How to play the short video planting game?

In fact, in today's world where content homogeneity is serious, it is really difficult to create eye-catching content.

As more and more companies and individuals enter the short video field, the difficulty of creating a distinctive account that can attract users has increased exponentially. Many short video operators are saying:

It is really becoming more and more difficult to operate short videos.

In today's world where content is highly homogenized, which type of video should we choose if we want to stand out quickly? How to play?

1. Universal video type in the short video field - grass-planting and evaluation accounts

On the short video platform, you may not like watching cross-dressing or counterattack plots, but you must have seen various "grass-planting" videos or live broadcasts.

Whether it is a top streamer like Li Jiaqi and Viya, or an unknown amateur, whether it is food recommendations or various weird toy reviews, there must be one or more accounts in your follow list that are specifically designed to "plant grass" for you.

This is because your shopping mindset has changed. In the past, you would buy things only when you needed them, for example, if you wanted to travel to Yunnan, then you would search for information related to Yunnan. At present, active search is still the mainstream, but a new method has been added:

Maybe you don’t need such a thing at the moment, but after watching this live broadcast or video, you suddenly become interested and then have the need to buy it.

This is what we call "planting grass" - the act of "sharing and recommending the excellent qualities of a product to stimulate others' desire to buy it."

The most important are the short videos and live broadcasts of the grass-roots evaluation type. There are so many contents and products that can be produced, basically covering all aspects of food, clothing, housing, transportation, and entertainment. Moreover, the users who follow our account have a stronger desire to shop than the fans of other content type accounts.

In this era of homogeneity, for us short video operators, grass-planting type short videos are indeed the most popular. They have low costs and are relatively easy to increase fans and monetize.

2. Short videos of grass-planting and evaluation type - how to do it?

First, let’s take a look at the forms of short videos of the grass-planting type.

1. Shoot your own video to promote your product

Enterprise short video operation: filming your own products or services;

Personal short video: take photos of the products after purchase or actually experience them in the store;

(Also divided into showing face and not showing face)

2. Find videos with good editing skills

Source of materials: video materials from peer accounts, relevant pictures and texts from other grass-planting platforms... Simply splicing the materials together will create a grass-planting video.

3. Livestreaming

In some ways, live streaming with goods actually has the obvious nature of promoting sales, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many friends shopping in the live streaming room.

First, let’s take a look at how to make your own grass-planting video.

(1) Have your own personal characteristics

Every friend who makes original short videos cannot escape the option of determining his or her own style and topic at the very beginning.

For example, you can write your name in the account name, and reflect your characteristics in the background image and avatar:

Cover style

Theme of the video

Shooting form

What needs attention here is that once the topic or character setting is determined, for example, if you want to bring mother and baby products, create a cute image, or produce content about daily life with besties, etc., basically the style of the video will be determined around these contents.

(2) Shooting techniques and precautions

The first is to determine the format of the video. In order to combat internal competition, grass-planting videos have naturally evolved into various forms and types. In addition to the common direct introduction of products, there are also sharing of experiences, popular science, and even some with small plots.

Second, prepare the copy introduction. You can go to grass-growing platforms such as Xiaohongshu to see if there are any grass-growing pictures and videos with similar products. Write the copy based on the pain points of the users they selected and the characteristics of the products you want to promote.

The ideal copywriting is one that hits the user’s pain points in every sentence.

The third is shooting. Let me teach you a trick. First, find a clean and good-looking background, and then place the object in the center of the grid lines (no matter how the format of the video changes, the product must be in the center when introducing the product).

The products photographed in this way will be more delicate and beautiful (it is recommended that you choose a light-colored background) .

If you don’t want to introduce a product so simply and want to choose other forms of short videos, then I suggest that when making the script, you can take the user’s usage scenarios into consideration, play their roles, and tell users that they need this.

In fact, it is still a bit difficult for individual short video creators to shoot short videos to promote products by themselves. After all, the products in the videos are basically purchased by themselves, which will always be a burden over time.

Similarly, for some small-cost businesses, shooting every day does take up time and costs money. At this time, moving is the most suitable job.

Secondly, how to move the video?

The first is the issue of materials. As I just shared with you, you can find copywriting and video materials from community platforms such as Xiaohongshu. You can even refer to the videos of your peers, remove the watermarks and re-edit them.

What you need to pay attention to here is to try not to choose materials that involve people, as copyright issues will be very troublesome later.

The last one is live streaming with goods.

A friend asked me before, can I do a live broadcast if I don’t have any fans?

I haven’t tried other platforms yet, but on Douyin you can do live streaming and sell products even if you don’t post any works.

Such an account must have started live streaming and selling goods with 0 followers. Although the account in my screenshot has only a little over a million followers, its ability to sell goods is really strong, and its sales volume is not inferior to accounts with millions or tens of millions of followers.

When doing live broadcasting, you can consider the following aspects:

①Fix the broadcast time to cultivate users' habit of opening the program

② Improve user retention rate by creating distinctive live broadcast rooms and live broadcast styles

③Build your own store to further accumulate users

④ Set up various benefits to stimulate users to buy

Conclusion

In fact, grass-planting type short videos and live broadcasts are more or less facing the dilemma of content homogeneity. However, grass-planting type short videos are indeed not very difficult to produce and can bring us the most direct and highest-quality users. Relatively speaking, this type of short video obviously has the highest cost-effectiveness.

Therefore, for us short video operators, we must be able to grasp the minds of users and also keep in mind the creative motto of "it's better to be different than to be better". You can give grass-planting short videos a try.

Author: Short Video Operation Diary

Source: Short Video Operation Diary (gh_a49c091205cb)