Analysis of Xigua Video's Competitive Products

In early 2021, Xigua Video anchored mid-length videos with value rationality and gave Xigua a new logo - lighting up curiosity about life. However, there is never a shortage of competitors in high-value tracks. In addition to Bilibili, which has long established a foothold in medium-length videos, Haokan Video, Kuaishou, Douyin and even leading long-length video manufacturers have also entered the medium-length video market, starting a "pan-knowledge" war. However, Xigua Video is not too prominent in the minds of users.

Article mind map

1. Analysis Background

Xigua Video, which has been wavering about its own positioning, proposed its new positioning at the end of 2020: igniting curiosity about life. It hopes that Xigua Video can become a part of the lives of users and creators, helping everyone to better discover, explore and express curiosity.

Ren Lifeng, president of Xigua Video, proposed the concept of mid-length videos at the Xigua PLAY Curiosity Conference held in October 2020, which also means that mid-length videos have become a new track targeted by Xigua Video, and that videos are anchored in value rationality and pan-knowledge.

But a track where profits have not been fully tapped will never be alone. In 2021, Haokan Video, Kuaishou, Bilibili, Douyin and even the leading long video manufacturers have entered the mid-length video market with great momentum, starting a "pan-knowledge" war. However, Xigua Video's position in the hearts of users is still lukewarm. Based on this, we hope to discover problems through analysis, summarize countermeasures, and propose directions that Xigua Video can try next.

2. Analysis Objectives

Let me first explain the goal of the analysis: formulate a competitive strategy, including operational promotion methods, to enhance the interactivity between creators and fans, create a stronger creator IP image, and gradually break the circle to expand the target users of the product to younger users.

Let’s talk about the origin of the analysis goal.

Let me first talk about the current situation. First of all, Xigua Video is currently in the growth stage, and is in the product iteration operation stage and the market promotion stage.

Xigua Video does not have a first-mover advantage in long videos, and its content copyright and resource accumulation are not as good as those of iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video. Putting aside the fact that Xigua Video itself also focuses more on the development of medium-length videos, it does not have an advantage in creating personal IPs and has no representative creators.

This has resulted in Xigua Video occupying a lukewarm position in the minds of many users. Many creators only regard Xigua Video as one of the channels for content distribution, and there is insufficient interaction between creators and content consumers.

If we put it this way, it seems like a question of whether the chicken or the egg came first, but in fact it is obvious that the survival and development of content platforms must first rely on high-quality content to attract content consumers, that is, there must first be content producers. When there is content produced by content producers, content consumers enter the community through a certain channel and there is content to consume. Only when the content produced is of high quality and in line with the product positioning will it resonate with consumers and gradually form a specific cultural atmosphere.

Then again, why doesn’t Xigua Video have well-known creators like Bilibili, Douyin, and Kuaishou? Why is it that after some up-hosts on Bilibili migrated to Xigua Video, their videos had millions of views on Bilibili, but the views on Xigua Video fluctuated?

To put it bluntly, it's "not acclimatized". The original creators of Bilibili have the temperament of Bilibili, forming a specific culture and specific values, but they are incompatible with the community atmosphere of Xigua Video. The two different temperaments are like two different travelers and are incompatible.

So how can we bring a group of creators who fit the temperament of Xigua Video into the platform ? How can we improve the interactivity between creators and fans, create a stronger personal IP image, and make Xigua Video's product positioning more distinct in the eyes of users? This is the goal of the first analysis.

Another problem and challenge Xigua Video is currently facing is the difficulty in commercial monetization due to its user circle and the single commercial monetization model .

Xigua Video mainly serves young and middle-aged users, and there is a problem of difficulty in attracting young users. In the long run, young users are the group with stronger consumption potential. Compared with the young user group, although young and middle-aged users have stronger consumption capabilities to a certain extent, their willingness to consume is not as strong as that of the young group, because in order to complete a transaction, both consumption capabilities and consumption willingness are required.

Since Xigua Video’s slogan is “Light up curiosity about life” and its positioning is “help everyone better discover, explore and express curiosity”, and it wants to make everyone curious and make people from all walks of life curious, then the users should not be limited to the young and middle-aged groups, but should be expanded upwards, that is, to capture the hearts of young people.

3. Competitive product selection

Among direct competitors, there is Haokan Video; among indirect competitors (category competitors), there are Bilibili, Kuaishou, Zhihu Douyin, iQiyi, Tencent Video, and Youku.

Select Haokan Video, Bilibili, and Zhihu as competitors for analysis.

Reason for selection: Haokan Video is a leading competitor in the mid-length video market, ranking high in market share. It has the same product format as Xigua Video and has basically the same user base.

Bilibili has always been a stable player in the mid-length video market, and the community atmosphere barrier it pioneered is unrivaled in China. It has the same product format and a similar user base.

Zhihu started to produce knowledge-based content a long time ago, and in recent years it has developed a general knowledge circle, drawing on the large user base of knowledge-based content and snatching users' time resources for watching videos. In 2020, it also laid out the video track, providing video presentation methods for answerers in the original ecosystem, improving its own question-and-answer content system, and forming a complementary relationship between short videos and graphic content, which should not be underestimated.

4. Analysis Dimensions

The following article will conduct a comparative analysis from six dimensions: strategic positioning, business model, user situation, functions, operation and promotion methods, and layout planning.

The reason is:

1. By studying product functions, you can see how competitors perform, learn from them, differentiate your products, or study the deeper needs behind product functions.
2. Studying the means of operation and promotion is to see how competitors do it, so that you can learn the promotion strategies of competitors or use them as early warning information;
3. Study why competitors do this from the perspective of strategic positioning, user situation, and business model. Products should make different product strategies according to different product positioning and user situations. After analyzing the competitors and comparing the gap between them, we should return to the positioning of our own products to come up with the next strategy for the product and make corresponding suggestions. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the strategic positioning and user situations of different products.
4. Analyzing the layout planning of competitors can help you make more forward-looking competitive strategies one step ahead of others.

1. Strategic positioning

In fact, from the comparison, we can see that the product positioning of Bilibili and Zhihu is clearer, with more prominent highlights and sufficient differentiation; while the positioning image of Xigua Video and Haokan Video is not as distinct as that of Bilibili and Zhihu, and is relatively weaker. They all label themselves as platforms for increasing knowledge, insights and content sharing.

But among so many video products nowadays, which one does not increase knowledge and broaden your horizons? Every video product can be, and every video product continues to label itself as such, and in the eyes of users this is indeed the case, it’s just a matter of who does it better and more targeted.

Below we use the Lean Canvas to analyze the business models of each product.

2. Crowd portrait

1) Physiological characteristics

From the perspective of gender composition, the proportion of male users of the four products is greater than that of female users, but relatively speaking, the gender ratio of Zhihu users is more balanced, with males accounting for 52% and females accounting for 48%. The gender ratio of Xigua Video and Bilibili is almost the same, with females accounting for 45% and males accounting for 55%, while Haokan Video is more inclined towards male users, with males accounting for 58% and females accounting for 42%.

In terms of age structure, users of the four products are all concentrated under the age of 35.

The difference is that Xigua Video users are more concentrated in young users aged 31 to 35. This is related to the fact that the user channel sources of Xigua Video are Toutiao and Douyin. Its users have a high degree of overlap with the two, and the core users are people under 35 years old, accounting for as high as 80%.

The core users of Bilibili are young users of Generation Z under the age of 24, accounting for 34%. The proportion of users aged 31 to 35 is also high, reaching 30%. Users are more concentrated in the group under the age of 35. This is related to the fact that Bilibili started out as a two-dimensional platform, is positioned as a trendy community for young people, and is breaking out of the circle.

Surprisingly, the age distribution of Haokan Video users is that Generation Z users under the age of 24 account for as high as 33%, followed by users aged 25-30 and 31-35. The age of Zhihu users decreases exponentially, with those born in the 2000s and 1990s as the mainstream users, and users aged 31-35 are mostly knowledgeable middle-class users and those who pursue quality life.

It can be seen that young people have long become the main force in the video industry. The absorption of various types of pan-entertainment and pan-knowledge is the main purpose of young people's video consumption, and it has become a lifestyle. In addition to the demand for pan-entertainment and pan-knowledge, the middle-aged and young groups also have pan-life and pan-parent-child needs.

At the same time, whether on short video aggregation platforms, comprehensive video platforms or vertical videos, male participation is higher.

Watermelon Video

Bilibili

Good looking video

Zhihu

Data source: iResearch

2) Social characteristics

From the perspective of geographical distribution, Zhihu's users in first-tier and new first-tier cities account for a larger proportion than the other three videos. The proportion of users in new first-tier cities is as high as 53%. Relatively speaking, the users have a higher average education level and higher income, and their corresponding consumption capacity may be higher.

In comparison, the proportion of new first-tier city users for Xigua Video, Bilibili, and Haokan Video is 40%, 43%, and 40%, respectively. The proportion of second-, third-, and fourth-tier city users for Xigua Video and Haokan Video is also greater, and the market is relatively sinking.

Data source: Analysys Qianfan

3) User needs

It can be seen from the demand map of Baidu Index that the demand nouns that are strongly correlated with Xigua Video or whose index is rising include "Uncle's Restaurant", "Hello Pediatrician", "Good Video", "Wizard Finance", "Tik Tok", "Today's Headlines", "Born to be a Foodie", "Aqi's Travels", etc. Users' needs are concentrated in food, parent-child, finance, news and information, and animation, and they like to watch comprehensive videos.

From the demand map of Bilibili, we can see that the demand terms that are strongly correlated with Bilibili or whose index is rising include "Douyu", "Huya", "Comics", "Zhihu", "Nosebleed Princess", "Tencent Video", "Weibo", and "12DORA". It can be seen that users like live broadcasts, the second dimension, various videos, trendy gossip, games, etc., and have a high degree of acceptance of new things, and their user portraits are distinctive.

In the demand map of Haokan Video, the strongly related search terms are mostly "videos watched by one person", "GF Securities mobile version download", "Baijiahao", "Zhoucun Bar", "Quanmin Short Video", etc., which reflect the miscellaneous information and film and television viewing needs of middle-aged and low-income young and middle-aged men.

Zhihu's demand map is "Weibo", "Douban", "Zhuhu", "JD", "Tieba", "CNKI" and other demands closely related to life, film reviews, book reviews, digital, and professional vertical knowledge.

Summary: The needs of Xigua Video users are quite broad, ranging from trendy animation and variety shows to agricultural, rural and agricultural areas and military information. It has a wide range of layouts in the four major areas of general knowledge, general entertainment, general life, and general parent-child.

Bilibili is closer to the trendy culture of young people and has great advantages in games, live broadcasts, and the two-dimensional world.

Haokan videos tend to cater to the general knowledge needs of young and middle-aged men in the older age group with low to middle incomes in their daily lives.

The needs of Zhihu users are more inclined towards the needs of young intellectuals to absorb diverse knowledge, experience and insights.

3. Comparison of core functions

By comparing the core functions, we can find out the differences and weigh the pros and cons of each approach. Then we can return to Watermelon’s own positioning and form optimization suggestions based on the goal of competitive product analysis .

1) Product function structure diagram comparison

2) Home page

From the perspective of information architecture , Xigua Video is composed of search-classification-followed users-information flow, Bilibili is in the form of search-classification-activity promotion carousel-information flow, Haokan Video is in the form of classification and search & video release (search and release are weakened)-information flow, and Zhihu is in the form of search and live broadcast & creation-classification-information flow.

Compared with the other three applications, Haokan Video has strengthened the function of watching videos, trying to eliminate unnecessary distractions for users while watching videos , and to a certain extent allowing users to focus on the currently recommended videos and pay less attention to hot topics.

Bilibili attaches great importance to the operation of various activities and puts operational promotion at the top. The promotional content mainly includes self-made variety shows, event topic submissions, advertisements, etc., which are conducive to creating hot topics, livening up the community atmosphere, extending user usage time, and enhancing user stickiness .

Xigua Video singles out the creators that users follow and puts them in a prominent position, and pays more attention to supporting relatively top users. This is in response to Xigua's plan to support top creators. At the same time, it also attaches relatively great importance to hot topics, and pushes and displays two hot topics in the search box.

Compared to Xigua, Zhihu does not pay much attention to supporting creators that users follow. Its weakened focus on people and the way it presents searches and content titles are conducive to increasing users' attention to the content itself .

By comparing the homepages, we can find that Xigua Video and Haokan Video both display information in a single-column flow, while Bilibili's homepage video is a double-column flow. This may be related to the user's corresponding behavioral habits and the platform's planning and layout.

From the perspective of user behavior, the users of Xigua Video and Haokan Video are mainly young and middle-aged people. Most of their users come from Douyin, Toutiao, etc. They are accustomed to the single-column presentation format. The advantage is that their attention is not too distracted when watching content, and they have a general information expectation for the next content. The thinking cost is lower, and they can judge and read the central theme of the video more quickly. They can choose the content they want to watch at a lower cost and select the content that is more valuable to them.

From the perspective of platform planning, it is obvious that this kind of information flow, pushed through recommendation algorithms, can support top creators . However, there are obviously not many creators on the two platforms who can have a distinct personality like TikTok. This is exactly what Xigua Video and Haokan Video want to do. Both of them lack the image of top creators, and they need to attract traffic by cultivating top creators.

There are many top creators at Bilibili, and it is for this reason that Bilibili plans to support small and medium-sized up-masters. Therefore, it has a dual-stream information presentation method, which has a higher information density, improves the efficiency of users in finding information, and is conducive to the overall balanced development of the platform content .

Zhihu is a knowledge question-and-answer platform, so it has a single-column text information flow interspersed with video information flows.

From the perspective of classification, Xigua defaults to "live broadcast", "anti-epidemic", "movies" and "TV series" at the top, and supports users to adjust the classification position.

Zhihu defaults to listing "Hot List", "Highly Liked", "Psychology" and "Entertainment" at the top, but it also supports users to adjust the category position according to their own interests, which is more flexible.

When users have watched videos for a certain period of time, Haokan Video will adjust the position of the classification labels according to the algorithm. For example, if users are more interested in humorous skits, the humorous skits will be adjusted to the front position. However, this approach is not conducive to the establishment of a community atmosphere on the platform, and it is easy to separate different types of users , that is, you watch yours and I watch mine, and there is insufficient interaction.

Bilibili defaults to fixed categories such as "Popular", "Following Anime", "Movies and TV", and "100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Party" to help users clarify and eliminate messy categories, which is conducive to positioning the tone of the platform's content and shaping a more distinctive platform image.

Optimization suggestions:

Operational activity content can be interspersed in the information flow, such as Xigua’s exclusive variety shows and Xigua PLAY competitions .

Xigua currently wants to improve the interactivity between creators and fans and create a stronger creator IP image, so it is not suitable to follow Bilibili’s example and put its own variety shows and other operational activities at the top of the homepage. But on the other hand, if we want to attract more young people, trendy entertainment content is indispensable. We need to first use content to drive a more active community atmosphere, attract more similar creators to join the platform, and then form a snowball effect.

Weighing the two options, it is a better approach to add an internal entry channel for platform activity promotion to the most frequently used homepage information flow.

3) Follow user dynamics

The creators followed by Xigua Video users will appear at the top of the homepage. When you want to watch the updates posted by the author, click on the creator's avatar to enter the information flow page of the videos posted by the author. After watching a video, the next video of the author will be played automatically. Click on the avatars of other authors next to it to switch to the information flow of videos posted by other authors you follow. This approach is conducive to supporting creators.

The second entrance to the creator's dynamics is in the category. This is the most common way to enter. Zhihu and Haokan Video both have this entrance. It is one of the ways to enter.

The difference is that Zhihu recommends the latest videos released in the dynamics of the authors you follow, which is obviously an effort to promote videos. It also recommends people followed by the creators you follow in the dynamic information flow released by the creators you follow, which helps users expand into areas that may be of interest and pay attention to more related content . It also helps support top creators .

The dynamic information flow of Haokan Video will automatically play the next video of the author after watching a video of that author, but you can scroll down to switch to videos of other creators (you cannot control which creator). Similarly, you can select creators to watch in a targeted manner in the header, but after clicking, you will enter the creator’s personal homepage instead of the information flow that automatically plays the video.

At the same time, when watching video content, click "View related content" at the bottom to view Baidu Encyclopedia's popular science knowledge, related circles, etc., which will help users understand information related to the current video or creator. Related videos are also recommended below to guide authors to explore related interests, which makes the process of guiding content viewing smooth, but is not conducive to supporting top creators. It is more suitable for the balance of different content on the platform and is conducive to the development of small and medium-sized creators.

For users of Bilibili, there is a separate module entrance to view the updates of the creators they follow. When users finish watching a video on the homepage, they can switch to the updates of the creators they follow more quickly.

At the same time, Bilibili also has a similar function of switching followed users. The page information flow is the updates of all creators arranged in chronological order. The header is the updates of frequently visited authors. Click on the avatar to view all the updates posted by the author, and you can switch to the information flow with video updates. Under the video updates, it also displays the dramas that the user is following, opening up a channel for users to conveniently view various content they follow.

In addition to the entrance for viewing the updates of the creators you follow on the category page, Haokan Video is similar to Bilibili in that it also publishes the updates of the authors you follow as a separate module. The header is the switch for the authors you follow, and below are all the updates of the creators you follow.

Optimization suggestions:

① You can appropriately recommend people that the creator you are following should follow in the “Follow” section of the category .

On the one hand, the content published by the creators that the users follow is of interest to the users themselves, and the content created by the people followed by the creators that the users are interested in is also more likely to hit the users' interests, thus increasing the conversion rate of creators being followed and is beneficial to supporting top creators. On the other hand, the people followed by the creators that the users follow are generally of higher quality, which is beneficial to improving user activity and retention rate, thereby increasing the possibility of community interaction.

② You can recommend other videos of the author under the author’s video in the “Follow” section of the category to increase the possibility of interaction.

4) Search page

Through comparison, it was found that Xigua Video tends to recommend content that users are interested in on the search page, such as content related to the searched and watched content. The searches are categorized under the search history, and "TV series", "movies" and "popular authors" are ranked as hot searches.

The community hot searches on Bilibili have a greater weight and are ranked first, with the search history ranked at the end, which is conducive to strengthening the interaction between users and building a community atmosphere.

The hot searches of Haokan Videos are divided into "Haokan Hot Searches" and "Today's Hot Searches", which can be regarded as recent hot searches and today's hot searches. At the same time, if you swipe right on "Today's Hot Searches", there are also "Hot Topics", "Haokan Celebrities" and "Haokan Newcomers", which support the content and various creators, but the entrance is not obvious, and there are many operation steps, so you need to swipe right manually.

In addition to historical searches, Zhihu has also added recent hot searches and categorized the hot searches, putting "hot search movies and TV shows" in the first place, obviously intending to focus on long videos.

Optimization suggestions:

You can add a hot search module at the top and place "Guess what you want to search" at the end .

Judging from Xigua's actions, it adds the barrage function to videos and supports the creation of top creators through operational activities such as Xigua PLAY. It wants to increase interaction between users and create a community atmosphere. Without hot searches, it seems that there is a lack of a way to increase interaction, and the repetition rate of "search history" and "guess what you want to search" is high.

Therefore, for this purpose, a hot search module can be added to the head of the search page, and hot searches can be classified into categories, such as "hot topics", "hot movies and TV shows", "hot authors", etc., to meet the needs of hot search classification.

5) Search results page

The purpose of users using search is to find the videos they want to watch more quickly and accurately, and at this time, the requirements for the search presentation method are high.

The way the Xigua Video search results are presented is the same as the video recommendations on the homepage, which amplifies the amount of information on a single video and reduces the cost of selection. The results on the search results page can be further filtered, such as "latest", "hottest" and video length, to help users find the videos they want to watch more quickly in different scenarios.

Bilibili chooses a single-column information flow that needs to be manually clicked to watch. The user selection cost is relatively high, but after the user judges the content and clicks it, it can more accurately meet the user's needs and help the growth of small and medium-sized creators. In the "Default Sorting" of the filtering area, you can choose the options of "Most Played", "Newly Released", and "Most Barrage", among which the "Most Barrage" filter is conducive to supporting top creators.

The videos on the Haokan Video search results page are arranged in chronological order, but the content of the search results page will further filter out hot words for users to click and filter, so as to extract relevant words and allow users to locate videos more quickly and accurately; at the same time, although it is a single-column video information stream that needs to be clicked, it also helps users to further filter, such as adding a "most likes" label in front of the video title, and providing information such as playback volume and release time.

Although Zhihu’s search results are mainly text information, it may still be possible to explore relevant needs and apply them to Xigua Video’s strategy.

Zhihu further guides the content that users search for on the search page and groups similar content into one collection to facilitate users to search for the content they need. This approach is more conducive to the development of small and medium-sized creators, but not to the creation of top creators. In addition, after scrolling down the Zhihu search results page, there will be an expansion of related content to help users expand the content when they cannot find the content.

Optimization suggestions:

① Xigua Video can help users filter videos more accurately by providing filters for the number of comments, barrages, likes, and playbacks of videos. At the same time, it can increase the weight of the number of comments and barrages, and increase the attention rate of content that can generate more interactions. This can reversely motivate creators to create and interact with fans, create a community atmosphere, increase the retention rate of young people, and inject stronger momentum into the community.

② In addition to being fast and accurate, there must also be appropriate related expansion. When users scroll down the interface without clicking to watch, it means that the content does not meet their needs. You can appropriately expand related topics, interspersed with "related searches", and serve as a supplement to the search page.

4. Event Operation

1) Xigua Video

In terms of short and medium videos, last year's "Movable Type Plan" focused on how to improve the creators' creativity, influence and monetization capabilities to help creators speak out and continuously promote the platform's creativity; the "10,000 Yuan Monthly Salary" plan supports creators of life vlogs; at the beginning of this year, Han Han was invited to "Talk to the World Again" to use well-known big Vs to drive the entry of other well-known creators, anchor and layout medium-length videos, and introduce more general knowledge content; the annual Watermelon PLAY creator selection event allows well-known authors on the site to "learn from each other" while further promoting the top creators to establish their personal IP.

In the long video field, at the end of last year, we won the "Let’s Go Online!" "Colorful Boys" is the only program broadcast on the entire network. According to Qimai data query, the number of downloads increased from 19,559 on the first day of broadcast to 24,523 at the peak on the 27th, adding a new round of downloads, promoting the activity of community users and improving retention rate.

The content spreads positive energy and, with the popular endorsement of big-name stars, guides young people to strengthen their cultural confidence and promotes the creative development of the excellent traditions of the Chinese nation. It can resonate with both young people and middle-aged and young people at the same time. In 2020, the movie resources "Lost in Russia" and "Big Winner" won the download volume of young people.

2) Bilibili

Breaking the circle : The New Year’s Eve party launched in 2019 attracted users from different backgrounds and age groups, laying a solid foundation for the breaking circle plan (user growth).

The youth manifesto film "The Next Wave" produced by Bilibili has aroused widespread discussion among the Z generation and resonated with the young people of this era. "There is fire in the heart and light in the eyes", "Gentlemen share beauty and harmony but difference", "What you love is your life", "Rush forward, the next wave", every positive energy sentence in the video was typed on the public screen by this group of Z generation with fire in their hearts, becoming a successful battle for Bilibili to break the circle.

Next up is Into the Sea. The characters and stories in the video, centered around the topic of graduation, have resonated with a wave of young people who are about to graduate or have already graduated, and even young and middle-aged people who are looking back and sighing. The Weibo topics and public account reposts that it triggered show that this is not just a wave within the B station circle, but a successful content marketing campaign again and again.

At the beginning of 2021, Bilibili launched the "I take my family to visit Bilibili" campaign, attempting to attract young and middle-aged people to join by operating an activity in which young people take their elders to watch videos, complete tasks, and receive red envelopes.

Retention : Bilibili is constantly expanding its content in categories such as documentaries and variety shows. Popular documentaries are mostly about food, the natural world, and positive social energy, such as "I Follow You", "City Heroes", and "This is China". These content themes make Bilibili more adept in the field of general knowledge and become a comprehensive video platform that combines in-depth entertainment and learning.

In terms of variety shows, Bilibili has also been continuously producing its own variety show content, such as the recent "90s Marriage Agency", which focuses on the love cognition of single men and women in the 90s, advocates exploring healthy intimate relationships with an equal and positive attitude, and has won the love of a group of post-90s and post-00s who love freedom and positive views on love.

In terms of positive social energy, Bilibili has also expanded a lot of new content. Perhaps it is because it is aware of the social responsibility of a company, or perhaps it is still to retain that part of the young and middle-aged groups. Bilibili even uses "100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Party" as a category of videos on the homepage (there are only five categories that can be seen directly on the homepage), and constantly adds new content on China's social atmosphere, political consciousness and cultural identity. It also co-produced the documentary "In Wuhan" with CCTV and figure, recording the lives of ordinary people under the epidemic.

3) Good-looking videos

Since most of Haokan Video's videos are PGC content and less UGC content, and users are mainly content consumers, the main operating activities are self-made variety shows. For example, the recent "Your Life is Good-looking" takes the first experience of newcomers in the workplace as the topic and invites celebrity artists to record exclusive variety shows in order to attract more young people's attention.

The "Light Knowledge Special Train" event was launched in July, inviting crosstalk actor Sun Yue, "Skin" author Cai Chongda, screenwriter Bai Bangni, well-known media person Pan Luan and others to become knowledge sharing officers of Haokan Video, injecting "the vitality of knowledge" into the platform.

4) Zhihu

Compared with the other three videos, Zhihu takes the route of a creator community. It focuses on content production by creators and has high operational activities to motivate creators. For example, it gathers experts from various fields and practitioners from all walks of life, and invites celebrities from various circles such as Huang Bo, Lang Lang, Ma Dong, Ou Hao, and the New Pants Band to join Zhihu to share their knowledge, experience, and insights.

In May last year, Zhihu launched a video creator recruitment plan; it also initiated a creator support and incentive plan - the "Haiyan Plan", which provides five benefits: "text-to-video tools", "10 billion exclusive video streams", "500 million in cash", "signing opportunities", and "Creator Academy" to help answerers create videos, advocate the release of original videos of more than 1 minute, and encourage creators to create medium-length videos with cash subsidies, traffic support, and video production.

Zhihu has a particularly intensive cash incentive plan for creators. In addition to the "Sea Salt Plan", there are also small activities such as "Everyone is a Zhihu Expert", "Maternal and Child Video Answerer Training Camp", and "Video Relay Race", which include incentives for different types of creators and can be described as "densely covered".

At the end of 2020, Zhihu’s official self-produced "New Knowledge Youth Says" column was launched. Through self-production, Zhihu directly aggregates creators with knowledge and insights under the same IP, which is more conducive to the simultaneous dissemination of creators and knowledge content.

At the beginning of 2021, Zhihu held the "Answer Adventure Night" party for the first time, trying to declare its determination to break the circle and focus on mid-length videos; in the same month, it launched its first self-made science fiction drama concept film "Hanmei Project 2021", and invited Zhihu's science fiction answerers to participate, which is another new way to extend content and motivate creators.

5) Summary

It can be found that in terms of operational activities, these four video applications all have their own operational routes. They all focus on medium-length videos, but their focus is different, mainly because of their different advantages.

Xigua Video is a ByteDance product, backed by ByteDance's powerful traffic matrix, with traffic directed by Douyin and Toutiao, plus ByteDance's massive and rich content, as well as algorithm support. It mainly focuses on two aspects: creators and content.

Due to its strong community atmosphere, Bilibili takes the community route, winning a new wave of traffic growth through community content marketing, and creating a community atmosphere by expanding a large number of different types of content.

Haokan Video focuses on its advantages in PGC content, and attracts core users from Baidu's traffic portals such as Baijiahao and Baidu Encyclopedia to the platform by producing more variety shows and columns. While expanding the number of users, it can also increase the value brought to users by a single click on a video.

Zhihu focuses mainly on the creator side and takes the creator community route, providing video presentation methods for existing creators to complement the original graphic and text content.

6) Operation optimization plan ideas

① Conduct content marketing based on the platform’s tone.

In terms of breaking the circle, what Xigua should do first is to find a topic trigger point to lay the foundation for breaking the circle, drive users to forward spontaneously, and spread among many media to reach a larger number of target users to break the circle, establish a distinctive platform tone for Xigua, and have a new positioning in the public's mind, such as focusing on the positioning of general knowledge in mid-videos.

② Refined operations for different users and establishment of community atmosphere.

After a large-scale action breaks the circle, refined operations are also needed to retain users over the long term.

Xigua Video currently relies only on exclusive film and television resources and variety shows to attract more young people and begin to break out of its circle, but the retention and activity of these young groups of Generation Z still depend on the platform's continuous supply of content that meets their needs. Young people on Xigua Video tend to prefer various variety shows, game commentary, and game live broadcasts. Starting from these two aspects of content, we can carry out in-depth and refined operations and gradually break the circle.

For existing core users, Xigua can focus on the active group of people born in the 1980s and 1990s, find their emotional entry point, and what can resonate with this group, thereby stimulating their desire to express themselves, triggering extensive discussions among this age group on certain types of content, and achieving the goal of establishing a community atmosphere.

③ We must increase support and incentives for creators. Refined operations and community atmosphere require content, and content means more creators. We can learn from Zhihu’s ideas and invite celebrities and top creators to join the platform to jointly produce variety shows.

For example, we invited famous postgraduate entrance examination teachers in the academic world, such as Li Yongle, He Kaiwen, Zhang Xuefeng, Xu Tao, Tang Chi, etc., to produce a column program called "Research God", and use the famous postgraduate entrance examination teachers to carry out content marketing, sharing postgraduate entrance examination knowledge, postgraduate entrance examination fun stories and other light-hearted, humorous and in-depth content to win new downloads and mobilize the activity of the platform.

For example, inviting high-quality creators in the field of maternal and child care to co-produce variety shows about parenting experience and family life can not only increase the creators' popularity, but also establish a stronger community atmosphere within a certain range.

5. Layout planning

The layout planning of the four video applications is mainly inferred from their update logs. Representative update date nodes are selected to summarize and describe the update content within a period of time, and finally their next plan is inferred.

1) Xigua Video

Based on the version records of Qimai data, the following table is obtained. It can be seen that the focus of Xigua Video has shifted from activating users to continuously filling the platform's resource library to being creator-centered and enhancing community interaction.

Therefore, it is speculated that Xigua Video’s main goal in the future will be to continuously support and motivate creators, build a community atmosphere, and strengthen the platform’s tone.

2) Bilibili

Starting from V5.3.2, the app introduction appears with "Bilibili strives to become a trendy cultural and entertainment community for more young people. This can be seen as Bilibili having started its campaign to break out of the circle.

Starting from this version, we have optimized the viewing experience, video creation, interaction between UP hosts and fans, and community atmosphere; and continued to optimize the barrage function, comment function, and screenshot sharing function while making up for the shortcomings of film and television dramas; and finally, we will continue to enrich the volume of different types of content on the platform and hold large-scale events for publicity and promotion.

It is speculated that Bilibili will continue to encourage and support small and medium-sized creators to produce more different types of content works, strengthen the accumulation of platform content, launch more variety show productions and other operational activities around trendy topics of young people of Generation Z, and introduce more different types of film and television dramas to attract more young people who pursue different new things.

3) Good-looking videos

Starting from the second half of 2018, Haokan Video updated its logo to its current one.

As shown in the following table, in the first stage, Haokan Video mainly optimized the functions of search, video playback, video production and live interaction. There were few operational activities, and the only large-scale one was the exclusive broadcast of the Spring Festival Gala in cooperation with CCTV. This was probably due to the characteristics of the platform users. In the second stage, it can be found that Haokan Video continued to expand its content categories and increased its publicity and promotion efforts, intending to move towards higher-quality users and more diverse creators.

Regardless of the direction of the previous actions, based on Haokan Video’s recent actions, it is speculated that Haokan Video will incentivize and support creators to a greater extent in the future, and strengthen its operations to attract new users and promote activation of higher-quality and upper-level users.

4) Zhihu

Zhihu added a new video content creation mode on November 9, 2020, so we started to study and analyze its next plans from this time point.

During this period, Zhihu held a special tenth anniversary project and the 2021 New Knowledge Youth Conference, and continued to promote user activity, arouse resonance among old users, and maintain the community atmosphere; on the other hand, Zhihu continued to expand the content of new field modules, such as games, film reviews, and other practical, trendy general knowledge for the general public. Zhihu always keeps up with hot topics in real time to meet the needs of new users who are constantly breaking out of the circle.

It can be speculated that Zhihu will continue to expand content in different fields, enrich the content resource library, and introduce more young user groups who like entertainment, pursue quality of life and trends into the platform.

Summary: The four major video applications are all focusing on creators and high-quality content, but their focus is different.

• Xigua Video will take a big step forward in creating more top creators and try to build a stronger community atmosphere;
• Bilibili has launched more support and incentive programs for small and medium-sized creators, and continues to expand its content on young people's trends;
• Haokan Video will also encourage and support all kinds of creators to a greater extent, and strengthen operations to attract new and active users of higher quality;
• Zhihu continues to add content in new areas and attracts a wider range of young people with diverse content and operational activities.

V. Summary and Suggestions

1. Advantages

1. Backed by ByteDance, it has a huge traffic import entrance;
2. Supported by ByteDance's algorithm distribution technology, content distribution is accurate.

2. Disadvantages

1. Although it is supported by ByteDance's content accumulation, the breadth and depth of its content are still relatively lacking, far less than Bilibili and Zhihu;
2. There are more users at the grassroots level, the community atmosphere is not strong, and there is a lack of interaction between content creators, between content creators and content consumers, and between content consumers themselves;
3. The platform has no distinct tone and is not very popular in the minds of most users. It is just a tool for watching videos.
4. The platform’s profit model for creators is single, making it difficult to retain creators, and there is a lack of well-known top creators.

3. Recommendations

Currently, the medium-length video track targeting general knowledge is the direction in which major manufacturers are desperately competing. Everyone is making videos that claim to "increase knowledge." Unfortunately, although it seems that knowledge has been gained, have users really gained knowledge after watching the video? Don’t users have any idea about this? Is it true that “increasing knowledge and broadening horizons” is just a matter of lip service?

Users will naturally have a better idea of ​​what is going on after watching a lot, and they will also know whether they have "learned more". Therefore, high-quality content is the key to making short videos.

The most important thing is the matching of content with platform users and platform tone. The production of content is determined by the creators, and the quality of the content created by the creators is closely related to the support and interaction of content consumers. Therefore, the following suggestions are put forward from this direction:

1. We operate activities based on content topics that existing core users are interested in (such as parenting, mother and baby) to stimulate the desire to express and participate of post-80s youth.
2. In terms of user growth among young groups, we should try to extend the categories to games and variety shows, and use barrage interactions and theme activities to build a community atmosphere.
3. In terms of creators, we try to expand creators in different fields, use the advantages of algorithms for precise distribution, and at the same time incentivize top creators in various content fields to add in-depth and high-quality content to the platform.
4. Strengthen the platform's tone and positioning, such as placing advertisements on major platforms and inviting "knowledge-based" celebrities to serve as knowledge sharing officers, so that Xigua Video's image positioning of "knowledge learning" will be more prominent in the public's mind.

Author: Product Kid

Source: Product Kids