A question for self-media people to ask themselves: Are your fans really your own fans?

Weibo held a "Super Celebrity Festival" in the middle of the year. New media celebrities, grassroots big Vs , and top internet celebrities who have emerged on Weibo all participated, including short video celebrities Papi Jiang and Office Xiao Ye; Taobao sales internet celebrities Zhang Dayi and Xue Li, as well as Weibo grassroots big-name memories special vests, constellation IP Tongdao Uncle , and big Vs in the mother and baby and travel categories.

Weibo is treating internet celebrities like big-name stars, even though Weibo is heavily dependent on celebrity effects. A wave of entertainment operations on major accounts recently caused Weibo's stock price to fall. This is completely different from the platform logic of WeChat official accounts , another major self-media base, which are more PGC content or inspirational stories.

Today, self-media is booming and is closely watched by users, investors , and the media. So has self-media become a celebrity? The confidence that enables self-media celebrities to challenge stars still comes from their fans. So what counts as a “fan”? What are self-media fans like?

1. The huge difference between celebrity fans and self-media fans

Fans first started with celebrities, and fan networking began on Weibo. Fans spontaneously like, repost and interact with celebrities' posts. If a celebrity is misunderstood, they will form a team to start a verbal fight. Every celebrity has a fan club on Weibo, and wherever celebrities go, there will be fans to greet them at the airport. The “true fans” of celebrities unconditionally love and follow the celebrities’ products. Even if the films are the worst, they can still have high box office. Li Yifeng, Lu Han , Jing Boran, Chen Weiting and others are called "PPT beasts" by iQiyi . As long as they appear in the production's PPT, they can get huge financing for filming, so their pay is high.

Fans place their emotions and joys and sorrows on their idols. Every generation has its own idols, such as Beyond and Andy Lau (revealing his age) for the 80s, Jay Chou for the 90s, and TFboys for the 00s. It is precisely because celebrities and fans gather on Weibo that Weibo was able to strike back with its Miaopao and Yizhibo programs . Other live streaming platforms invited Song Joong-ki last year and this year they replaced him with Kang Dong-won, and their appearance fees are astonishingly expensive!

Today, the meaning of "fans" in the context of self-media has completely changed.

In the public account scenario, some fans are motivated by cognitive needs. For example, Luo Zhenyu and Wu Xiaobo are knowledgeable, and Mimi Meng ’s value output gives fans mental certainty. On video platforms such as live streaming and short videos, fans of internet celebrities want to get to know a good-looking beauty or handsome guy or an interesting and funny person out of social needs , and chat with them to pass the time and entertain themselves.

If we use the personality charm of stars as the standard to measure whether they are fans, we will find that the love of self-media's "fans" for the objects they follow will be greatly reduced. Even if well-known self-media come out, it is difficult to make fans scream, cheer, wave, and shout. I'm sorry, most of the big Vs of public accounts and short video celebrities are almost "passersby" when walking on the street.

Advertisers who frequently advertise consumer products are well aware of the difference. They use celebrities as advertising spokespersons , asking them to call on fans to buy and enhance brand awareness and favorability, but they rarely invest in self-media, unless it is an unknown Chinese herbal weight loss product that cannot afford a celebrity endorsement. When they launch the product, they are also afraid that the product will become something on the same level as WeChat business. The public relations investment of self-media is generally for the purpose of building public opinion, and self-media is also very rational in using opinions to guide the so-called "fans"; in the eyes of advertising dads, self-media is just one of the many " traffic " channels that "covers a large number of people", and they use multiple self-media in turn.

2. The weak stickiness of “non-celebrity fans” makes self-media and companies very anxious!

When we can see self-media celebrities attending events, with fans holding up signs to welcome them, waving glow sticks, and even proactive security to maintain order on site, that will be the real self-media era! But this is still a dream. Every year, the Wemdia annual meeting is held, and so many top self-media attend, but I have never seen such a scene. On the contrary, fans of self-media are too quiet and too well-behaved, as polite as students meeting their teachers. "Teacher" is also the official name fans use to address their peers in self-media.

It is the huge gap between self-media and celebrities that makes self-media very "anxious"! Fans of public accounts come and go without a trace, and they are fickle and lack strong stickiness. Even if they follow them, they may not read the content, and they just read it for convenience. Getting fans to pay as early as possible and making money has become a consistent action of self-media.

Although Apple has disabled the appreciation function on WeChat , many self-media outlets still post QR codes, and live-streaming influencers never tire of asking fans to give out small gifts; they offer paid courses on Himalaya , plan speeches and charge admission fees, and set up paid small circle communities , etc. This is completely different from the mentality of many celebrities. Celebrities have advertising endorsements (charging the B-end), and copyright protection has caused their pay to continue to rise. Many celebrities often call on fans not to spend money on them. Wallace Huo once admitted that he rejected many endorsements in order to prevent fans from wasting money; Hu Ge comforted fans not to go to the airport to "visit the set" so as not to waste travel expenses. In fact, the self-media also wants this, these fans are not those fans.

If we judge by the standards of celebrity fans, not only are the readers and listeners of self-media not considered real fans, but most of them are WeChat users. It is even more difficult for many companies to convert consumers into "fans". The huge success of Xiaomi's fan marketing has attracted many companies, but they are always based on the cost-effectiveness of the product or the influence of the founder's success. Companies like Hammer fans, Huafen fans, etc. tend to be less competitive.

Compared with brand manufacturers, online shopping platforms have the worst user stickiness. Users will go wherever there are discounts. Annual promotions such as 618 and Double 11 are ultimately a competition of prices to regain the passion for consumption. Only by giving users "benefits" can the conversion rate be improved. Fans of Zhang Dayi, Xue Li and others have changed their previous way of buying clothes by looking at pictures on Taobao to becoming reality show next-door models. They are more down-to-earth than celebrities, but their fans are not "loyal".

3. You have to accept it. Self-media’s fan operations must learn from the entertainment industry!

In postmodern society, people's hero worship has changed from war heroes and political strongmen to movie stars , singers, etc. Program hosts who spend the whole day with celebrities, such as Hunan TV's Happy Family, also have tens of millions of fans. Relatively speaking, the number of fans of relatively niche and talented actors and actresses is slightly smaller, but it is by no means beyond the reach of self-media.

However, the cooperation between celebrities and self-media is becoming closer. Some celebrities are also taking advantage of new Internet media. Lin Yilun relies on Youku videos to promote Fan Ye hot sauce. Celebrities need self-media to be popular. "In the Name of People " became popular basically because of self-media comments, but Huang Xiaochu, who also does self-media, is not popular. " Midnight Diner " was full of complaints. When self-media must treat celebrity content and celebrities with "double standards", Axing has a friend who once wrote an article criticizing TYboys in a public account, and was scolded and "human flesh" attacked by fans behind the scenes.

The so-called "IPization" of self-media is essentially to allow users to generate star-chasing effects. Currently, the leading self-media have a tendency to become stars, but they are still far from the fan influence of first-line artists and idols. The author, A Xing, believes that there are lessons to be learned from celebrity marketing:

(1) In terms of “image” , stars are mainly discovered by scouts or packaged by companies, and talent is almost the decisive factor. During the talent show boom ten years ago, Li Yuchun made her debut in “Super Girl” and Jing Boran made his debut in “Go! "Man" and so on; another is from universities such as Beijing Film Academy, Central Academy of Drama, Shanghai Theatre Academy, Communication University of China, etc.; and then there are those who rely on excessive talent and style, such as Mayday, whose popularity may be only third-tier stars, but have loyal fans. People who are good at self-media often do not have amazing looks. The insufficient image of internet celebrities or self-media has led to medical beauty becoming the hottest traditional industry in recent years. When watching live broadcasts, you will see people with pointed faces. Most of them can only make up for their shortcomings through eloquence, writing skills, creativity and other hard work.

(2) In terms of “creating works” , celebrities who make a living by their looks must also have their own music, film and television works. Without these works, it is difficult to consolidate their popularity. Many commercial films have a specific tendency to promote celebrities. Even amateurs have to be chosen by big directors. The division of labor in the entertainment industry still depends on strong distribution channels. The long-tail effect of celebrity works is most obvious; just look at Leslie Cheung. What about the self-media works that rely on content to make a living? There are currently very few articles and videos that are still popular half a year later. This shows that although the self-media may be popular, the accumulation of works is far from enough.

(3) In terms of creating a sense of distance , celebrities usually wear masks when they go out, and security guards clear the way for them. They also guard against paparazzi, etc., in order to keep a distance from their fans. Huajiao Live invited Fan Bingbing to broadcast live, and Meipai invited Li Yuchun, but these were just symbolic appearances. The communication between celebrities and fans is ordinary, and every time fans have a sense of ritual, such as award ceremonies, press conferences, concerts, charity events, etc. The only distance between new media celebrities and their fans is that it is difficult to add them on WeChat, red envelopes need to be sent to ask for advice, and lectures need to be paid for. However, if content is not output frequently and exposed in the media more often, they will soon be forgotten. The author prefers that self-media should be "friends" with users rather than fans.

Conclusion

At the top of the Weibo pyramid are celebrities, including entertainment celebrities, entrepreneur celebrities, sports stars, etc.; the middle layer is top internet celebrities, grassroots big accounts, and vertical field IPs. They are very close to the celebrities, and their fans have a certain degree of loyalty, but there is still a gap with star-chasing fans, both in sincerity and scale; the bottom layer is the numerous self-media, live broadcast internet celebrities, etc. This is a clearly divided attention ecosystem. Mobile Internet has given ordinary people the opportunity to fight back with the help of the media. We should cherish this opportunity, see clearly where we are and reflect on ourselves: "Are our fans really our fans?"

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising

The author of this article @李星 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting! Site Map