What happened in the three years since Weibo went public? What has Weibo changed?

Weibo was officially listed in the United States on April 17, 2014. In the following year, the Weibo war among the four major portals was basically over. Sohu Weibo and Tencent Weibo ceased operations one after another, and NetEase directly shut down its Weibo function. In the end, only Sina Weibo was left in the four-nation chess game.

Despite this, due to the rise of WeChat , Weibo's listing was not favored by everyone. But surprisingly, three years later, Weibo rose against the trend and its market value surpassed Twitter, the originator of social media . So taking these three years as a node cycle, let us review what happened in the mobile Internet in these three years? And what has Weibo changed?

Social needs are upgrading, and Weibo keeps up with the changes in needs

Previously, all self-media outlets unanimously believed that WeChat would completely replace Weibo. But when we observe again three years later, we find that Weibo has not been replaced, but its Matthew effect as a social media has become even more obvious.

The entire mobile Internet has not remained unchanged in the past three years, especially in the social field. The upgrade of technical conditions has provided more ways for opinion leaders and fans to interact, such as short videos , live broadcasts , knowledge Q&A, knowledge payment , etc., which has created various opportunities and also led to the rise of various products such as Zhihu Live, Fenda , Duoduo , Kuaishou , Yingke , Momo, Faceu , etc. Of course, the biggest beneficiary is still Weibo.

Weibo has the largest number of opinion leaders and their fan relationships, so in theory Weibo can produce all content-related product functions. Weibo has firmly grasped every opportunity. Publishing tools such as long articles, videos and live broadcasts, and functions such as rewards, paid Q&A and paid reading have been launched at the right time, establishing deeper social relationships and thus building a moat.

This also means that Weibo has no rivals in social media, and can develop more businesses on this basis.

In addition, we are currently living in an era of fragmented reading, and Weibo itself is an information flow product. It has access to massive amounts of browsing data and relationship chain data from users, so it is only natural for it to enter the content distribution market and launch interest information flows. This business will also bring more room for valuation imagination for Weibo.

Video and live broadcast have become the mainstream of social networking

Three years ago, pictures and texts still dominated the world. However, with the maturity of mobile network technology and the popularization of smart phones, more and more users are keen to use videos and live broadcasts to express themselves, and fans are also more willing to watch videos, both at home and abroad.

In 2016, Facebook's average daily playback reached 100 million hours, and its vice president said that Facebook will become a pure video company in the next five years. Snap's market value soared to US$33 billion on the day of its listing. All of this shows that investors are optimistic about the future of short video social networking.

This is even more true in China, where Momo and Weibo have both become the biggest beneficiaries of short videos, with Weibo benefiting the most. According to CNNIC data, thanks to the establishment and continuous strengthening of the celebrity, internet celebrity and media content ecosystem, as well as the in-depth layout in short videos and mobile live streaming , user usage rate continued to rise to 37.1%, compared with 33.5% last year.

On the other hand, the success of Facebook and Snap shows one thing: if short videos and live broadcasts want to be successful, they must rely on open social platforms, which can accumulate high-quality fans for top Vs with high-quality content, thereby forming a virtuous circle. In China, only Weibo has this capability.

In addition, since live streaming is an exclusive resource, especially live streaming by the media and copyright agencies, it will monopolize users' attention within a fixed period of time. This gives Weibo an exclusive content advantage. For example, this year's cooperation with CCTV Spring Festival Gala and 315 Gala has made innovations in live broadcasts. The 315 Gala even created a petition room for interactive live broadcasts on social platforms and television. Through this cooperation, Weibo's live broadcast content is clearly differentiated from other platforms, which is also one of the keys to the recovery of user usage rate.

The big V pattern has been rewritten, and small and medium-sized vertical Vs have risen comprehensively

The big V landscape has changed considerably between three years ago and three years later. In its early days, Weibo was heavily dependent on celebrities and influencers, which was very helpful in rapidly increasing the user base in the early stages of the platform's development. However, as the user base grows, the content production capabilities of top celebrities and big Vs alone are obviously unable to meet user consumption needs. Therefore, supporting small and medium-sized Vs in vertical fields is a natural outcome.

After years of hard work, there are now more than 50 vertical fields open for operation on Weibo. Vertical fields dominated by small and medium-sized Vs have led to the formation of countless social networks on Weibo with interests as nodes. This also greatly reduces Weibo's dependence on celebrities and big Vs, forming a more stable social ecology .

In addition, the rise of small and medium-sized Vs also promotes Weibo's sinking strategy. According to the "2016 Weibo User Development Report", users in second- and third-tier cities account for half of Weibo's total users, and users in fourth-tier cities and below account for 30%. On the one hand, these users from low-tier cities have the potential to become small and medium-sized Vs that Weibo can cultivate. On the other hand, they are also important content consumers and paying users of small and medium-sized Vs.

Live streaming and short videos have also accelerated the growth of small and medium-sized Vs to a certain extent. Compared with in-depth long articles, short videos and live broadcasts have lowered the threshold for content production and provided more types of users with the opportunity to produce content. In 2016, the average daily playback volume of Weibo videos increased by 713% compared with the same period of the previous year. The activity of UGC short videos cannot be ignored, and there are many highly popular contents such as "Lanshou Xianggu" and "Ramen Brother". Although it cannot compare with PGC organizations in terms of content quality and sustainability, it also plays an important role in enriching Weibo's content ecology and relationship chain.

Product logic is replaced by platform ecosystem logic

Three years ago, the slogan of "product is king" and "single-point breakthrough" became the creed of the Internet. However, three years later, we rarely see products that only solve a certain need of users and can soar to fame and survive to this day. Instead, the ecological effect of the platform has shown an increasingly strong network effect.

Even those products that have succeeded by relying on a single breakthrough have to regard Weibo's platform ecosystem as orthodox today.

In a nutshell, no matter how different the platforms are from each other, all relationships revolve around the relationship between IP and fans. Platforms like Weibo can build an unbreakable moat around this relationship through algorithms, Q&A, payment, video, live broadcast and other forms of interaction, ultimately maximizing the value of IP, thereby allowing more IP and fans to stay there, forming a Matthew effect.

The success of the platform effect is directly reflected in Weibo's financial situation. Weibo's revenue has exploded since 2016. The total revenue for 2016 increased by 45% year-on-year to RMB 4.383 billion, and the net profit for the whole year increased by 180%. The profit margin in the fourth quarter reached 35%. As the platform effect continues to expand, its future profit margin is bound to be further improved.

Conclusion:

There is a common saying that goes "Thirty years in the east, thirty years in the west", which is used to reflect the unpredictable rise and fall of things. But in today's mobile Internet era, three years is enough to completely change the world.

It has been exactly three years since Weibo went public. The fact that it has been able to rise against the trend in just three years ultimately reflects the rapid changes in the entire mobile Internet.

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