Tik Tok follower growth trend in 2021!

At the beginning of every year, short video creators are particularly concerned about one question: Where is the wind blowing in this year's short video content ecosystem?

In order to answer this question, Kas has been regularly observing the 20 accounts on Douyin that gain the fastest followers each month, hoping to dig out the content direction at this stage and possible content trends from their content characteristics. Now, 2021 is already halfway through, and with the continuous influx of new players, Douyin's content ecology has taken on a new look.

So from this current point of view, what rules and trends are worthy of creators' attention? What opportunities and entry points cannot be ignored? To this end, Kas counted the 1,000 accounts with the fastest increase in followers in the second quarter, trying to dig out "clues" from them (Note: the following data source is Kas data, and does not represent Douyin official).

01 They occupied the high ground of increasing fans

First, let’s broaden our horizons and take a macro look at the 1,000 accounts with the fastest follower growth in Q2. Which content types occupied the “high ground”? Statistics show that the 1,000 accounts cover more than 30 vertical categories, including comedy, film and television entertainment, food, fashion, music, talent and skills, knowledge and information, education, beauty experts, outdoor activities, sports and fitness, etc. Among them:

The number of film and television entertainment accounts continued the growth trend of Q1, and their share increased significantly to 14.4%. Excluding the official accounts opened by some TV variety shows on Douyin, the growth momentum of film and television editing accounts was even stronger. Although the secondary creation of film and television works encountered an unprecedented joint boycott in early April, judging from the fan growth in the second quarter, the fan growth momentum of this type of accounts has not been significantly affected, and users' enthusiasm for watching dramas on short videos remains high.

Accounts related to drama and comedy account for 12.8%. Although they still have an advantage, they have slipped slightly compared to Q1 and are particularly depressed compared to their previous heyday. Analyzing the reasons, since vlogs became popular, life documentary vlog accounts have become popular due to their realism and immersiveness, and to some extent have diverted some of the attention of traditional drama users.

In addition to film and television entertainment and drama and comedy accounts, we can also see the emergence of creators with outstanding performances in the fields of food, music, recommendation, appearance, knowledge and information, emotions, sports and fitness, etc.

Among them , the advantage of food content has a long history, and the account types and styles are becoming more and more diverse . From the food accounts on the list in Q2, we can see store exploration accounts like @特别乌拉拉, @这是一个泡泡, @小贝鸿了that travel to street corners in different countries and cities, as well as rural accounts like @川味盐太婆, @牛爱芳的小春天, @潘的老妈that perfectly combine family matters with food, and healing food accounts like @巴根日记, @-肥猪猪的日常that bring immersive experiences.

Overall, although food-related content has become very diverse, new entry points can still be found from the perspective of content form and style.

In addition, the music and appearance tracks continued to rise in Q2 after experiencing a resurgence in Q1 . The performances of music masters such as @唐艺, @王玉萌, and @莫叫姐 are all remarkable. In the field of appearance, experts such as @一栗小莎子, @iiiis, @万小七, and @迅猛龙Teresa have also gradually entered the public eye. It is worth noting that most of the influencers in the two vertical categories rely on "video content + high-frequency live broadcast " to attract and retain fans.

It is also worth mentioning that the attention paid to the knowledge track is also continuing to rise. In particular, the achievement of @绝秘研究院所长 who gained 584.4W followers in three months has made us witness the increasingly powerful ability of knowledge and popular science content to go viral.

We will analyze other advantageous tracks and potential tracks in the next section.

In addition to content types, let’s take a look at the main follower growth ranges for the 1,000 accounts with the fastest follower growth during the three months from April to June.

According to statistics, there were 5 accounts whose followers increased by more than 10 million in the second quarter; there were 6 accounts whose followers increased between 8 million and 10 million , and there were 22 accounts whose followers increased between 5 million and 8 million. Among the remaining accounts, 11.7% of the accounts gained between 2 million and 3 million followers, and 49.6% of the accounts gained between 1 million and 2 million followers.

In general , Q2 seems to have a stronger explosive power in terms of increasing fans than Q1, and compared to Q1, when many old faces "dominated the screen", in Q2, more new faces have obviously emerged. This may also mean that compared with the previous trend of a significant slowdown in the growth rate of the short video industry, Q2 has shown some signs of recovery to a certain extent, and for latecomers, as long as they can find novel content entry points, they may have the opportunity to become popular.

Next, let’s focus on the 20 accounts with the fastest increase in followers. (Note: does not include media, stars/celebrity, government agencies, variety shows, ByteDance officials, etc.)

From the table, we can see that the TOP20 accounts are distributed in multiple content areas such as outdoor, maternal and child, grass-planting, drama, food, film and television entertainment, sports and fitness, and appearance experts, and the number of accounts in each field is distributed relatively evenly, showing the characteristics of "multi-faceted blossoming and numerous highlights" . From the perspective of the “freshness” of the accounts, we can once again intuitively see that compared with the TOP20 in Q1, the proportion of “familiar faces” in Q2 has dropped significantly, and new faces have come from behind and occupied the high ground in various places.

Among them, we also noticed that in addition to the long-standing advantageous tracks such as comedy, food, and film and television entertainment, the relatively niche category of outdoor showed great explosive power in Q2. The two accounts on the list, @天元邓刚 and @大姨哥Viog, were fishing and catching fish outdoors respectively. The fun and interesting process attracted a large number of users to watch. Not only did both accounts quickly gain followers, they also ranked at the top, demonstrating users' high enthusiasm for this type of content.

02 These tracks are also "ready to go"

In addition to the advantageous tracks mentioned above, Kas has also discovered some tracks that are growing rapidly and showing vigorous vitality. Some of them have achieved sustained growth and may be more vibrant in the future, such as the knowledge and information track and the sports and fitness track. Although some tracks are niche, judging from their development momentum, they are likely to create more surprises and bring more opportunities to related creators, such as the talent and skills track. Here we will select two more tracks for analysis:

1. Talent and Skills Track

Among 1,000 accounts and more than 30 tracks, excluding the top-ranked celebrities and media categories, Kas found that the number of accounts on the talent and skill track ranked eleventh. Although it cannot be compared with strong advantage tracks such as drama and comedy, film and television entertainment, and food, it is ranked higher than maternal and child, beauty, animation, and automobile tracks.

Analyzing the 22 accounts on the list, we can see that these talented people have a wide variety of skills. The highest ranked @老庚爱画画has gained a total of 307.8W followers in 3 months. The content of his videos mainly aims to teach painting through the complete painting process. In addition, he will also strengthen his skills through regular live broadcasts.

In addition to @老庚爱画画, there are several other accounts that also use painting as a basic skill. For example, @米雷-RayDog, who made it to the June follower growth list, not only demonstrated his superb painting skills in his works, but also innovated in the form of content, enhancing the account's visibility with the "real person appearance + corresponding paintings" display method.

In addition to painting skills, we can also see photography experts like @卡卡宝贝贝 who has mastered superb photography skills and teaches step-by-step, "circle king" like @左手圈王 who is good at ring-tossing games, chess masters like @王铁锤 who compete with others, and styling masters like @小熙瓜儿童辫发 who focus on children's hair braiding ... all of which have attracted a group of users' attention.

In Kas's opinion, users' desire for skill-demonstration content is gradually increasing, and the talent and skill track as a whole holds great potential. While exporting their skills, skilled creators can also do more exploration and experimentation in content presentation, which may help them gain more attention.

2. Emotional track

When doing data statistics, Kas discovered that the emotional track "accidentally" created some surprises for us: there were 41 emotional accounts among 1,000 accounts. Although the overall ranking of the accounts in terms of the increase in followers was outside the top 100, the number of accounts on the list has already demonstrated certain potential.

Looking closely at the account types, most influencers "teach" some emotional insights and life lessons based on their own experiences. For example, the account @皮皮真的狗, which gained 1.798 million followers in three months , always gives fans a sense of enlightenment with the protagonist's beautiful answers to various emotional questions raised in the voice-over, such as "How does your boyfriend think you are unique?" Pipi answered "against gender", that is, "do to him what you think only boys would do to girls, so that he will always be impressed by you." There are countless clever questions and answers like this. Pipi's self-deprecating "dog eyes and dog language" made many people exclaim "I've learned it" in the comments.

Other accounts similar to @皮皮真狗 include @杜鹏程, @沉一只, etc. They combine reality and story-sharing to create emotional truths that often resonate with users or cause them to think. From this, it is not difficult to see that users have a great demand for the topic of emotions, and perhaps more imagination about the form of content can be extended around this.

03 What creative trends are worth paying attention to?

After explaining the details of the track, let’s take a look at the trends and tendencies that have emerged in content creation.

First of all, Kas noticed that the "countryside style" that spread in Q1 did not show any signs of weakening in Q2. We can still observe the very strong country style in the listed accounts in many fields such as food, music, drama, and outdoors. Judging from the current situation, users' enthusiasm for rural style has not diminished. As users continue to move down-level and urban users' curiosity and sense of freshness about rural content continue to increase, the "rural style" is likely to continue to spread.

Secondly, we also found that content with a positive core also attracted a lot of users' attention in Q2 . Taking @北京小丫筝 as a typical example, the protagonist of the account will output a series of exciting positive energy quotes when faced with extreme words or unfair treatment from the other party in different situations. Not only will he "rebuke" the other party speechless, but he will also convince the users in front of the screen and give him praises. Thanks to this positive operation, @北京小丫·羽筝 gained 877.9W followers in three months. Currently, the number of followers is as high as 1172.7W, and the number of likes has reached 100 million.

In addition to @北京小丫筝·羽筝, Kas also observed that many story accounts, life record accounts, or emotional accounts all revolve around the core of positive energy and hit the users' resonance points directly and accurately.

Finally, Kas also observed that the vlog+ format has been increasingly used in various fields, and has helped many accounts stand out. For example, the "Fishing Tycoon" @天元邓刚, his previous content was relatively loose. Sometimes he would share some pure fishing skills, sometimes he would share interesting fishing stories, and sometimes he would insert plots. The data has not improved much.

From the later period on, the account recorded the interesting experiences of fishing in different reservoirs, wild rivers and lakes through vlog+. The watchability and fun of the whole content were greatly enhanced, and the number of fans of the account also began to increase sharply.

Another example is @名郑言顺. The essence of this account is actually to share insider information about various industries. In the early days, it adopted a more serious and solemn output format that combined "introduction + interview" and did not receive much attention. Later, the account began to try vlog+, which is to record in detail the real process of the protagonist exploring various industries through the camera, adding more subjective output and interactive links. After the new content format was established, the original dullness of the account was broken, and the audience had a stronger enthusiasm for watching in the relaxed, interesting and immersive atmosphere.

What kind of surprises can the creators bring us in the next quarter?

Author: Kas Data

Source: caasdata (ID: caasdata6)