The era of paid content: both a hot topic and a hidden crisis

Last year, a wave of paid content entrepreneurship swept across the field , and many competitors rose up one after another, launching star products in an attempt to compete with each other.

At the same time, with the popularization of mobile payments and the promotion of factors such as legalization, users are gradually developing the awareness and habit of paying for high-quality content.

In early 2016, Fenda emerged and became popular across the country in just two months. Zhihu followed closely and launched a paid product Live, starting to explore its own commercial value. Afterwards, products such as Himalaya FM, 36Kr, Huxiu, and Titanium Media launched paid content one after another, ready to get a piece of the pie in this trend. Recently, WeChat has frequently revealed news about paid subscription accounts, which also heralds the arrival of the paid era of public accounts.

All of the above indicate that high-quality content is becoming more and more recognized, people are beginning to respect knowledge and copyright more, and are willing to pay for excellent content. It seems that the second spring of content creators has arrived.

In addition to the diverse content fields on the Internet, TV variety shows are also flourishing, with cultural programs being popular on the screen.

At the end of 2016, the first episode of the letter reading program "Seeing Words as Faces" was launched. With its high-quality and sophisticated program production, it received 5 million hits . Netizens gave this "clear stream" a score of 9.0 on Douban, expressing their strong support.

"The Reader" produced by Dong Qing followed closely behind and immediately became a hot topic after it was broadcast. It continued to top the Weibo hot search list on the night of its premiere , and its Douban score was as high as 9.4 (currently 8.9).

These two "clear streams" have no dazzling stage packaging and no exciting and fierce competition system, but they have won countless praises with just a few letters and a book.

I believe that the return of this high-quality culture is a historical necessity. When people's minds are filled with entertainment information, they will naturally desire spiritual tranquility and simple culture. These high-quality cultural programs also came into being.

The above two trends indicate people's recognition and attention to high-quality content. This spiritual upgrade driven by consumption upgrade has made the trend of content payment stronger and stronger.

What kind of opportunities are there in this trend?

1. The wind is coming

Personally, I believe that in the tide of content payment, there are several hot spots, namely rich forms, high commercial value, platform diversity and industry norms.

1. Derive richer forms

If graphic and text content planted the seeds for new media, then short videos, live broadcasts, VR, audio and other content in recent years are the fruits of this seed.

In recent years, audio content has gradually become the mainstream content form, first with Fenda and Duoduo, and then with Himalaya FM and Zhihu Live. At the same time, Weibo also launched a paid question-and-answer platform. The forms of content presentation are becoming more and more diverse.

2. Obtain higher business value

In products such as Get, Zhihu Live, and Himalaya FM, users must pay to consume high-quality content. These contents can improve the efficiency of knowledge acquisition. Users gradually develop consumption habits in the cycle of payment - efficiency - satisfaction - payment again. This can not only encourage content producers to produce high-quality content, but also enable platforms to obtain greater commercial value.

3. More comprehensive platform coverage

In addition to content-based products, companies such as Taobao, JD.com, UC, and WiFi Master Key have also joined the melee. Content is no longer the exclusive domain of a few platforms, but is gradually spreading to e-commerce, tools and other products.

4. The industry is more standardized

As people develop the habit of paying, there will be more and more high-quality content, which will prompt content creators to continuously improve content production standards and catch up with the industry average. This will drive a virtuous cycle for the entire content industry.

2. Crisis: M-shaped structure of future content sector

Judging from the above phenomena, the content field is developing in a prosperous direction and has a bright future. However, don't be happy too soon. Perhaps the content industry will undergo a reshuffle and many content producers will face a survival crisis.

You may think that I am alarmist or that I am trying to attract attention, but all the signs at present indicate that this crisis has a high probability of affecting the industry landscape.

To make it easier for everyone to understand, I will introduce a concept here, namely the M-shaped structure of the content field .

This concept originated from the book "M-Type Society" written by Kenichi Ohmae.

1. What is an M-type structure?

Under the trend of globalization, the rich in the digital world are making money all over the world and their wealth is rising rapidly. On the other hand, with the redistribution of resources, the middle class has lost its competitiveness and has fallen to the lower-middle class. The wealth distribution of the entire society has suddenly had a big gap in the middle, like the shape of an "M". The whole world is divided into three parts, with more poor people on the left and more rich people on the right, but the middle part suddenly sank and then disappeared.

2. How to understand the M-shaped structure of the content area?

Comparing it with the concept of M-shaped society, the following will be easy to understand.

• Rich = Top Authors
• Traffic = money
• Middle class = ordinary authors
• Poor people = bottom authors

It can be further extended that in the Internet era, top content creators will be able to obtain more traffic, exposure, and wealth , while content creators in the middle will fall to the bottom. There will be a large gap in the middle of Internet traffic distribution, just like an "M"-shaped society. There are more ordinary content creators on the left and more high-quality authors on the right, but a gap has formed in the original middle part.

Isn’t it terrifying when you think about it?

3. How to deal with the crisis?

If the above inference is true, then according to the normal distribution, the authors of top content are very few, and most authors are right in the middle position. If the M-shaped structure really comes, the majority of people will be destroyed first.

And we are one of the majority of people. You put a lot of effort into writing an article, but the traffic will never be even one-tenth of that of the top authors. Users' time and attention are always controlled by the top 1% of authors, which also reflects the 20/80 principle.

So, as an ordinary content writer, can we just sit and wait for death? No, in response to this situation, I have briefly thought of several channels, mainly content quality, personalization and content + , for your reference:

1. Focus on improving content quality

Although this principle is a cliché, it may be a more reliable method. As more and more high-quality content becomes available, content creators will inevitably have to follow the trend, constantly polish their content, and improve the efficiency of users acquiring knowledge. Only in this way will users be willing to pay for you.

Although our traffic is not much, the product itself is the traffic. We don’t have many products, but we strive to make each one of them a top quality product.

2. Personalization is still the focus of content operations

The style and personality of each content producer are different. New media with personality and intimacy can capture the hearts of some fans and obtain stable long-tail traffic.

Personalization emphasizes being down-to-earth and mobilizing users' emotions. In this regard, Xin Shi Xiang is a case worthy of everyone's attention. Whether it is "Escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in 4 hours", "Don't go home for Mid-Autumn Festival", "Be the male lead in an idol drama for 1 hour" or "Book Throwing Campaign", they all reflect its insight into and control of the audience's emotions. Although Xin Shixiang is not as good as many big accounts in content output, every time it launches an activity, it can form a screen-sweeping trend in the circle of friends.

In addition, Uncle Qiuye and Cao Jiang are also representatives of personalized new media. Reading their public accounts is like chatting with a friend, which is extremely cordial.

Cold, dry goods are hard to impress people. What users need is warmth and hugs. Therefore, we should create content with the mentality of "falling in love with users".

3. Use content + products such as content e-commerce to intercept long-tail traffic

Using emotional content to integrate e-commerce is another viable approach.

Representatives in this regard include Wanwuzhi, Digital Tail, and NetEase Yanxuan. Through fresh pictures and texts, they convey an elegant tone to users, making users feel that the people who come here to buy things are very niche, tasteful, and have strong opinions. And then intercept a group of die-hard fans who love a certain lifestyle.

Tail

This idea comes from the M-shaped social structure. It has to be said that Kenichi Ohmae is a very forward-looking scholar and has made a very thorough analysis of the social structure.

As a practitioner in the content field, I am still very optimistic about the development of the industry. At least from the current situation, the content field is still in a period of vigorous development , and the awakening of legalization and copyright awareness also allows us to embrace industry dividends and obtain more commercial value.

But we also need to constantly reflect on ourselves, maintain a keen observation of the industry, and always be prepared to respond to changes. The future of the content industry is still unknown. We need to constantly iterate our knowledge, perceive the subtle changes in the times, technology, and industrial structure, and capture the new opportunities brought by the great era.

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