example is @最终小腾, although not a native Kuaishou user, he found the first wave of iron fans on Kuaishou, which gave him more creative confidence and now regards Kuaishou as the most important content platform.

We saw the above creators in the annual list released by Kuaishou’s car channel - KuaiShouCar. It is understood that this list is calculated based on the platform contribution, industry influence, content and e-commerce data performance, and user preference of automobile creators. For example, for the creators, there are 9 sub-lists: Car Talker of the Year, Car Reviewer of the Year, High-Energy Creator, Definite New Force, Creative Dreamer, and Car Fan King.

Next, let’s take a look at the changes in Kuaishou’s automotive content creation with this list.

Insight: Five major upgrades to Kuaishou’s automotive content

01 Upgrade track: not only passenger cars, but also trucks, motorcycles, modified cars, etc.

In 2020, when taking stock of the Kuaishou car creators whose followers increased rapidly each month, Kas found two trends: First, the automotive content ecosystem has been further subdivided, from the common viewing, buying, learning, and using (cars) to all-round penetration into playing with cars, second-hand cars, etc., and compared with other platforms, the car-talking and car-reviewing content on Kuaishou is more down-to-earth and more in line with the actual car-buying preferences of old friends, and mainly focuses on explanations of mid- and low-end practical models; Second, in addition to automobiles, some long-tail tracks, such as trucks, RVs, motorcycles, modified cars, etc., have also seen the emergence of high-quality creators with rapid fan growth. Their appearance has given "old friends" with similar circle interests a stronger sense of belonging and increased their content consumption stickiness.

▲ From left to right: @匠派 (modified car), @傲寒機車 (motorcycle), @昕昕之火 (truck) ▲

Take the account @昕昕之火 (female truck driver) as an example. In the early days, Xinxin mainly accumulated a large number of fans by recording her truck life through videos. Since June last year, Xinxin ended her sports car career and started a driving school. The content also changed from daily sports car life to driving school life and sharing of driving test knowledge.

However, the "sudden change" of the content before and after and the monetization made by leveraging the private domain have not affected the love and trust of the old friends for @昕昕. According to Kas's observation, from October to December, the number of @昕昕's followers increased by 250,000, and her comment area was often consulted by old friends about applying for various types of driver's licenses. This also reflects the value of Kuaishou's "iron magnets": they will not be jealous of you living a better life, but will be happy that the "people" they like are right - because they can make money based on their real abilities.

02 Upgrading warmth: not only "cars", but also "stories" and "life"

In the past, car-related content gave us the impression of being professional and practical, but the content mixed with professional terms and data was also cold, which blocked the love of a wider range of users. It seemed that when it came to car content, it was exclusive to men. But by 2020, the situation has improved, which is not only due to the increase in female car owners and car buyers, but also thanks to the spontaneous content optimization of automobile creators, with @猴哥说车 being the most groundbreaking.

As a phenomenal account in 2020, our most obvious perception in the content of @猴哥说车 is that in addition to professionalism, story-telling content has been added. Some of these contents are fictional, such as the Lamborghini lady and MINI lady added in the video, all to enhance the entertainment value of the content; but some are based on real stories, such as accompanying college fans to buy used cars, and restoring the process of looking at cars, buying cars, and bargaining. These story-telling contents break the coldness of traditional car review content and give users warmth and empathy.

03 Upgraded interaction: not only linkage with the car circle, but also interaction with fans

It is very common for big Vs in the automotive industry to work together to produce content on Kuaishou’s automotive channel - KuaiShou Cars.

Taking @猴哥说车 as an example, in his video content, we often see a young lady, she is the motorcycle goddess @痞幼. In @痞幼’s interactive area, @猴哥 is also a hot topic. Such linkage not only gives professional content a "romantic" color, but also strengthens the interactive enthusiasm of the "melon-eating" crowd and accelerates the growth of fans of both accounts. According to Kas’s observation, in the past 90 days, the number of fans of @猴哥 and @痞幼 has increased to 1.276 million and 429,000 respectively, which are excellent examples in the Kuaishou creation group.

In addition to the collaboration between big Vs, car enthusiasts have also strengthened their interaction with fans. For example, @玩车豪大师 often accompanies fans in selecting and purchasing cars, while @正经说车 focuses on sharing stories about buying used cars. Of course, there are also accounts like @二哥说车评车, @牛哥说车, @大可说车, etc., which will choose the form of live broadcast to solve the problems of car selection and purchase for their friends and enhance their consumption stickiness.

▲ @牛哥说车 will start live broadcast anytime and anywhere▲

04 Upgraded topic: Not only luxury cars, but also "beauties"

As the saying goes, "beautiful women and luxury cars", in order to improve the watchability of content, the entry of women into the content creation track in 2020 is also a major feature. It is mainly reflected in two aspects: First, there is an increase in female professional car-talking, car-reviewing and car-playing creators, such as @痞幼, @汽车特技巧yoyo and @学好姐姐. They are beautiful, have good figures and temperament, and are more likely to win the love of target users; second, adding a high-value "assistant" persona in addition to the main character is also an effective way for the account to activate user interaction. A typical example is @二哥评车说车, which always has female assistants with different looks and figures in the video content, which undoubtedly gives users more interactive topics outside of talking about cars.

05 Upgrade highlights: not only "human fireworks", but also "bright stars"

In 2020, analyzing the car accounts with the fastest increase in followers, another important feature is that the creators have strengthened topic planning and increased the sharing of car life and car stories in addition to the regular car talk and review content.

Take the two accounts @说车小宇 and @最终小腾 as examples. In addition to professional car reviews, they have added curious content, taking users to check in and explore the "car life" that only "rich people" have, and bringing high fan growth by catering to users' curiosity; another example is @彭羽. Although the content still takes "car" as the core scene, it is no longer just to popularize automobile safety knowledge through plots, but also adds more emotional content and social topics to activate users' resonance and interaction.

Behind the creators' spontaneous content upgrades, we see that the content creation ecosystem of Kuaishou's automobile channel, KuaiShuoChe, which has been online for less than a year and a half, has become quite prosperous.

Data shows that as of August 2020, the number of car creators on Kuaishou reached 140,000, covering more than 550 million fans, with an average of 65,000 works per day, an average of 35,000 live broadcasts per day, and an average of 38 million live broadcast viewers per day. With "short video + live broadcast", car creators not only bring more comprehensive and professional car content to car enthusiasts, further stimulating their desire to buy, but also bring a new online traffic entrance for car companies to embrace the sinking market.

What is upgraded is not only the content, but also "love" and "responsibility"

There is not only content, but we also see more wonderful things happening on "Kuai Shuo Car". These beautiful things are about love, responsibility, and the iteration and innovation of marketing.

01 Help old friends defend their rights and protect them

In March 2020, "Kuai Shuo Che" launched the "Car Enthusiast" column, hoping to help car owners resolve complaints and rights protection issues, so as to connect car owners and car manufacturers and let them hear and see the voices from the real market. Because of this, "Lao Chang", who has hosted the "Auto 315" program of Anhui Radio and Television Station, a car rights protection program for 12 years, has become a "star enthusiast" on Kuaishou.

Every Tuesday to Friday at 11:00 noon, Lao Chang will appear in the live broadcast room and start a one-hour live broadcast simultaneously on Kuaishou and the radio. The complaints in the live broadcast room are collected from multiple channels such as telephone, WeChat public accounts, and Kuaishou. The program team will find 6-7 most educational cases as materials and broadcast them in the program.

▲ Screenshot of @汽车激情人-老常’s homepage▲

Data shows that since the launch of the "Automobile Enthusiasts" column, it has helped Kuaishou users solve hundreds of automobile complaints. In addition to Lao Chang, more "enthusiasts" have participated in the live broadcast, such as @车圈崔哥, @汽车小辣椒晓明, and @主机星宁, acting as a "bridge" to connect manufacturers and consumers and establish a direct communication channel.

Helping old friends to defend their rights is only one aspect, while “protecting old friends” is another.

In April 2020, after the Ministry of Public Security Traffic Management launched the "One Helmet and One Belt" campaign, KuaiShuoChe also actively responded and participated. Through short videos and live broadcasts, it linked up with traffic police and local radio stations across the country and launched a number of "Your Helmet, Come and Protect It" campaigns. Data shows that the entire event covered more than 100 cities across the country, and 6,666 sets of helmets were given away. Kuaishou accounts, including traffic police in 45 cities, launched nearly 200 charity live broadcasts in total, attracting more than 32 million users to watch. In addition, 71 car enthusiasts and radio hosts popularized road safety travel knowledge for users through short videos, guiding drivers and passengers to develop good protective habits, and the number of views generated exceeded 200 million.

02 Bring your friends to the exhibition to protect your brand

While practicing "love" and "responsibility", "Kuaishuoche" has also launched a large-scale "out-of-circle" campaign, frequently appearing at major domestic auto shows. On the one hand, by connecting with top car enthusiasts, it takes friends to visit the exhibition "online" through short videos, live broadcasts, and online interpretations; on the other hand, more car companies are beginning to embrace Kuaishou.

Among them, some have built their own dealer matrix on Kuaishou. With the help of KuaiShou’s technology, operational guidance and traffic empowerment, they have found new sales channels through “self-broadcasting”, with FAW-Volkswagen being the most representative. As of September 2020, FAW-Volkswagen has more than 1,700 gold medal salesmen from 4S stores who have started live broadcasts on Kuaishou to talk about and sell cars. Some sales staff, such as @涛哥说车 (FAW-Volkswagen) and @冰冰一发大众, have achieved monthly sales of more than 20 units.

▲ FAW-Volkswagen anchor matrix▲

Some came for Kuaishou's huge user base and traffic, and started to use fancy marketing on Kuaishou. According to Kass's observation, they usually have two goals:

First, to build momentum for the new car, a common practice is to invite top influencers on Kuaishou, such as @二哥说车评车, @虎哥说车, @牛哥说车, etc., to achieve both brand awareness and commercial conversion through the method of "live broadcast + small bell message + multiple gifts". For example, at the end of June, JAC Jiayue held a "cloud listing" press conference on Kuaishou, attracting 8,838 users to leave messages; second, for brand marketing, compared with the former, more emphasis is placed on the transparent transmission of brand influence, allowing friends to consume the brand after identifying with the brand. For example, during the Double 12 period, Xiaopeng Motors set up a "Pengyou Bureau" on Kuaishou, allowing viewers to intuitively understand Xiaopeng Motors' brand culture, high-quality services, product highlights, etc. through scenario-based live broadcasts.

According to the "2020 Kuaishou Automobile Industry Data Value Report" released by Kuaishou Magnetic Engine, judging from the age distribution of Kuaishou Automobile, people under the age of 40 who help buy cars account for more than 85%; and from the linear city distribution of users, they are mainly distributed in third-tier and below cities, accounting for 64.9%. This undoubtedly meets the needs of automobile manufacturers and can help them conquer the vast third and fourth-tier markets more quickly.

▲ Kuaishou Auto User Portrait▲

It is not difficult to see from the above that a vibrant and influential automotive vertical community is being "quickly built" on Kuaishou.

In this community, every friend can find the content they want to watch, follow their favorite anchors, and even buy their favorite cars through their favorite anchors; in this community, the top, shoulders, waist and tail creators are all growing. According to the "2020 Kuaishou Automotive Industry Data Value Report", from January to October 2020, the number of auto creators of all fan levels has increased, with high-follower accounts of more than 5 million growing the fastest, reaching 39.5%, followed by new auto creators with less than 100,000, accounting for 31.2%; in this community, brand manufacturers are also expected to find new development growth and establish a marketing closed loop from product exposure to store conversion by embracing short videos and live broadcasts in the special period when the growth rate of the passenger car market is slowing down and new car consumption is entering a downward channel.

Author: Kas Data

Source: Kas Data