How to choose a live streaming platform? The most complete guide!

Thanks to the popularity of internet celebrities such as Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya, e-commerce live streaming quickly entered the public eye, and 2019 became the first year of the explosion of e-commerce live streaming.

Affected by the epidemic, online live streaming maintained a high growth trend in early 2020 and once again won widespread attention in the marketing circle. It was regarded by many brands as a life-saving straw to save declining sales.

The term live streaming was once ranked among the top marketing buzzwords, but some industry insiders said that only incompetent marketing departments would do live streaming to sell goods.

Only the incompetent marketing department does live broadcasts?

However, the fact is the opposite. A major principle of brand marketing is that marketing should appear where the users are. So how big is the user base of live streaming now? For brands, is live streaming a temporary life-saving straw, or a traffic pool that can be further explored in the future?

Let’s take a look at some data sets:

1. According to the latest data from CNNIC, the number of online live streaming users in my country has reached 433 million. Among them, the user scales of reality show live broadcasts and sports live broadcasts are 205 million and 194 million respectively, and the user scales of game live broadcasts and concert live broadcasts are 243 million and 116 million respectively.

2. According to a report by China Merchants Securities, the number of online live broadcast users is predicted to reach 524 million in 2020, with a growth rate of 4.59%.

3. Quest Mobile data shows that the proportion of time spent on short videos on weekdays in February 2020 reached 15.2%. Except for mobile social apps, short videos accounted for the highest proportion of time.

Based on the data, Shi Youqu believes that the live streaming market has three main characteristics: large user scale, high activity, and steady growth. Live streaming has become a new form of entertainment, penetrating into users' daily life and entertainment.

In the future, brands that understand live streaming marketing will gain more users, and brands that get into live streaming first will have the user bonus of building a private traffic pool.

Three major echelons of live streaming platforms

When consumer behavior and preferences change, all parties in the industry will also be able to sensitively capture potential business opportunities and business positioning, quickly adapt to changes in the consumer side, and establish new growth lines.

In this environment, the live streaming industry also saw rapid growth like spring rain in early 2020. Compared with professional vertical live broadcast platforms, short video, social, e-commerce, comprehensive video platforms, etc. have also deployed live broadcast businesses.

For brands that want to launch online live streaming marketing, they are faced with the difficult problem of choosing a platform when deciding to live stream. For example, platform tone matching, user matching, traffic recommendation, content production and anchor selection, etc.

Shiyouqu has experienced 20 live streaming platforms (including B2B platforms) by combining relevant industry data and research from TrustData, Taobao Rankings, and other sources. It has divided live streaming platforms into three tiers based on the platform’s monthly active user scale and business type:

First Tier

Taobao has strong e-commerce attributes and a rich variety of goods. It can rely on its own traffic and external platform traffic as the base for traffic distribution. Its users are mostly in first- and second-tier cities, and it also covers fourth- and fifth-tier markets.

By establishing a live broadcast portal, Taobao can directly gather goods and people in one scene. For brands, it is an ideal online sales scenario.

However, the strong e-commerce attributes also mean that the categories of products available for live streaming on the platform are very rich, which does not provide an advantage for niche brand merchants, and traffic is more concentrated on top merchants and anchors. In Taobao Live, content production and anchor selection are key factors in increasing traffic.

Douyin and Kuaishou have obvious entertainment and social attributes, focusing on entertainment and social content, and have the advantages of high traffic and high activity platforms.

Tik Tok mainly targets urban youths, and focuses on first- and second-tier cities. However, Douyin’s live streaming sales are relatively weak, but as Luo Yonghao made Douyin live streaming popular and attracted the attention of many brands, Douyin will definitely accelerate the polishing and sedimentation of the live streaming business model.

In addition, Douyin belongs to the Toutiao system, and the Douyin live broadcast traffic recommendation method is similar to Toutiao. It is a logic that focuses more on algorithms and less on fans. It will match content and users based on user preferences and browsing habits, and make accurate recommendations through algorithms.

For brands that start live streaming on Douyin, they will face the challenge of how to attract traffic. Early live streaming promotion and exposure, topic selection, etc. are all crucial.

Kuaishou focuses on the sinking market, has weak operational control, recommends content based on social interaction and user interests, and mainly promotes recommended content on the follow page, while deepening the relationship and stickiness between anchors and fans.

Kuaishou anchors have a strong fan base, which is what Kuaishou labels as “old iron relationships”. For brands, if they choose Kuaishou as a live broadcast platform, they must have a sufficiently deep-rooted “old iron” following.

Kuaishou and Douyin are both new e-commerce marketing scenarios for brands. The competition for traffic is still in its early stages, and there is room for exploration.

But the prerequisite is that it needs to be connected with e-commerce stores to achieve back-end link connection, or if the brand simply wants to gain exposure and promote products, it can also direct traffic to its own online stores. However, there will definitely be user loss in the process of cross-platform traffic diversion.

Second Tier

In the second tier, platform types are mainly social media, comprehensive e-commerce and video platforms.

Weibo is a social and content platform with a large user base. However, because Weibo focuses more on hot topics and aggregates short and fast news and gossip, and its live streaming traffic is relatively low, it is placed in the second tier.

The content of its live broadcasts is often dominated by non-standard categories such as clothing, accessories, and daily necessities. Currently, it mainly relies on KOL live broadcasts + hot topic searches, and there are relatively few merchants participating in the live broadcasts.

Pinduoduo is a platform that has emerged in the post-e-commerce era. Due to its group-buying attributes, Pinduoduo has also derived the genes of social e-commerce, mainly focusing on the sinking market.

In addition, the live streaming section was launched in November last year as a trial, and the products sold in the live streaming are mostly small commodities with low average order value, agricultural products or local specialties. They are very down-to-earth and have a certain number of loyal users. For brands with sinking needs, it is a traffic pool worth trying, but price is definitely not the focus of live streaming.

Xigua Video also belongs to the Toutiao system. Its main live broadcast content covers popular game live broadcasts, including music live broadcasts, food live broadcasts, travel live broadcasts, etc., and its traffic comes from platform users.

At present, the Xigua live broadcast section is still in its early stages, and both anchors and merchants are in the incubation stage.

It is worth mentioning that Xigua Video has a value-added mall specially built for sales conversion, which can open up the back-end link of e-commerce. For small and medium-sized brands, it can be used as a new platform for trial and training.

JD Live has strong e-commerce attributes. It started in August 2018. Basically, users watch the live broadcast in order to purchase products, and their consumption purpose is strong.

And because JD.com users are mostly male, JD.com live streaming is different from other e-commerce live streaming methods of sales promotion and roaring live streaming. It is mainly based on evaluation and physical display.

In addition, JD Live does not have representative internet celebrity anchors and merchants, but with its huge user base and e-commerce advantages in all categories, JD will be more inclined to launch a joint approach of popular merchants and anchors to attract more merchants to join.

Xiaohongshu is a social content-seeking platform for women. Recently, it has attracted widespread attention due to the failure of LV’s live broadcast on Xiaohongshu. Xiaohongshu just announced the launch of its e-commerce live broadcast function at the end of last year.

In the era of universal live streaming, Xiaohongshu's entry into live streaming seems a bit late and is still in the early testing stage. The sources of its live streaming traffic are the platform's own traffic and the private traffic of Xiaohongshu influencers.

However, at present, the audience for Xiaohongshu's live broadcasts is mainly private domain traffic, and the recommended products are mostly beauty and clothing, and they are basically well-known brands.

In addition, Xiaohongshu has strong social planting and note-taking genes, and mainly focuses on sharing Plog life records. Recorded video sharing will be more suitable. The key to Xiaohongshu's live broadcast to gain traffic lies in how to bring together scattered private traffic and public traffic.

Bilibili mainly has young users and Generation Z, and focuses more on two-dimensional, ghost-animal and other types of content, but for brands, the value lies in the youth of its users.

Now most traditional brands are eager to transform themselves into younger brands. Bilibili is often given priority, but it is also the marketing position that is most easily abandoned. The reason lies in Bilibili’s circle culture and UP hosts. It is difficult for brand owners to adapt to the circle culture and develop content that wins people’s hearts.

There are fewer live broadcasts on Bilibili now, and the content is mostly co-created by brands and UP hosts. The product categories are also very focused, such as technology products and niche fashion items.

With the strong appeal of Bilibili users to brands, it is only a matter of time before most brands enter Bilibili's live streaming. But ultimately, the future commercialization of Bilibili's live streaming will depend on the positioning of the platform, whether it is user-friendly or brand-friendly. At present, many Bilibili users are moving to AcFun.

Third Tier

The third echelon is mainly composed of game live streaming and e-commerce platforms. Game live streaming is mainly carried out by Huya, Douyu and YY. The main source of traffic for game live streaming platforms is still game live streaming.

Douyu is vertically focused on mobile e-sports, with live broadcasts of mobile games such as the King of Glory KPL Professional League as its main platform;

Huya is a traditional e-sports game on PC, attracting users with traditional e-sports games such as PUBG and League of Legends;

Huajiao Live focuses on the lives of those born in the 1990s and 1995s, with daily interactions and sharing. It has hundreds of self-produced live programs including culture, music, fitness, variety shows, sitcoms, etc.

At the same time, Huajiao Live, as a social platform with strong celebrity attributes, is a channel for celebrities to communicate with fans. For example, fans can watch celebrity fan meetings through Huajiao Live, which is mainly based on fan circle culture;

YY is not limited to game live streaming, but also involves sports live streaming, TV live streaming, etc. The live streaming content is more life-oriented, event-oriented, and personalized, including cooking, handmade DIY, travel, outdoor sports, celebrity events, auto shows, etc.

At present, the echelon of game live streaming platforms has become relatively stable. Due to the popularity of live streaming, game live streaming platforms have once again become a window for brands to pay attention to.

However, compared with the live broadcast tone, content coverage and population characteristics of e-commerce and social platforms, game live broadcast platforms are more niche, mainly for male groups, and can sell fewer product categories. The main way to sell goods is for game anchors to rely on their personal influence to guide fans' purchasing intentions through dialogue and communication during the live broadcast, thereby converting game live broadcast users into e-commerce brand users.

E-sports became popular when the IG team won China's first global LOL finals championship. Since then, society's recognition of e-sports games has greatly increased, and the content and gameplay of game live broadcasts have become increasingly rich.

For the "he economy" category, it is a relatively high-quality exposure platform. Brand owners can also consider cooperating with game anchors to make some more relevant exposures during the live broadcast.

For example, when sports marketing collectively loses its luster, gaming e-sports may fill the marketing gap left by sports events. Brands that were previously keen on sports events may start to pay attention to gaming e-sports.

There are two e-commerce platforms in the third echelon, Suning.com and Mogujie.com. Suning.com launched the live broadcast function in 2017. Relying on the e-commerce category on the platform, merchants conduct live broadcasts to sell goods. There is no representative anchor, and the live broadcast function is relatively weak compared to other e-commerce platforms.

Mogujie mainly displays its products through live shopping broadcasts, with buyers mainly selling goods through live broadcasts. It has a relatively small amount of traffic and is also a type of social e-commerce.

Summarize

2020 is the year of live streaming for all. It is indeed a short-term self-help method for brands. The "incompetence" of the marketing department is not true. At the same time, live streaming is also an opportunity for brands to embrace digitalization. Through online live streaming, brands can try a whole set of digital marketing methods with lower marketing costs, from early platform matching to promotion, platform diversion, data effect evaluation, etc.

However, brands may need to think carefully about the real value of live streaming for marketing. In live streaming marketing, how to choose platforms, match the gameplay of different platforms, and integrate with other marketing gameplay to obtain greater marketing dividends through a combination of methods.

The marketing industry is an industry that is constantly innovating and has many uncertainties. You never know what the next hot trend will be. There is no incompetent marketing department, only OUT marketing departments.

Extra: To B live streaming platform

During the epidemic, in addition to the popularity of To C live broadcasts, due to the disappearance of offline scenarios, B-side meetings have also moved online. According to QuestMobie data, there has been a significant increase in business apps with live conferencing and online education functions on the B-side.

It is interesting to combine relevant experience and information to share with you the functional features of the B-side platform:

Attached is the summary map: