How Brand Blue V Operates Bilibili from Mixue Bingcheng

"You love me, I love you, Mixue Ice City is sweet~"

Recently, this theme song of Mixue Bingcheng with its simple lyrics and cheerful melody has become popular on the Internet. The original song "Oh! Susanna" is a country folk song from the United States. It was once popular all over the world, but now it has become synonymous with Mixue Bingcheng.

How popular is this theme song? From being uploaded to Bilibili on June 3 to now, of the two official versions of the video, the Chinese version has received 3.768 million views, and the Chinese-English bilingual version has received 10.698 million views, as of press time.

There are nearly 4,000 derivative works based on the official theme song, as found through FeiGua data (Bilibili version). Among them, more than 30 derivative works such as the Soviet version, Japanese version, and Peking Opera version have been played more than 1 million times, and there are countless other works with over 100,000 views.

It can be said that as long as the content released is related to Mixue Bingcheng, it can easily exceed 100,000. From being popular all over Bilibili to being a carnival for the entire network, Bilibili has once again become the outbreak site for Internet memes. From the fan-made "are you ok" to the official ghost video "Dingding, Dingding, begging for mercy online"; from China Unicom's official home dance to "Miss Snow Ice City Sweet Honey", from folk memes to the endless official activities, more and more brands have begun to pay attention to Bilibili and integrate into Bilibili.

1. Analysis of B Station’s brand blue V number

The Q1 2021 financial report released by Bilibili shows that the current monthly active users (MAU) have reached 223 million, an increase of 20 million from Q4 2020, a year-on-year increase of 30%, and daily users (DAU) have reached 60.1 million, a year-on-year increase of 18%. While the number of users maintains high growth, they also maintain high activity and engagement. The financial report shows that the average daily usage time of users is 82 minutes.

As Chen Rui, chairman of Bilibili, said, under the wave of videoization, we will firmly grasp the huge growth opportunities in the pan-video industry, and further expand our brand influence among Generation Z and become their preferred video community. As the largest youth cultural community in China, for brands, joining Bilibili and entering Generation Z means seizing the next 10 years. There are quite a few brand Blue Vs on Bilibili at present. By searching for brand-related results on Feigua Data (Bilibili version), it can be seen that there are more than 10,000 brand Blue Vs.

However, joining Bilibili does not mean integrating into Bilibili. As brands flock to Bilibili, many problems have also arisen. Many well-known brands have very few fans on Bilibili. For example, in the medical and health industry, a brand with more than 2,000 fans can rank in the top 5 among the industry's Blue V brands.

There are only 700 brand Blue V accounts with more than 100,000 followers. If we exclude some official accounts of Bilibili and institutional accounts of government media, there may be very few real corporate Blue V accounts left.

Most of the videos produced with great effort by brand Blue Vs may only get a few hundred or a thousand views in the end; despite diligently updating content, their number of fans has yet to exceed ten thousand; and even the lucky draws they initiate do not have many users participating. Through FeiGua data (Bilibili version), we can see that there are currently 9,556 brand Blue Vs with more than 5,000 fans, accounting for the majority of brand Blue Vs.

With no views and no fans, blue Vs from brands big and small were given the title of "the worst official". This is not only a true reflection of the operational difficulties of Bilibili , but also a kind of recognition of the brand by Bilibili users. On the one hand, as Bilibili breaks through its circle time and time again and becomes more and more influential among Generation Z, it has become an important battlefield for brand marketing.

On the other hand, most brand Blue Vs are powerless on Bilibili. They are unable to integrate into the tone and atmosphere of Bilibili users and find it difficult to seize the new generation of market. How to operate Bilibili's brand account well has also become a concern for various brands in their new media operations.

2. How to use B Station with Blue V

The most effective and quickest way is to make a hit video, but hits are hard to come by. Even the communication effect of Mixue Bingcheng's "bloodbath" at Bilibili exceeded the expectations of H&H, the marketing promoter behind the scenes.

If you only want to rely on hot-selling products to gain attention, it is undoubtedly a fantasy. Even if you happen to have one or two hot-selling products, they may be popular for a while, but they will not be popular forever. Only solid operational skills can make the brand account last long on Bilibili. Behind every excellent brand Blue V are actually basic operational skills. After observing many brand Blue Vs on Bilibili, the author summarized three replicable operational ideas, so that operators of each brand Blue V no longer have to worry about performance pressure and allow the brand to take off smoothly on Bilibili.

1. Fantastic collaboration, double chefs’ delight

All walks of life are engaging in brand collaborations, such as the Palace Museum and Cabbeen jointly launching national trend clothing, and collaborating with Harper's Bazaar to launch lipstick. Collaboration between brands can often create a marketing effect where 1+1 is greater than 2. The co-creation function of Bilibili has the same effect. By contributing content with popular or mature UP hosts, or actively interacting with popular videos, it is a way to help brand Blue Vs quickly gain exposure in a short period of time.

Case 1丨Fanta’s joint contribution.

Fanta should be the brand with the most co-submissions with other UP hosts. Among the 50 videos it released, 39 of them were co-submissions with other UP hosts in the form of sponsorship, and the proportion of cooperative videos was as high as 78%.

For brands, this is an excellent way to quickly increase followers and exposure when they first join Bilibili. Among the 20 video contents released by Fanta in the early days, the first 10 were in the form of joint submissions, with a cumulative playback volume of 6.364 million and an average playback volume of 636,000. For brand Blue Vs who have just entered Bilibili, the results can be said to be gratifying. By cooperating with mature UP hosts, brands and Blue V accounts can quickly gain exposure, which is a two-birds-with-one-stone approach for brands that already have the intention to invest in UP hosts.

Case 2: Tencent’s “I am the silly penguin who ate fake chili sauce”.

The incident originated from June 30 to July 1, 2020, when Tencent sued Lao Gan Ma for arrears of advertising fees. Later, the police found out that three people forged documents to defraud Tencent. After the police issued the notice, Tencent Blue V on Bilibili posted a self-deprecating post titled "I am the silly penguin who ate fake chili sauce" at 20:29 on July 1, which quickly became popular on Bilibili.

At the same time, Blue Vs from various brands came out in droves and started mocking Tencent in the comment section under the video, taking the opportunity to promote their own products. Some even launched lucky draws, which can be said to be a great way to make their presence felt.

Scenes like this are not uncommon. For example, in the comment section of the recently popular video "【CMB Exclusive】 ❤ Challenge the Sweetest Secretary Dance on the Internet ❤", blue Vs from many brands including China Unicom, Gillette, Midea, and Polaroid also appeared.

The comment culture of Bilibili has always been good, producing classic comment memes such as "Master Ball", "Find It", and "It's Too Heavy". For brands that want to quickly start as Blue Vs, commenting on popular videos is simple to operate and can also gain exposure and traffic, which is undoubtedly a necessary skill. The above two are ways to quickly gain exposure and traffic. Traffic alone is far from enough. Converting traffic into existing fans and users is the main purpose of brand Blue V operations.

2. Integrate into Bilibili and communicate in the language of young people

What is the culture of Bilibili? Is it a two-dimensional anime? Is it a ghost? Is it a game? Or home dance? These are all part of Bilibili’s culture, but Bilibili’s culture is far from limited to this.

If you want to quickly understand the culture of Bilibili, the fastest way is to search for "Must-see videos before entering the site" on Bilibili. This list includes the 85 most distinctive videos on Bilibili from 2009 to the present, covering animation, ghost videos, games, science, dance, music, film and television and other fields. "Must-watch before joining Bilibili" is a list of videos produced by the official editor based on video quality and influence. It is also a guide for new users to quickly understand and integrate into Bilibili.

Integrating into Bilibili is a necessary process for operating a brand Blue V. Unlike other social platforms, Bilibili has its own unique community atmosphere. Most of the time, the popular trends within Bilibili are significantly different from those on other social platforms. For example, the "Mi Xue Bing Cheng Theme Song" mentioned at the beginning of the article and its various versions are the unique popular trends within the site, which were then spread outside the site. All of the Blue Vs, who operate brands well, have integrated into the B station culture, grasped the direction of B station, and communicated with fans in the language of young people.

Case 3丨DingTalk’s official video.

A sudden outbreak of the new coronavirus in 2020 interrupted our familiar lifestyle. Due to the impact of the epidemic, various companies began to work from home, and schools delayed the start of the school year and chose online classes. During this period, the number of downloads and user numbers of online office apps soared significantly. Among them, DingTalk was the leader, and it topped the App Store free app rankings many times.

As a mature intelligent mobile office software, DingTalk's original intention is to help companies improve communication and management efficiency. However, for students, the management methods that people in the workplace are accustomed to are not so humane. Along with the influx of a large number of new users into DingTalk, there is also a large amount of dissatisfaction among these new users. This dissatisfaction spread to various platforms such as Weibo, QQ Space, and app store comment sections. At one point, DingTalk's rating in various app stores was only one star.

Opportunities and risks coexist, and the other side of risk is also opportunity. With insight into users' emotions, DingTalk released a ghost song "Dingding, the real Ding, begging for mercy online" on Bilibili in a very short period of time. By combining it with young culture to show weakness, DingTalk's reputation quickly turned around and it became popular on Bilibili. As of press time, this video, released on February 16, 2020, has been played 28.912 million times and received 1.884 million likes. At the same time, the number of followers of DingTalk's Bilibili account has exceeded 1.2 million.

As DingTalk became popular on Bilibili, Alibaba's new media matrix quickly linked up with DingTalk, and both achieved good exposure and playback numbers. For example, Alipay released “It’s time to go to work! It’s time to go to work!” on February 21, 2020. You can see DingTalk now". This account only released 8 videos, and the number of views for each video was only tens of thousands. However, thanks to the popularity of DingTalk, it achieved 400,000 views.

Another example is Alibaba, which has been operating Bilibili since 2017. The number of views of its early channels was around thousands. It also took advantage of the popularity of DingTalk and released "Guess Who I Am: Confrontation with DingTalk's Father and Son" on February 22, 2020, which easily received 2.85 million views.

Afterwards, Alibaba's new media matrix was like opening up the Ren and Du meridians. Through various ghost videos and official linkage methods, it stood out among the blue V brands on Bilibili and prospered.

Case 4丨China Unicom’s official home dance

Dance has always been a feature of Bilibili and is also one of the sections with the highest traffic on Bilibili. So who is the No. 1 official dancer of Bilibili? Of course it is China Unicom! China Unicom can be said to be the first brand Blue V to debut on Bilibili with a dance video. As early as 2019, China Unicom danced in dance videos such as New Treasure Island, Pure Land of Bliss, and Shoulder Dance. In 2020, it participated in the bilibili Home Dance Competition and became the only brand Blue V to advance to the semi-finals. In China Unicom's channel, sorted by playback volume, almost all of the top-ranked videos are home dance videos.

Through the statistics of FeiGua Data (Bilibili version), it can be seen that not only are most videos related to dance, but fans are also quite recognized of the official home dance. In the four factors of playback, collection, comment and sharing, dance ranks first.

China Unicom did not fully understand the operational ideas of the Blue V brand from the beginning. Early videos were mostly situational dialogues, imitating the conversations between Unicom customer service and users, showcasing Unicom's brand and services.

Although it tried really hard, the content did not suit the preferences of B station users, so the early videos were not very popular. It was not until the release of "New Treasure Island" and "Shaking Shoulder Dance" that China Unicom began its journey to take off. It can be said that China Unicom has successfully unlocked the wealth code of Bilibili with its official home dance, and has been on the hot list of Bilibili time and time again, and the number of fans is also increasing rapidly. After other brand Blue Vs moved in, they began to imitate China Unicom's operating methods and used home dance to start the road to increasing fans on Bilibili. For example, Blue Vs of brands such as China Merchants Bank, China Telecom, and Pinduoduo have achieved good results through home dance videos.

Therefore, in the video comments of the Blue V dances of various brands on Bilibili, you can see "Thanks China Unicom" from time to time. For example, in the secretary dance of China Merchants Bank, we can see through Feigua Data (Bilibili version) that the most frequently used words are "Thanks" and "China Unicom". It can be said that China Unicom has single-handedly made the brand Blue V become the official version.

Whether it is DingTalk's ghost videos or China Unicom's home dance, the fundamental reason why they can be widely spread on Bilibili is that they use the language of young people to communicate. Only by truly integrating into young people can they gain the love and recognition of young users.

3. Be simple and unpretentious, starting from the needs of users

The fundamental logic of operating any new media platform is the same, which is to solve the problem of "why should users follow us". After entering Bilibili, some brands simply publish corporate advertisements and promotional videos, resulting in dismal playback volume and very few fans. The reason behind the failure of account operation is the lack of motivation to attract users' attention. Users will only follow an account for two reasons. One is that it is interesting , such as the DingTalk and China Unicom mentioned above. The official is good at making things happen and can bring a refreshing experience to fans, so they can get a lot of attention.

The other is useful , starting from the user's needs, helping users solve the problems they encounter. There are many such brand Blue Vs on Bilibili. They don’t have well-known IPs and don’t know how to do anything special. Their content is plain and simple, but they start from the needs of users. doyoudo is an online learning platform in the field of design. It is also the Blue V brand with the largest number of fans in the education and training category on Bilibili. It has 1.92 million fans, has uploaded 403 videos, and has a cumulative playback volume of 39.796 million.

Dark Horse Programmer, a high-end IT education brand under Chuanzhi Education, is the IT training institution with the largest number of fans on Bilibili, with 1.03 million fans, 434 uploaded videos, and a cumulative playback volume of 41.594 million.

Orange Doctor is a Blue V brand focusing on professional medical popularization. It has 296,000 fans on Bilibili, has uploaded 679 videos, and has a cumulative playback volume of 42.122 million.

In addition, there is the primary and secondary school education brand Blue V Lele Classroom with 970,000 fans, the painting training brand Blue V Qingwei Class with 507,000 fans, and so on. There are countless educational and popular science brands like Blue V on Bilibili. As a learning platform that has been praised by official media, most of Bilibili's users are students, who have a strong demand for exam training and skill learning. Educational and popular science brands have a natural fit with Bilibili. These brand Blue Vs start from user needs and continuously output high-quality content , thus standing out on Bilibili and gaining recognition and love from users.

The operational ideas of meeting user needs can also be used as reference for brands in other fields. For example, beauty brands can launch makeup tutorials, Blue Vs for travel can create travel guides or popular science information about tourist attractions, and clothing brands can also teach how to dress. Such content can not only solve user needs, but also promote its own brand. As long as the update stability can be maintained, it is only a matter of time to gain user recognition.

Conclusion

The rise of Generation Z has made them the most important target user for all brands. As the largest youth community in China, Bilibili has strong user stickiness and huge commercial value, waiting to be explored by brands. It is not difficult to join Bilibili, but the difficult part is how to become a brand recognized by Bilibili users.

• In the short term, you can get a lot of exposure by interacting with other mature UP hosts, jointly contributing, interacting with popular videos, etc., thereby obtaining more traffic for your channel.
• If you want to operate the B station brand account well, the most important thing is to integrate into the user group and communicate in a young way. For example, posting videos of ghost animals, home dance, anime dubbing, etc., all of which rely on the popular culture within the site to get more attention for your videos.
• In addition to the whole activity, the simplest operational idea is to solve user needs and meet user needs through education and training, skill learning, popular science and the like, so as to achieve brand blue V growth.