Analysis of 4 major short videos including Bilibili, Kuaishou, and Douyin!

In the past few years, short videos have definitely been one of the hottest areas in the content industry. From relaxing the length to laying out more categories such as knowledge and plots, short video content is pointing in the direction of refined development. Under this trend, "stories" have become a powerful means to attract attention and enhance communication effects.

For readers, viewers or users, stories are not new, nor are they exclusive to writers and journalists. Instead, they are something that everyone tells and receives in daily communication and dissemination, and are closely connected to all content forms.

As one of the hottest leisure activities nowadays, short videos have also become a media form that frequently intersects with stories.

Short videos have become a "national leisure method"

Image source: CNNIC 48th Survey Report

Short videos are easy to watch, usually last no more than 5 minutes, and the stories have a well-structured structure and unique narrative characteristics. So, how do “stories” appear on different short video platforms? What are the characteristics of each?

This issue of Quanmeipai takes story-telling short videos as the research object, and gives an unofficial answer based on the research and analysis of short videos on various platforms over a period of time.

1. A brief analysis of short story videos on different platforms

1. Bilibili

As a video website that has seen rapid growth in the number of active users and UGC in the past two years, bilibili has a relatively rich video ecosystem and a younger user base.

The current sections of Bilibili include animation, music, ghost animal, life, entertainment, fashion, food, etc. In different fields, "stories" appear in rich forms, and the logic of stories runs through the community ecology, which is specifically manifested as follows:

The combination of stories and vertical channels (such as stories + knowledge, stories + ghost videos) is more diverse and in-depth, the story themes of the videos are more distinct, and the subject categories are richer.

Vlogs in the life area, secondary creations of various works, and even ghost videos can all appear in the form of a complete story.

Image source: Station B

Compared with the arousal of basic emotions, the interesting creativity and expression of story videos are stronger driving forces here.

At the same time, the community’s ecology (such as barrage culture) can also become part of the story.

Since there is no limit on the length of the video, the up-host has more choices in the structure of the story and the richness/completeness of the content, and the story here has a relatively higher extension.

Stories are a common perspective in popular videos

Image source: Bilibili’s 133rd weekly must-see excerpt

In addition, compared to the common plot videos (role-playing) on ​​short video platforms, the up-hosts of Bilibili generally appear in the stories with their own real status and identity, which gives the bloggers and fans a stronger stickiness.

Taking the videos on Bilibili’s “Must-see” list as an example, the majority of videos have story logic, the stories have distinct themes, and are uniquely developed based on Bilibili’s ecosystem.

For example, the representative of ghost videos, "Patrick Star's Monologue: A Story About Normal People" (with nearly 70 million views), uses the original animation materials to recreate a simple story, captures the most common emotions in the plot, and is well-loved.

Image source: Station B

Even for hardcore digital technology videos, up hosts like "Hello everyone, I am Mr. He" will still set up very prominent narrative arrangements in each video.

In addition, in the "Must-Watch Weekly" list, you can often see videos from new up-loaders on the list. These videos are immature in production, but usually have strong storytelling and appeal.

2. TikTok

As a platform that has long held the top spot in market share in the short video field, Douyin's story-based short videos have developed in a relatively rich and representative manner.

According to the observation of the rankings of hot topics, music, food, drama and other categories on the Douyin creation service platform, story-telling videos can be seen everywhere on the platform. They are not only tied to hot topics and categories, but also develop a more complete model:

On the one hand, "stories" as a form of expression are often combined with videos of other vertical categories (such as stories + food, stories + travel, stories + entertainment) to achieve good communication effects.

Stories may not be a fixed way for creators to present videos, but they have become a common hook.

Fang Qi Kiki (11.507 million followers), a Douyin certified high-quality video creator, often uses storytelling perspectives in her travel videos

Image source: TikTok

On the other hand, "story" is the main means of expression for many short videos. A series of videos are made in the form of stories. By creating specific characters (real identities or virtual roles), a story is told in different videos in the form of "fixed roles + scenes + plots". Drama videos and short dramas produced on a larger scale and in an industrialized manner are representative examples.

The top 1 on the most popular Douyin short drama list is "Confessions of a Villain", which is a typical campus sweet pet type

Image source: TikTok

From the specific story expression:

For real events, the expression of popular stories is concentrated on the narratives of official agencies/media accounts, and mostly appears in the form of news videos. This part of the video usually has the structure of "subtitles + news scene + commentary" .

Image source: TikTok

For stories that do not really happen/are not arranged, plot-oriented creation is the main focus.

These videos are mostly focused on the life/emotional areas, choosing universal topics with low viewing thresholds (such as family affairs/workplace life/emotions between men and women) to achieve a sensational or curious effect. The stories in this type of video are usually simple and clear, with a strong sense of life. Combined with the proximity of the vertical screen and suitable music, it fits the viewing and dissemination scenarios of short videos.

In topics such as “reversal”, “short drama”, “serial”, “romance”, “short film” and “love”, story-telling videos appear frequently.

Taking the participation of the top 50 topics on Douyin's hot list at 11:00 am on October 12 as an example, government accounts became the main participants in 40% of the topics. These topics are usually specific news events, so story videos from news media/official agencies are also popular under the topics. Drama-related accounts also dominate 10% of the topics, which are dominated by emotions and daily life.

3. Kuaishou

On Kuaishou, another leading short video platform, story-based videos are increasingly becoming the choice of many creators. Kuaishou’s recommended channels include fashion, local life, emotions, small theaters, etc.

Based on observations of videos in various modules and popular lists, storytelling is also the explicit/implicit narrative preference of many works on the Kuaishou platform.

First of all, news and drama videos are still the most common types of videos that use the story mode. They respectively follow the real/fictional story templates, and emotional topics are still the main focus.

At the same time, the combination of stories and other vertical videos is still effective, which is typically reflected in content such as "stories + local life" and "stories + emotions". The stories have more rural and mountain backgrounds.

Agricultural creator @李菲儿【香蕉豆爸爸】combines vertical categories (agriculture) and storytelling

Image source: Kuaishou

As one of the short video platforms that invested in the short drama field early on, the short drama module on the Kuaishou platform has grown rapidly. In this field, stories abound. The "Small Theater" area brings together short plays of various themes, with sweet pet categories being the most popular, and campus, ancient style, magic, suspense and other genres are presented in a variety of ways.

Image source: Kuaishou

From the perspective of specific story presentation:

In terms of real stories, many creators from towns and rural areas on the platform have broken away from the rules of expression and created story narratives that have "grown wildly".

These works are usually a bit rough in production, but still have basic elements such as scenes and plots. At the same time, the coarse grain brings a fresh and sincere feeling, and the story can achieve unexpected effects.

In specially arranged story videos (including regular plots and short plays), the creative themes are still relatively concentrated, and emotional/life themes are easier to spread. In the "Drama" topic, there are 210,000 works and 72.55 billion views.

"This Male Lead Is a Bit Cold" is the first representative drama in Kuaishou's short drama ecosystem, with "high sweetness" running through the plot.

Image source: Kuaishou

At the same time, the forms of expression of video editing are more diverse. Not only reality drama videos, but also short story/drama videos in comic form, with duration ranging from 15 seconds to 5 minutes, and number of episodes ranging from dozens to thousands, with routines and anti-routines becoming common.

Concise dialogues, stereotyped characters, plot jumps and reversals, and a cover that features core plot text plus plot graphics are the usual forms.

Taking the short dramas that have grown and flourished on Kuaishou as an example, as of June 30 this year, there were more than 800 series of short dramas on the platform with a cumulative single-series viewing volume of over 100 million, some of which were exclusively incubated by the platform. This type of short drama has a fast pace, and the plot has ups and downs in almost every episode without any drag, and each episode ends abruptly at the climax, attracting the audience to watch continuously.

4. Weibo

Unlike the first three platforms which are primarily video-based, on Weibo, a social media platform, videos mainly appear as an important component to enrich and improve the community content ecosystem.

After the launch of Weibo Video Account service in July last year, the platform’s video ecosystem has entered a new stage of growth. Currently, Weibo Video Account has 19 sections including food, fashion and beauty, entertainment stars, variety shows, vlogs, etc.

Image source: "Weibo 2020 Video Account Development Report"

On Weibo, the presentation and dissemination of “story” videos also have prominent characteristics:

On the one hand, videos with “story” logical narrative are not very prominent on Weibo as a whole. Instead, they are concentrated in institutional videos (official government agencies and news media) under hot topics, as well as daily life videos (typically vlogs).

On the other hand, "stories" show a scattered side. From specific length and theme to video type and publisher, story-type works are scattered in different creative fields.

Considering the characteristics of Weibo with pan-life and pan-entertainment as the main content, the creations of celebrities and kols often account for a high proportion of popular videos. Among them, videos in the form of stories are relatively more widely disseminated, and vlogs released by entertainment stars are usually very popular. In comparison, bloggers in vertical fields have deeper explorations in the richness and extensibility of stories.

Due to the sharing nature of Weibo as a social media platform, many story videos with good dissemination effects are not originally uploaded by the creators, but are reposted from other types of works (such as variety shows, TV) and works from other platforms.

Image source: Weibo

Taking October 12 as an example, among the top 20 popular videos on the entire site (calculated based on comprehensive viewing and interaction data), there are relatively few videos that use a more obvious storytelling perspective. Most of them are various videos posted by bloggers who have great influence, such as food preparation processes, makeup, and shopping unboxing sharing.

2. Two major creative subjects of short video storytelling

After a brief analysis of the story-telling (short) videos on the representative platforms, let us change our perspective and make a simple division from the perspective of the creators, that is, the subject of the storytelling. Different types of narrators have their own unique ways of telling stories.

1. Mainstream institutions

The accounts that use mainstream institutions as their image to present stories are mainly various government accounts and news media, among which news media are the main ones.

For this type of subject, "storytelling" itself is an important part of their work. In the past, it was in the form of text, pictures and horizontal screen TV reports, but now more short videos are used.

At present, the characteristics of short videos of stories about this type of narrative subject are as follows:

As a path of media convergence, it is normal for media to "settle" on the platform and do story-telling video reports.

Among them, mainstream media such as People's Daily and Xinhua News Agency, as well as various local media and market-oriented media, have jointly built a multi-level and diversified story news short video reporting ecosystem. Mainstream media still have stronger credibility and appeal on the Internet, especially in leading discussions on hot topics.

Original short video expression is not a retelling of news pictures and texts or a split of TV news, but a creation that follows the rules of video expression. Generally speaking, the content of this type of story video is more lifelike, emphasizing the scene of the event and the core images, and is fast-paced and down-to-earth.

Typical elements such as eye-catching titles and text colors, core on-site images, voice and text commentary together constitute common short video news reports.

2. UGC creators

Outside of mainstream organizations, there are more creators who appear as UGC (of course, there may be MCN organizations behind them). Some of them are pure amateurs, while others are bloggers with more fans. For story videos of this type of creators, we divide them into two categories based on the images that commonly appear in the stories:

One is the blogger who appears in the story with his or her real-life image, that is, “as himself or herself”.

This combination of image and storytelling usually appears in lifestyle sharing, such as vlogs, or is combined with vertical fields such as food and beauty. The blogger's image comes from real life, so it is also more diverse.

In this type of video, "story" usually appears as an occasional form of expression in the work. The creators appear on the screen with their real identities, sharing their daily lives, and the videos become stories with characters, beginnings, developments, twists and turns, and causes and consequences.

In addition to the established core characters, this type of story video is less templated than a virtual original drama story, leaving bloggers with more room to write the story content and create the structure.

The second is the blogger who appears in the story as a fictional persona.

In this type of image expression, storytelling runs through the entire creation of the account content. The characters have settings, which in themselves are an invisible story background. The experiences of the characters in each video are another story. The common plot-oriented videos on video platforms and the short dramas that have been popular in the past two years are typical examples of this type. Of course, currently a large proportion of these creators are incubated by professional MCN agencies.

At present, the degree of templating of plot-oriented videos has reached a high level. Generally, 1 to 2 main fixed characters are set up first. One person will have strengthened label attributes (such as overbearing president/worker returning home/female protagonist), and the other two people can have a fixed relationship (sister and brother/husband and wife/mother and daughter). Then, in a single video, the production is carried out in a cycle through the form of "character + life scene + strong plot".

3. Narrative characteristics of short story videos

Although there are many types of story videos, each with its own characteristics, from the perspective of story narration, we can also see some commonalities from the following three aspects:

1. The text of the story

From the perspective of story elements, first of all, the setting of the subject of the event (i.e. people) is very important.

Limited by the length of short videos, screen and shooting resources, as well as fragmented and entertaining viewing scenarios and demands, the characters in such videos are difficult to become "complex" and are usually easy to accept and in line with the public's psychological expectations. Therefore, simple settings that fit real life are more effective.

After having the characters, the next step is to have a specific theme.

At present, life-oriented and emotional content is easier to spread. Drawing materials from life is a viable approach for both creators and viewers. Stories evoke emotions, and resonant emotions are more likely to prompt people to like, forward and collect them.

With a typical factual theme, in order to arouse emotions, we can borrow the "details determine the texture of the story" often mentioned in news story writing, and transfer this method to the short video text, considering what to say, what lens to use, and what clothes to wear, which is also partially applicable.

In addition, in short story videos with plots/short plays, "series" updates have become a common way of organizing texts. The series gives the theme continuity and to a certain extent bridges the drawbacks of the length of short videos, which is more conducive to type creation and enhancing connections with fans.

2. Story format

In the arrangement of the story, scenes lasting from a dozen seconds to several minutes have already revealed a variety of forms. A more common and effective approach is the typical "unexpected, but reasonable" form in O. Henry's novels, which is usually presented in the form of reversal/conflict. Reversals of identity, character, or gender are common in short story videos.

This form of stimulating the audience to watch through reversal also works at different time points. Short videos need to grab the audience's attention, so sometimes the climax is at the beginning and suspense is created at the end, attracting people to watch through the compact plot development.

In terms of plot structure editing, straightforward narration has a low adaptability in short video scenes. On the contrary, parallel, crossed, inverted or even repeated forms of different time and space scenes can highlight the contradictory themes of the story, speed up the rhythm and create an atmosphere.

In vertical screen videos, the different uses of long shots, medium shots and close-ups, and how to express character psychology and story metaphors all require the skill of diverse narratives.

3. The setting of the story

As an important content product and entertainment means in the new media era, behind short videos is the innovation of production, dissemination and consumption scenarios. "Scene" becomes more important.

In reality, the scenes of producing stories fall on more people, the scenes become richer, and the stories have more possibilities to unfold. The scenes of viewing and dissemination are mobile and fragmented, and the content must meet the needs of small screens, vertical screens and short-time scenes. When applied to story videos, it constitutes the various concrete characteristics we mentioned earlier.

However, starting from the scene, the exploration of story short videos cannot stop at the current features. What is left for every potential producer and consumer to think about is how to better combine stories and short videos to guide content consumption rather than simply cater to it.

It must be admitted that a large proportion of story videos now tend to fall into a rut in terms of text and structural narrative, and mass production is incorporated into the needs of pure commercial monetization.

In the long run, this will hinder the healthy development of the short video ecosystem. As short videos enter the stage of quality improvement, story videos cannot stop at the current level.

In essence, storytelling is a very basic skill, but it is also a profound art. The pursuit of lifelikeness and empathy with others does not conflict with the respect for visual recording and lens language.

Sometimes, the collision of short videos and stories has also inspired many classic works that touch people's hearts. Among these content fragments, stories are the key for people to open a video and understand a fragment of thought. There should be more videos like this.

Author: yuri

Source: All Media