Weibo hot search was shut down for a week, resulting in a loss of tens of millions. Revealing the industrial chain behind Weibo hot search!

At 9:30 p.m. on January 27, Weibo shut down the “hot search” function.

The Weibo administrator simultaneously issued an announcement:

#Weibo Community Announcement# On January 27, the Beijing Internet Information Office issued an announcement to report the content management problems on the Weibo platform. Weibo accepted all the criticisms in the announcement, corrected its attitude, faced the problems, and proactively took offline the hot search list, hot topic list, Weibo Q&A function, popular Weibo list celebrity and emotional sections, and the emotional section of the Square Headlines column for one week for comprehensive rectification. We are fully aware that as the largest social media platform in China, Weibo should have higher value standards and greater responsibilities. Based on a deep understanding of the notifications from the competent authorities, Weibo will conduct in-depth self-inspection and self-correction, strictly implement rectification measures, and ensure that they are implemented in place. Increase cooperation with formal media and improve the quality of content services. Increase technology and human resources investment, improve the management level of illegal and harmful information, and maintain the order of information dissemination and a good ecology in cyberspace. Weibo will live up to the trust and expectations of netizens and the general public, and will create a healthier and clearer online environment for the majority of users.

Do you still remember the much-talked-about Ziguangge gutter oil incident ? PGONE's hip-hop songs contained many vulgar and indecent lyrics, which were criticized by official media such as Zigongge. His "smart" little fans lost their composure and thought that Zigongge was the name of a restaurant. They hired a water army company to buy the hot search "Zigongge gutter oil" to discredit Zigongge, but they ended up making a fool of themselves.

It is still unclear whether the closure of hot searches on Weibo is related to the Zigongge gutter oil incident, but the problems behind the Weibo black industry reflected by this incident do need to be dealt with properly. Just imagine that the water army companies even dare to get involved in the negative aspects of the official media. So how many news items have been exposed to the public in this way by people with ulterior motives? We don’t know, but being on the hot search means huge click traffic . In other words, these water army companies control the direction of public opinion in another way . This is a terrible thing.

After a week of closure of Weibo hot searches, Mr. Wang roughly estimated that the direct advertising losses were in the tens of millions . Moreover, based on the popularity of Weibo hot search ads, 80 % of the ads in these days had already confirmed their advertisers. As a result, the negative impact caused by the sudden closure was indeed quite severe.

However, some false speculations are also affecting everyone's judgment. For example, many media have reprinted articles about "Weibo hot search being shut down for 6 days resulting in a loss of 600 million yuan." Such speculations are groundless and exaggerate the impact of this incident on Weibo.

Today, I would like to take the example of celebrities who are highly concerned by everyone participating in hot searches, and share with you all the trivial things about hot searches, to help you open your eyes and look at these so-called hot events in an ideal way. Generally speaking, there are two ways to get on the trending search:

1. Official advertising on Weibo

Currently, Weibo officially accepts advertising placements from companies and celebrity agencies on the hot search list. There are two placement positions. One is the third position on the popular search list, which is followed by the word "Recommended" in blue font. When you click on the relevant topic and enter the page, there are the words "Advertisement". The following is an example of a screenshot I took. This kind of offer could be purchased for 160,000 before 2017. Now it is generally sold out, with five rotations a day, starting at 10 a.m. on the day and ending at 10 a.m. the next day. But the price has skyrocketed since 2017. You know how powerful the traffic of Zhalang is. Now the price at this position starts at at least 360,000.

I believe many people have seen the above, but there is actually a slightly more hidden type of advertisement, which is the fifth on the hot search list. Sometimes it is actually an official advertisement. When you click on it, you will reach a page similar to the one above with the word "advertisement" written on it, but this form does not have the word "recommended". The delivery cycle is generally one week, and the price is definitely over one million.

Here is the quotation sheet of Zhalang (Q4 2017) for your reference (the actual execution price is generally 40% off).

The advantage of official placement is that it is very stable, ensuring that you remain on the third or fifth place on the hot search list for 24 hours a day. You will not lose orders easily, and you will definitely be on the list as long as you pay. Unless it is a special promotional day such as Double Eleven , you can be on the list at any time. The disadvantage is that it is expensive. It is often used in the entertainment industry for movie promotions, TV series releases, celebrity concert ticket sales, and singers releasing new albums. It is a relatively obvious advertisement, and many deep Weibo users generally do not actively click on it.

It is important to point out here that this advertising revenue is the official revenue of Weibo from hot searches. From the above description, you can know that the advertising loss in 6 days is probably only in the tens of millions, and there is no loss of 600 million in 6 days as described by netizens.

Many brands like to place advertisements here. According to my experience, if there are celebrities participating in the activities, the hot search words here must include the celebrity's name. In this way, the click-through rate will increase a lot. After all, topics related to Weibo will be easier to attract everyone's attention.

2. Online trolls

First of all, let me give you some background information. The water army business for the hot search list has actually only emerged in the last two years. This is mainly because the number of user visits to the hot search list has been too high recently, overshadowing the topic list that everyone was concerned about before. The cost of brushing the topic list is lower, and generally the top five rankings can be done for less than 5,000 yuan. Because of the low cost, many celebrities previously had fans who helped them get on the topic list, and there were even situations where water army companies competed with each other for the topic list.

However, it is more difficult to brush the hot search list, so the price has also risen. Therefore, there are still fans who are willing to brush the list for celebrities, and almost all of them are true fans, hahaha.

First, let me share with you the quotes for the hot search list (the following is the latest quote from a certain water army team):

Hot searches: Top 3 50,000, Top 5 45,000, Top 10 40,000, Top 20 35,000, Top 30 30,000, Top 40 25,000, Top 50 20,000. Charges are based on the highest ranking during the period on the list. Normally, the list will stay on the list for three to four hours. We do not guarantee how long it will stay on the list. There is a fee if you are in the top 50, but no fee if you are not on the list. Entertainment topics such as celebrities, movies and TV shows are easier to become trending topics on Weibo, but commercial topics are more difficult to manipulate. Generally, a big V needs to post the topic first, and then use a bunch of small accounts to hype it up and get it on the trending search list. This way the success rate will be higher.

From the above description, we can see that in order to get a topic on the hot search list, two factors are generally needed to be on the safe side: the promotion of some small entertainment accounts + the manipulation of the Internet water army . This is why you will find that after clicking on many hot search topics, you can see the shadow of entertainment bloggers’ revelations.

However, Weibo cannot make any money from this part of the income, so Weibo officials are trying various means to crack down on these water army companies who are manipulating the rankings. They have been changing the rules of hot searches to fight against the water army companies. However, the devil is always one step ahead of the saint, and the water army market is still rampant, especially for hot search terms in the entertainment category. Generally, once they are on the hot search, they will trigger a large number of real users to click, which will increase the weight of the hot search terms all at once.

PG ONE fans were exposed to have bought the hot search "Zigongge gutter oil" on Weibo. They spent the money mentioned above and found a few small accounts to post it. Then they mobilized fans to click on the topic frantically. This would increase the weight of the corresponding topic and ensure that it would remain on the hot search list for a longer time.

Generally speaking, many celebrities use this kind of tricks in secret, and there are two uses for it:

The first type is to hype themselves up. We often see many celebrity topics that are obviously not very attractive, but they are on the hot search list. Almost all of them are to hype themselves or their new albums or new movies. Most of the 18th-tier celebrities get on the hot search list in this way. Many celebrity brokerage companies have been cooperating with water army public relations companies for many years. The prices can sometimes be a little lower than the above quotations, after all, they are old customers, haha.

The second type is to make new content appear on the hot search in order to dilute a certain hot negative . For example, in the incident involving pgone and Li Xiaolu, Wang Sicong was bought and sent to the hot search in this way (according to Mr.'s observation, Wang Sicong has been implicated many times. Basically, as long as it is not a scandal, Wang Sicong is sent to the hot search because he is blamed).

I would like to say one more thing here. Sometimes you find that Zhalang will also make a magical move, but you can't figure out the rules of Zhalang. Let me tell you two situations in which Zhalang makes a move:

1. The agency sent a notice letter with evidence. If the agency can prove that the incident in which the star was involved was indeed a false rumor, and stamp it with a copy and send it to Zhalang, Zhalang will remove the relevant negative hot searches after verification to reduce the impact of the rumor;

2. The social impact was bad and the Cyberspace Administration of China took action. If the negative impact on society is really too great, in order to prevent the incident from getting worse, the Cyberspace Administration of China will sometimes take action and ask Zhalang to cooperate in suppressing the negative information related to the artist. For example, in the Xue Zhiqian incident, it was said that it was because of the warning from above, otherwise this kind of mutual disclosure without middlemen making a profit from the price difference might not have stopped until now.

In fact, if you think about it carefully, the water army is not omnipotent. There are only these tricks, and there are no more. Although the price of using water army to manipulate the rankings is cheaper, it is unstable. If the public is not interested in the topic, it may sink quickly, and the water army company cannot guarantee how long the hot search will remain.

The end of the year is approaching, and now that the hot searches on Weibo have been shut down, it is equivalent to giving the internet trolls a week’s New Year holiday in advance. The internet trolls can go home and celebrate the New Year with peace of mind.

Finally, I hope everyone can open their eyes and not be deceived by these common tricks on Weibo, which affect their judgment of hot events. If you have any questions related to Weibo hot searches, please leave a message for consultation.

The author of this article @Mr. Virus compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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