How should I operate the video account of an educational institution?

Since its launch, Video Account has undergone a series of version iterations and optimizations, and has gradually become a new traffic growth point. Some educational institutions with a keen sense of smell have heard the news and have joined in. If you pay enough attention to the K12 field, you may have heard about how aggressive Zuoyebang’s video account layout is.

——Nearly a hundred video accounts have been launched online one after another. Through the horse racing mechanism, multiple video account IPs have been successfully launched, including Teacher Chi Zi’s Chinese class, Teacher Maomao’s mathematics teaching, and Teacher Xiaolu’s English teaching.

So far, Zuoyebang is the most successful educational institution in the layout of video accounts, without a doubt. In addition, VIPKID, Zebra English, and GSX have also incubated their own IPs through video accounts. Although their scale cannot be compared with that of Zuoyebang, they are also developing rapidly and have good momentum.

Major education companies are all developing video accounts. What interesting operational methods are there? And what practical methodologies can be used as reference?

This article will discuss the above topics. The article will focus on two parts: content and operation:

1. The content section aims to explain to everyone the underlying logic and framework of educational content creation.
2. The operation section will introduce some common video account operation routines. Among them, the fission gameplay of the video account is emphasized. Through these gameplays, the content dissemination of the video account can be accelerated and the number of fans can be increased violently. This article will contain a large number of disassemblies of high-quality video accounts. It is recommended that you save the article. If subsequent work involves video accounts, this article can be kept as a reference.

*Any educational institution and its video account mentioned in this article are only used for research and analysis. There is no advertising or promotion. Please do not disturb us by any public relations or argumentative means.

1. Content

Disclaimer in advance: Regarding how to create content, this article will not cover how to edit videos, how to light and set up the scenery, and other video production related content. Although these skills are very important for video account operations, this is not my specialty, and there are many related tutorials on the Internet. If you are interested in this aspect, you can search for relevant content online.

This article will focus on analyzing the content strategies of high-quality educational video accounts on the market, and try to summarize a set of underlying logic and frameworks for video account content creation. I believe that for operators in the education industry, if you are planning to develop a video account, these contents will be of great reference value.

After I disassembled almost all the high-quality educational video accounts on the market, I summarized the content creation of educational video accounts into the following three dimensions: value positioning, form positioning and content layout.

Next, I will elaborate on these three dimensions respectively.

1. Dimension 1: Value Positioning

If you want to create content, you first need to clarify the value positioning of the content. Simply put, it is about what kind of value your content can provide to users. This is actually the same principle as operating a product.

Any product must first clarify what kind of value it can bring to users. Only after the value is recognized by users can the product have the possibility of making money. This is true for making a product and operating a video account.

If we want to recruit students through the video account, we must first clarify what the value of this video account is to users and what reasons users have to follow this video account instead of unfollowing it. This is the basis and prerequisite for operating a video account, and the value that educational institutions can provide is often to explain the knowledge points of various subjects for free, or to impart some tips on family education.

By having real teachers appear on camera, valuable teaching content is provided to users, and the teachers are portrayed as IPs of a certain subject, thereby achieving low-cost customer acquisition. This is the operating logic of almost all educational institutions' video accounts.

To make it easier to understand, let me show you an example from homework help. Zuoyebang has a huge number of video accounts, nearly one hundred. Among them, there are big accounts with over a thousand likes, and small accounts with almost zero likes.

Take one of the large ones, Mr. Jin’s High Score Mathematics, as an example. The teaching method of this video account is not outstanding - a teacher stands in front of the blackboard and explains the questions, there are no special effects and no music, but the content is very high-quality. The content pushed revolves around junior high school mathematics. The teacher explains a junior high school mathematics problem to users every day and also shares a practical problem-solving technique.

Every video is full of value, and every video allows users to gain something, which gives users a strong reason to pay attention.

Currently, the number of likes for each piece of content pushed by this video account is around 700, and is still steadily increasing. In the field of junior high school mathematics, this video account is definitely a top-notch account.

For example, another big account under Zuoyebang, Chi Zi talks about Chinese. This video account is aimed at junior high school Chinese, and its content revolves around compulsory subjects such as writing skills, appreciation of ancient poetry, classical Chinese translation, and reading comprehension.

The teaching style of this video account is more lively than that of Teacher Jin. It adopts a relatively novel outdoor Vlog format, and at the end it will also thoughtfully summarize the knowledge points explained in this video. The relaxed and lively teaching style, combined with valuable content, makes this video account extremely popular among users.

At present, the number of likes for each content of this video account is as high as about 800.

In addition to the two video accounts mentioned above, there are many other high-quality video accounts under Zuoyebang, such as Brother Hui of Mathematics, Uncle Physics, Lingling’s Minimal Mathematics, etc.

Looking at these high-quality video accounts, there are two highlights:

1. These video accounts all have very clear value positioning, some focus on explaining the knowledge points of elementary school Chinese, and some focus on explaining the knowledge points of junior high school mathematics... Almost every piece of content in these video accounts outputs practical information to users and can bring certain value to users, which gives users a strong reason to pay attention to the video accounts.
2. These video accounts all adopt the teaching method of real teachers appearing on camera, directly presenting the teacher's personal image to users, which is undoubtedly more conducive to narrowing the distance between teachers and users and gaining their trust. After all, a vivid personal image is more likely to inspire users' love and trust.

Regarding the second point, many people may have questions. It is true that personal IP numbers are naturally easier to gain user trust than other types of accounts. However, considering the stability of teachers, some institutions may not be willing to push teachers to the front and make them an IP with its own traffic.

So in this case, what form of content can educational institutions adopt?

Personally, I think that in this case, the content output of the video account can no longer be limited to a certain teacher, but can revolve around multiple teachers. In this regard, VIPKID’s video account and VIPKID’s English teaching as a foreign language are of great reference value.

This video account will tell users a piece of English knowledge every day, but the teacher who appears on the video is not unique but rather not fixed. Almost all of VIPKID’s star foreign teachers will take turns to appear on the video. In this way, while ensuring the value of the content, the influence of teachers is weakened to the greatest extent, thereby avoiding the risks brought to the institution due to the instability of teachers.

2. Dimension 2: Form Positioning

Clarifying the value positioning of the video account is only the basis and premise. After all, the content of the video account is hardcore and valuable, and users will only think that this video account is useful. However, if you want to make users feel emotionally surprised and achieve the effect of user self-propagation, you need to find a novel and interesting way to express the content.

For most educational institutions, it is actually not difficult to output valuable content. After all, teachers in educational institutions are professional original content producers. The real difficulty lies in how to package these contents into a form that users like without losing their sense of value.

After analyzing and reviewing the educational video accounts on the market, I have summarized the following four most popular content formats, hoping that they will be of some inspiration to you.

1) Single person broadcast

In educational videos, we often see a scene like this: the teacher speaks into the camera, there are no special effects, and no cooperation or assistance from other characters. Only the teacher appears, and the background is either a blackboard or some life-like scenes.

——This form is called single-person broadcast.

This format, which is similar to traditional classrooms, is currently the most common content format, especially in the fields of K12 and vocational education. As mentioned above, Mr. Jin's high-scoring mathematics class and Chi Zi's Chinese class both adopted this format. In addition, other big names such as Pincheng's English class and Yueyue's mathematics class also use this format.

The advantage of this teaching method is that the cost of shooting and editing is extremely low, and it is easy to get started. Planners often do not need to prepare too many fancy lines and creative ideas, they just need to explain the knowledge points clearly. However, the disadvantages are also obvious. There are many video accounts that adopt this format, and homogeneous competition is very serious. It is relatively difficult to increase the volume by relying on pure oral broadcasting.

2) Dual screen comparison

This form of content often appears in video accounts of educational institutions targeting younger children, and is particularly common in children's language training institutions.

——The screen will be divided into two parts, and the teacher often plays two roles, each giving a different example for a certain knowledge point. Usually, the left half of the screen shows incorrect examples, and the right half shows correct examples. This dual-screen comparison can vividly explain a certain knowledge point.

This is considered an upgraded version of the single-person broadcast format. Currently, the video accounts that use this format include: Zebra English’s video account Teacher Jenna, and VIPKID’s video accounts Peach Foreign Teacher Teaching English and Thor Foreign Teacher Speaking English.

3) Situational plot

By designing a fun and interesting plot and cleverly integrating knowledge explanation into it, users can learn while having fun and gain knowledge while consuming the plot. This is also a content form that is popular in educational video accounts.

This format can better balance the entertainment value of the short video platform and the value of the educational content. Currently, some good drama video accounts include Chi Zi Kan Chinese Language under Zuoyebang and Accountant Girlfriend August under Kaoyaya.

Chi Zi talks about Chinese in an ancient style, explaining Chinese language-related knowledge through the stories of the test god Chi Zi and the high school student Jia Xiaoming. I have to say that this style is very similar to Xueersi’s previously popular short video IP, Wenquxing.

Accountant Girlfriend August popularizes accounting knowledge by telling the work life of accountants, and each video ends with the sentence "Can it be done?", creating a distinctive memory point for users.

Drama video accounts are very popular among users, and they have a strong effect on shaping character IP. However, the shooting cost of drama accounts is relatively high, and not everyone is suitable for performing on camera.

Therefore, we will find that many drama accounts often have high-quality content at the beginning, and even have several hits in succession. Then in the later stages, the content gradually becomes poor and various data also fall sharply.

In view of this, many video accounts have turned to content with weak plots. In the case of weak plot content, the main content of the video is still the explanation of knowledge points, and the plot only plays a guiding role.

Weak plot video accounts often have a standard format in terms of content, which is divided into three parts: a plot will be performed at the beginning, the purpose of which is to lead to the explanation of knowledge points; the middle part is the explanation of the knowledge points, which is the main body of the video content; at the end there will be an unexpected plot reversal, accompanied by a touching soundtrack, which makes people feel unsatisfied.

Many of the video accounts under Zuoyebang are in this form of weak plot, such as Hui Ge’s Mathematics, Physics Uncle, etc. Judging from the data of likes, reposts and other data of these video accounts, this form is also quite popular among users.

4) Handwritten whiteboard

All of the content formats listed above require the teacher’s actual appearance. So is there a way to present content to users well without the need for a teacher to appear in person?

Yes, this form is a handwritten whiteboard.

——Aim the camera at a blackboard or an A4 paper, which lists the questions and knowledge points that need to be explained, and then the teacher explains the specific problem-solving process through voice-over.

The advantage of this format is that it can ensure that users see the questions from a first-person perspective, the knowledge points are clearly listed, and the shooting cost is extremely low; the disadvantage is that the sense of character is low, which is not conducive to building IP, and the user's sense of immersion is poor. At present, the video accounts that adopt this format include Zuoyebang’s "Getting Through" series of video accounts: Getting Through Elementary School Mathematics, Getting Through Elementary School Chinese, Getting Through Elementary School Olympiad Mathematics, etc.

The above are the four common video account content formats that I personally summarized. Of course, the above four types cannot completely cover all content forms, and with the further improvement of the content ecology of video accounts, I believe that more novel and interesting content forms will emerge in the future.

However, no matter which form of content is adopted, one thing is beyond doubt. That is, the content format of the video account is by no means static. Any video account will go through a dynamic exploration process before finding a content format suitable for the account.

Take the example of the video account of Zuoyebang called Physics Uncle. The account initially took the form of a single person's broadcast, and the number of likes was less than 100; later, the format changed to teachers and students working together to demonstrate physics experiments, but the number of likes still did not improve. It was not until the current weak plot format was gradually figured out that the number of likes and reposts of this account began to increase significantly.

3. Dimension 3: Content Layout

The above content briefly introduces the two positioning of video account content, namely, value positioning and form positioning. For most educational video accounts, it is enough to clearly define two positionings and then continuously output content around the positioning. At least the content will not lag behind.

However, some video accounts will be more sophisticated. In addition to paying attention to the value and form of the content, they also pay attention to the layout of the content. Taking the video accounts under Zuoyebang as an example, they will arrange the output of content reasonably according to different time periods.

If you carefully analyze the content strategies of these accounts, you will find that: the content pushed by these accounts on a regular basis is mainly about the knowledge points of various subjects; when students are preparing for final exams, they will push some content related to mentality adjustment and test score improvement techniques in a timely manner; during the holidays, they will push some relatively relaxing content, or simply initiate some holiday activities, and the frequency of pushing dry content will be reduced accordingly.

In addition to the above content layout based on time nodes, some video accounts will also arrange content based on different content functions, such as the video account Pincheng Teaching English. The content pushed by Pincheng English Teaching is mainly practical knowledge in the field of children's English.

But there are also many other types of content in between. For example, some of the content is saying for parents what they want to tell their children, as shown below. These words will undoubtedly strongly stimulate the desire of parents to share.

What's worse, some content is just trying to gain sympathy by playing the victim. As shown below, the dark tone of the video, combined with the tragic soundtrack, effectively aroused the emotions of users, and the comments section below was full of words of encouragement and praise.

The number of likes and reposts for these two types of content is very high, much higher than those of knowledge-based content. If we say that the knowledge-based content as the main body of the content is to highlight the teaching level of Mr. Pincheng, its function is to retain fans.

So, the above two types of content are driving users to share and like, and their function is to attract traffic. The two types of content have different responsibilities, both for attracting traffic and retaining fans. They work together and cooperate with each other to maximize the content of the video account.

Okay, the article has been written here, and the content section is about to end.

Let’s briefly review the main content of the content section: Video accounts should create content from three aspects: content value, form, and layout.

1. First of all, the content needs to have a clear value positioning. It is necessary to ensure that the content is valuable to users. This is the premise and foundation.
2. Secondly, you need to explore an interesting packaging format for the content. Common formats include: oral broadcast, dual-screen comparison, scenario plot, and handwritten whiteboard.
3. Finally, we must also pay attention to content layout. The more common ones are content layout based on time nodes and content layout based on content functions.

II. Operation

Many people may think: As long as I focus on creating content and ensure the quality of the content, the video account will become successful sooner or later. This idea is certainly correct, but in the education industry where competition for traffic is fierce, this approach is undoubtedly too Buddhist.

In addition to creating content, we should pay more attention to some operational methods of the video account. Reasonable application of these methods can significantly accelerate the growth of fans and customers of the video account. For the education industry, only by focusing on both content and operations can the video account achieve rapid and healthy growth in fans and customers.

And from my observation, there are not many ways to operate the video accounts of educational institutions at present. Everyone’s energy is focused on content creation, and they generally do not pay much attention to the exploration of operational methods.

Therefore, this is also an opportunity.

——When no one pays attention to operations, but you do, you will often stand out. After some research, I would like to share two very interesting gameplay routines here, hoping that they will be of some inspiration to you.

1. Check-in fission

This is a check-in activity initiated by Teacher Chi Zi’s Chinese class on the video account under Zuoyebang. The activity was held during the winter vacation. In the name of promoting children's self-discipline during the winter vacation, the activity guided them to check in and interact under the video every day. If they checked in for a certain number of days, they would receive corresponding rewards.

The rules of the event are very simple:

1. If you like and comment on the updated video every day, it will be counted as a check-in.
2. During the event, you can receive an exclusive back-to-school information package from Teacher Chi Zi if you check in for seven days.
3. If you check in for 21 days, you can get tutoring materials carefully selected by Teacher Chi Zi, which will be delivered to your home free of charge.

The rules are as follows:

In order to promote user participation, the video account pushed a special event promotion video. In the video, the teacher introduced the activity rules in detail and called on everyone to participate. During the event, the video will always be pinned to ensure that it can reach all users to the greatest extent possible.

The essential logic of this activity is to set up certain step-by-step baits to drive users to like and comment on the video. For the recommendation algorithm of the video account, the more interactive behaviors users have under the video, the easier it is for the algorithm to judge it as a high-quality video, thereby obtaining more traffic recommendations.

The advantage of this check-in activity is that it is simple in form and does not require any tools or development, so you can get started right away. The disadvantage is that this form of activity is more suitable for video accounts that already have a certain amount of fans. If your video account does not have too many fans at present, this activity may be difficult to achieve the expected results.

2. Accumulative fission

This activity is also initiated by the video account under Zuoyebang. If the check-in fission introduced above is more suitable for big accounts that have accumulated a certain amount of fans, then this form of accumulation and fission activity will not only be applicable to big accounts, but also to small accounts that have no accumulated fans.

Taking the Chinese language king Xiao Xiaobai on the video account as an example, let’s see what the routine of accumulation and fission is. First of all, every short video pushed by the video account will guide users to click on the extended link at the bottom at the end. When the user clicks on the link page, the copy will guide them to add Teacher Xiao Xiaobai’s corporate WeChat.

When the user successfully adds WeChat for Business, WeChat for Business will immediately send a private voice message from Teacher Xiao Xiaobai and a link to join the group, reminding the user to join the video account fan group. As shown below:

This step guides users into the WeChat group through an interlocking link design, which is the first step in the cumulative fission gameplay.

There are two highlights of this step:

1. In the name of adding Teacher Xiao Xiaobai’s personal WeChat, users are guided to add corporate WeChat. For fans of this video account, they can add Teacher Xiao Xiaobai’s WeChat, which is undoubtedly very tempting.
2. When guiding users to join the fan group, a voice message is released. Compared with text, voice messages are more real, so they have a stronger driving force for users and can further increase the user joining rate.

When users come to the WeChat group, the operators will drive users to spread the video account through the design of a community points system. This is the most essential and core step of this gameplay.

When users come to the WeChat group, first, the community administrator will post a message in the group to explain the group rules and specify that the group will update the latest content of the video account every day. Users can get rewards by commenting or liking the teacher’s video account.

At seven o'clock in the evening, the group began to push the latest content of the video account, with the explanation that comments, likes or reposts can get corresponding points.

The specific rules for obtaining points are as follows:

Driven by this rule, users followed the instructions, liked the video and forwarded the screenshots of the video to the group. The social robot would remind users to earn points. The reason why points are valuable to users is that points can be exchanged for gifts. Just send a password in the group: points exchange.

The social robot will then send a list of redeemable gifts, as shown below:

It should be noted that this entire community points system is implemented through a community operation tool. In order to avoid suspicion of advertising, the name of this tool will not be mentioned here. There are actually many of these tools on the market. If you need them, just search online for the keyword: WeChat group points.

That’s the complete breakdown of the cumulative fission gameplay. The process of this gameplay is actually very simple. To sum up, there are only two steps:

1. Step 1: Direct fans of the video account into the WeChat community by adding an extended link at the bottom of the video account content and adding a corporate WeChat QR code in the linked article.
2. Step 2: Use community operation tools to build a community points system to drive users to spread the content of the video account, thereby achieving a fission effect.

3. Conclusion

The above is the entire content of the article.

Up to now, the discussion about video accounts in the Internet circle is still very heated. However, those who really pay attention to video accounts are personal self-media, and it is rare to see brand organizations spend much energy on the operation of video accounts.

Taking the education industry as an example, apart from large education companies like Zuoyebang, there are very few other smaller educational institutions that really pay attention to the operation of video accounts. This may be because, compared with pictures and texts, the production cost of videos is too high, and the commercial value of video accounts has not been widely verified, so some smaller educational institutions dare not take risks easily.

Despite this, I believe that as WeChat’s most important short video product, Video Account is still worthy of the attention and attention of every organization.

At the end of the article, let’s briefly review the core points of the article: This article analyzes the high-quality educational video accounts on the market, and attempts to summarize a set of operating methodologies for video accounts of educational institutions from the perspective of content and operation.

Content is the foundation and lifeblood of a video account. When creating content, we must focus on the three dimensions of content value, form, and layout.

First, ensure that the content is valuable to users. Second, provide an interesting packaging for the content. Finally, pay attention to the layout of the content, which can be done from the two dimensions of time and function.

In addition to content, operations are also indispensable. The participation of some fission routines can accelerate the growth of fans and customers of the video account. The fission routines that can be used as reference include: check-in fission and accumulation fission.

Among them, check-in fission is more suitable for big accounts with a certain amount of fans accumulated, while accumulation fission is not only suitable for big accounts, but also for small accounts that do not have too many fans accumulated.

Author: Su Tanbin

Source: Su Tanbin