How can educational institutions make teachers famous through short video operations?

Short videos are one of the current development trends in various fields. This year's booming online education industry is also eager to try this field. How are those popular educational short videos made?

2019-2020 is a period for short video creators in the general knowledge field to fully enjoy the platform traffic dividend. The reason for saying this is that in just over a year, the mainstream short video platforms Douyin and Kuaishou have launched numerous support activities for creators in the education field, seemingly intending to make education a key vertical category of the platform. ByteDance has even openly wanted to enter the education field.

Now that the two major short video platform players attach so much importance to educational creators and operate them in a refined manner, it has undoubtedly created a stage where the spotlight is shining for educational institutions/creators. Educational institutions/creators are naturally willing to join in and build their own short video accounts, either to enhance brand influence, sell courses to earn revenue, or acquire customers to reduce costs.

To date, after more than a year of platform support and hard work by educational institutions, there have been many accounts of famous educators that have gained many fans and have been successfully pushed to the forefront. The characteristics of such accounts are: fixed real-life teacher appearances, lectures on subject knowledge or learning methods, and the accounts have a certain fan base.

For example, the gold medal mathematics lecturer "Wu Jiuri" on Douyin, with a coffee table, a screen and a white Hanfu, gives people a refreshing sense of teaching ritual. The simple, generous and fairy-like character appearance setting leaves a deep impression on people at first sight.

His first video, "How difficult is the last math question in the college entrance examination?", has been viewed over 10 million times. The timeless hot topic of "College Entrance Examination" coupled with precise case data to support the idea that "the average score for the final question was 0.31 points" and "not a single person out of 300,000 people in the province got it right", and finally the revealing explanation leading to "Don't be dissatisfied, the difficult final question of the college entrance examination was deliberately designed", really satisfies the user's curiosity greatly after reading it. This hit video was later pinned to the top of the account by the operator. Until shortly before the college entrance examination, there were still many users leaving comments and interacting with it. The long-tail effect of the video was very obvious.

Since then, the account's operations team has focused on hot topics of interest to students, such as:

• "Which year's college entrance examination math questions were the most difficult?"
• "Do you know where the college entrance examination papers come from?"
• “What is it like to go to Hengshui No. 1 Middle School?”
• "Who is Ge Jun, the math devil of the college entrance examination?"
• …

It is definitely a video version of a "Zhihu" column, but users are very fond of this kind of content, and the number of fans on Douyin is also rising steadily. This is just one example. Looking at the educational accounts with a large number of fans and vertical content on short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, we can find that they all have some things in common.

So, how to make educational short videos? Let’s take a look at the following tips!

1. Topic Content

Target the urgent needs of the student group and find the urgent needs of your target group?

Here’s a tip for you: list keywords.

For example, if the target audience you want to attract with your account is high school students, then what keywords can you use around them?

For example, the keywords that can be listed include: college entrance examination, university, study methods, etc. The keyword "college entrance examination" can be broken down into preparation methods, analysis of college entrance examination questions, instant score-raising techniques, college entrance examination admission rates, major provinces for college entrance examinations, etc.; topics surrounding universities can be broken down into college entrance examination application forms, selection of majors, universities, university life, etc.; by unraveling the issues layer by layer, you will find out what the target audience's concerns are. By testing around these key contents, you will find that a certain type of content is almost an everlasting hit.

2. Create a differentiated video style

For teachers of the same subject, the knowledge points they teach are actually similar. The reason why some teachers gain followers quickly while others gain followers slowly lies in differentiation.

What is differentiation? For example, normally math teachers explain problems in front of the blackboard, so your teacher can go for the ancient style of the school; for another example, most teachers set the scene indoors, so your teacher can try to go outdoors; or other teachers all teach in a serious manner, so your teacher can try a sharp and cool style.

In short, give the audience enough memory points so that they can remember this teacher in a short time.

3. Improve teachers’ hard skills

Except for general knowledge accounts that focus on form, such as Chinese, which can try to use operations to replace teachers, the best characters for other subjects should be the expressive teachers themselves. After all, only teachers know best what key knowledge points students need to master and what form of explanation will make it easier for students to accept. Teachers themselves also have the most professional teaching experience to provide shaping support.

4. Practical skills are important, but knowledge should be light

Why is it so easy for Chinese language subject accounts to create high-follower accounts or popular videos even without famous teachers appearing on the screen? Because the knowledge points of Chinese language are light enough, ancient and modern Chinese and foreign literature, history and culture can all be used as a resource library for videos. Although users can find this type of content by searching on Baidu, when it is told by real people on Douyin, users will still feel a sense of surprise that they have "increased knowledge" and "learned something" when they first hear it. Whoever impresses users first at that moment will win their favor and attention.

Accounts like mathematics and physics focus purely on subject knowledge. The content is too hard-core and can easily cause psychological discomfort, making users feel tired and bored. If such accounts want to gain a rapid increase in fans, it would be more effective to intersperse content with learning methods and motivational quotes.

5. Long-termism, continuous content update

The essence of updating the content of a short video account is to create a hit. Only hit videos can help an account increase followers quickly. Only stable and continuous updates can guarantee the probability of the account becoming a hit and allow users who follow you to have the possibility of seeing you a second time. Many people fail in their account creation not because of poor content, but because they fail to persist until the day when a hit product comes. If you decide that short videos are the way to go, then it is necessary to ensure continuous updates.

The essence of education is to impart knowledge and answer questions. The two most important points in creating a famous teacher account are: one is to shape the teacher's personality and characteristics, and the other is to convey practical knowledge value. If you blindly pursue popular forms and eye-catching anecdotes, the content will deviate from the core value of education. Even if you can gain traffic at the time, the ceiling of the account will easily be reached and it will be difficult to sustain.

Currently, leading education and training institutions have all entered the market to try to build the influence of famous teachers. The battle for traffic and users has never stopped. Famous teachers are a good signboard, and if you want to make this signboard famous, you need to keep working hard.

In addition to short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, there are also many educational institutions, educational enterprises, and content creators who use the third-party technology service provider Maker Artisan to produce and present short videos. Compared with those traffic-based platforms, having their own platform can better accumulate and settle their own fans without worrying about fans being snatched away by similar accounts. They can also better retain and convert their fans and realize commercial monetization.

The integrated development of "education + short video" has brought more possibilities to online education. In the future, short videos + education will become an important competitive advantage in the development of online education.

Author: Xiaowanzi, who works hard

Source: Chibi Maruko-chan working hard