6 truths about Taobao short videos!

Double Eleven is coming soon, and Taobao is making a strong move in the short video market. In this article, the author will share with you some things about short videos on Taobao mobile phones, and give sellers some suggestions on how to make good use of short videos to gain more traffic in the Taobao system.

As Double 11 approaches, friends in the e-commerce circle should have more or less known that Taobao Mobile will be undergoing a major revision. The purpose is to completely turn Taobao into content and video. Short videos have become the most important indicator of this revision .

Regarding Taobao's emphasis on promoting short videos, some people are optimistic and believe that this is the most powerful form of content for current Internet platforms to capture user time.

Some people are not optimistic and believe that Taobao will never be able to become as successful as Douyin or Kuaishou because users simply do not have the mindset to actively go to Taobao to watch short videos.

Of course there are also people who feel very helpless. Because they are forced to produce a large number of short videos in a short period of time, they have to increase the budget by at least 100,000 yuan each month, and they don’t know whether it will be effective.

This article summarizes 6 truths about Taobao short videos . I hope to have a better understanding of things that are in the limelight.

1. The past and present of Taobao’s development of short videos

Friends who have been exposed to e-commerce marketing in the past few years should know that Taobao actually started experimenting with short videos as early as 2016.

At that time, it was the "One Thousand and One Nights" on the second floor of Taobao. After 10 o'clock every night, you could pull down Taobao Mobile to enter. The main idea was: tell users a healing story about good things every night before going to bed.

To present high-quality products on Taobao in a richer form. Use high-quality content, merchandise and product experience to express the quality and youthfulness of the Taobao brand.

The response was indeed very good, and it has since led to a series of platform service apps starting to build scene entrances on the second floor.

Later, Taobao not only promoted short videos on the second floor, but also encouraged major merchants to promote short videos on the second floor of their own stores.

So, in fact, the wave of second-floor Brandzones that Taobao promoted a few months ago this year was promoted a few years ago, but later merchants felt that it had no traffic at all, and gradually no one did it.

Let’s go back to Taobao’s short videos. In 2017, the “Discover” section was added to the “Guess You Like” channel on the Taobao mobile homepage, and the page mainly features short video content.

In 2018, the “Love Shopping” channel on Taobao’s homepage was revamped and upgraded and renamed “Wow Video”. Taobao originally intended to make this an important short video content section to compete with TikTok.

However, due to the explosive growth of Taobao Live in 2018, short videos were eventually overshadowed by live streaming.

As a result, Taobao’s plan to develop short videos was once again shelved. The greater use of short videos in Taobao has become to attract traffic for Taobao live broadcasts in the early stage, and to edit the wonderful parts of the live broadcast into different short video clips in the later stage.

2. This heavy blow is due to the competition for traffic and changes in shopping habits

After going through various twists and turns, Taobao finally launched a strong attack on short videos.

According to various recent news, Taobao has made an unprecedented revision of its mobile version in terms of short video layout:

Remove the top diamond booth and only keep the first picture and video. The "You May Also Like" section will be adjusted to video display, moved up and expanded.

There are two factors that have led Taobao to make such a heavy investment in short videos: competition for traffic and changes in shopping habits.

The first factor, competition for traffic, is easy to understand.

This is an attempt by Taobao, which is getting closer and closer to the ceiling of traffic growth, to fight back against the threat of Douyin and Kuaishou eroding user time through short videos.

The reason why Taobao did not make such a strong determination to fight back in the past is that it could use the traffic from these short video platforms to reverse the flow of traffic to itself. But now, as Douyin and Kuaishou have built their own e-commerce ecosystems, the opening for diverting traffic to third-party e-commerce platforms is becoming smaller and smaller. Therefore, Taobao had no choice but to grit its teeth and take action on its own.

The second factor is based on changes in users' shopping habits.

From the original search-based shopping link with a clear purpose to the current content-planting link with no clear purpose, short videos are undoubtedly one of the most powerful content for consumers to plant seeds.

For example: When we accidentally scroll through short videos on Douyin, we may be tempted by a product and make a purchase.

Relying on Alibaba's powerful consumer data algorithm, Taobao has great potential in recommending short videos based on user preferences. Taobao’s plan for the future mainstream shopping chain should be to use short videos to plant the seeds and live streaming to remove the seeds.

3. The ability to create short video content will become a new way for merchants to gain traffic on Taobao

Based on past experience, every important action taken by Taobao means a redistribution of traffic.

For example, in the early days, Taobao launched content channels such as fan parties, interactive bars, brand accounts, etc. in order to develop content e-commerce, allowing merchants to "get a hundred responses with one call."

Although it has now been proven that none of these have been successful, it does not in any way affect Taobao's determination to strengthen the position of content in traffic distribution.

The revision of Taobao Mobile is undoubtedly a strategic announcement by Taobao that short videos will become the most important source of traffic for the Taobao system. Of course, whether it can be successful in the end is another matter.

This is both an opportunity and a challenge for businesses.

For those businesses and organizations that have always attached importance to content, they can make their content capabilities a threshold , gain first-mover advantage and enjoy a wave of traffic dividends.

By creating their own short videos to go along with live streaming, merchants have the opportunity to bypass the competition for live streaming influencer resources, thereby lowering the threshold for bringing in goods.

For those businesses that rely too much on search traffic but lack the ability to create live broadcasts and short videos, it may be more difficult to obtain traffic on the homepage.

4. How can merchants quickly grasp the trend of Taobao short videos? Quantity first, quality later

This year’s Double 11 should be the first concentrated implementation of Taobao’s short video strategy.

Therefore, when merchants are preparing for Double 11 marketing, they must focus their budgets on promoting short videos . After all, catering to the platform's direction is much better than doing it alone as a brand.

Some merchants revealed that in some categories, merchants need to post at least 400 short videos in order to gain exposure during Double 11. For merchants, it does seem like an unreasonable request, but it also reflects that Taobao shop assistants are "forced to do so." It is said that Taobao’s KPI for Double 11 this year is to have 5 million short videos uploaded to Taobao .

Faced with such a crazy trend, it is recommended that businesses increase quantity first and then improve quality!

In the first stage, the store will upload 30-50 short video contents every day, enter the public domain as much as possible, and cover core products. It is expected that from September to December, it will be relatively easy for merchants to obtain resources for short videos.

However, in the long run, as more and more players join the market, users' tastes will become more and more picky, and the amount of traffic distributed by the platform to each merchant and influencer will naturally decrease. Therefore, only those short video works that win by quality will have traffic value.

5. The three most popular content directions of Taobao short videos

Taobao is, after all, an e-commerce shopping platform. Therefore, Taobao short videos should still focus more on the products themselves, but this does not mean that all of them are videos of posed products.

Here are three of the most popular Taobao short video content directions:

• Pain point display + solution type : first show the specific pain point scenario, and then provide the product solution.
• Influencer recommendation, product evaluation and usage : find KOL to use the product on site and demonstrate the functions of the product.
• Scenario stories and product implantation : set up the story script in advance and embed essential artifacts into it.

Attached is the specific requirements for uploading short videos on Taobao merchant backend:

• Size : Videos with 16:9, 1:1, 3:4 or 9:16 aspect ratio
• Duration : 9 seconds to 10 minutes. It is recommended to use a video of about 30 seconds to 1 minute. A fast pace helps improve conversions.
• File size : Supports uploading videos within 300M
• Format : *.mp4
• Video resolution : 720P HD and above
• No watermark, no QR code, no opening and ending credits, no psoriasis, no external website or store logo
• The video must be relevant to the product, highlight the selling points, and avoid any irrelevant content.
• The overall rhythm of the video is brisk, the picture is bright and fresh, and there is no need for meaningless, false and exaggerated effects.

6. Will Taobao short videos completely replace picture and text detail pages? Probably not!

To some extent, short videos can indeed display product information and demonstrate product functions more intuitively.

But does this mean that Taobao short videos will completely replace picture and text detail pages?

I don't think so.

Next, with the help of the platform, the number of short videos in PDP should indeed increase significantly, but it is not reasonable to completely delete the picture and text details page. Two reasons:

First, in terms of consumer shopping experience , not every consumer likes this kind of shopping experience of being bombarded by short videos.

Imagine that we need to watch so many different short videos to understand a product. But I think many people prefer to look at the pictures and texts quietly and then make a quick purchase.

Second, in terms of product attributes, not every product is suitable for introduction and interpretation through short videos.

Some products with high consumption thresholds, such as luxury goods, are more suitable to use pictures and texts to convey in-depth information and create product tone in a more immersive way.

Author: JS Planner

Source: Planner (ID: planner2333)