Internet celebrity marketing: How to solve the problem of keeping Internet celebrities fresh?

The speed at which Internet celebrities are replaced may exceed many people's imagination.

On January 6, the "2020 Content Industry Annual Report" released by Xinbang mentioned that in the Douyin Top 100 list of the whole year, only 1.4% of the accounts were on the list more than 10 times , and most accounts returned to calm after a night of glory.

From forums to Weibo, WeChat, Douban, and then to long and short videos, countless internet celebrities have risen overnight and quickly fallen into obscurity. In just a few years, faces have changed one after another. Those who have remained active for a long time, such as Zhang Dayi and Xue Li, have already become cases that are difficult to replicate.

We are wondering why many internet celebrities have such a short “length of service”? What can be done to prolong their survival and activity cycle?

1. Rapid iteration of internet celebrities: Can’t get up? Die quickly? Not making money?

How long can internet celebrities remain popular? To understand this issue, we must first clearly define the concept of "Internet celebrity" .

In a broad sense, "Internet celebrity" means "Internet celebrity", which not only includes celebrities who make a living from this and produce content for a long time, but also includes groups who become popular due to various social news. However, internet celebrities in the latter case are often time-sensitive and most of them have no commercial value. Therefore , when we discuss the life cycle of internet celebrities, we are more discussing "commercial internet celebrities."

The popularity of commercial internet celebrities is often determined by their account data and commercial value , and their performance varies in different periods and on different platforms.

Some industry insiders believe that the active cycle of short video influencers is 3 to 5 months, while that of graphic and text influencers does not exceed two years. Therefore, there is a saying that the three major survival problems facing Internet celebrities today are: unable to get up, dying quickly, and not making money .

The reasons behind "quick death" are also very complicated.

According to the "2020 Content Industry Annual Report" previously released by Xinbang, in 2019, accounts that appeared in the WeChat monthly TOP100 list 10 times accounted for 53.2% , accounts that appeared in the Taobao Live monthly TOP100 list 10 times accounted for 9.7% , and Douyin accounted for 1.4% .

The high iteration rate of Douyin is related to its platform attributes and distribution mechanism. Some industry insiders describe Douyin's ecosystem as "recognizing content rather than people, and the same content has many versions."

When counting those celebrities who can remain popular for a long time, such as Zhang Dayi, Xue Li, Papi Jiang, etc., Chen Yilong, vice president of Dayu Media, believes that they are all leading cases in "mentality", "content positioning" and "user sensitivity" .

However, there are also views that "being popular" cannot be completely equated with the life cycle of an internet celebrity .

Ziquan, the manager of "Xiaosheng Bibi", believes that the essence of an Internet celebrity is a brand wrapped in a human shell. The cycle of a brand can be monthly, quarterly, or annual, or it can be a century-old store. It is difficult to generalize it with the four words "survival cycle".

“Don’t have too high expectations of influencers. No matter how powerful an influencer is, he or she can’t be on the screen every day. It’s great for him or her to be alive, have his or her own small base, have some regular followers, and have his or her own memes and culture .”

Chen Yilong also said that there is no clear answer to the length of the active cycle of Internet celebrities. "I don't quite agree with the view that Internet celebrities have a 'short life'. It is normal for them to be popular for a period of time and then fade away. However, there is a possibility of revival, unless they completely give up on themselves."

However, the self-media person "Half-Buddha Immortal" mentioned that in fact few people would choose to give up on their own initiative. It’s just that many Internet celebrities rely on hot spots or waves to rise and have no ability for subsequent operations. "Ordinary people in most industries are like this. They are chosen by the times, but soon go with the flow ."

2. As an internet celebrity, do you need to consider preservation?

Although there are different opinions in the industry about the length of the life cycle of Internet celebrities, the decline from prosperity is a natural law of development.

For commercial internet celebrities, the process from rise to decline is the process of their commercial value continuously decreasing. "Maintaining value" has become the natural choice for many internet celebrities.

This process of maintaining value is also a process for internet celebrities to extend their working years and preserve themselves. The question now is, do all internet celebrities need to consider the issue of “keeping fresh”? When should we start considering it?

"Half-Buddha Immortal" believes that the issue of "keeping fresh" depends on personal needs. Those who are ambitious will definitely need to make various attempts to keep themselves popular for as long as possible.

In his opinion, the process of preserving food is like whether a business needs to transform. "If you rely on this to make a living, then you have to serve this matter and you have to work hard to preserve it. This is a professional ethics and survival demand ."

However, he is very Buddhist about whether he will choose to maintain his fame: "Because if I can be famous, I will be famous. If I am not, I will not rely on this to make a living. I will be calmer if I have the skills." If one day he starts to think about maintaining his fame, it should be "the time to survive by doing self-media."

But from the perspective of MCN, this matter has a different stance.

For MCN, the more influencers it has, the more difficult it is to take into account the preservation nodes and measures for each influencer , and it is also difficult to devote all resources to it like MeiOne does to Li Jiaqi.

An MCN manager said anonymously that MCN would like to keep fresh and maintain popularity by catching up with the trend, but would not force every celebrity to follow the MCN's footsteps, "because we have a lot of celebrities and there are constantly new ones being incubated, as long as the organization as a whole can maintain its popularity, that's fine ."

At what point do internet celebrities need to have a sense of crisis and alertness to start preserving their popularity?

Generally speaking, when there is a clear decline in the data, Internet celebrities will feel the reminder from the market: you may be at risk of becoming "outdated". At this time, except for a few people who have completely given up on continuing to work as internet celebrities, most others will consider increasing their fans' sense of freshness by changing their content style, expanding platform channels and formats , etc.

This is why Wang Chao, the founder of Immersive Culture, understands "freshness" as "innovation". "Innovation is to constantly create freshness for the audience, because the audience will feel aesthetic fatigue with the same type of content."

Ziquan also has a similar view. He believes that fans' stimulation threshold is constantly being raised. After a long time, everyone will definitely get bored. It will be too late to transform once everyone loses trust. Therefore, he believes that the indicator that Internet celebrities need to be wary of is "playing with memes."

“You have to pay attention. It’s good when others use your memes, but it’s not funny when you use your own memes. When a creator starts to repeatedly use his old memes, you have to start to be alert. This means that his input-output conversion ability has become rigid. In order to gain fan response, he uses cheap methods to maintain activity. In the long run, this will definitely lead to failure.”

3. The secret of longevity for internet celebrities: Dare to act, dare to change, dare to gamble

Among the existing "long-lived" Internet celebrities, almost no one can prolong their life by staying in a corner alone.

Maintaining high content output is already a basic skill, and only by "seeking innovation" can one "survive".

1. Content Wars: The Battle Between Text, Audio, and Video

The path to staying fresh as an internet celebrity in the history of new media is, in a sense, also a path to changing content trends.

The most visible change in the trend last year was in the form of content: from text and pictures to videos .

In fact, this has also been a major trend in the past decade: traffic has shifted from early text-only platforms such as BBS and blogs, to graphic and text platforms such as Weibo and WeChat, and then gradually to video platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Taobao Live.

He Caitou, an evergreen in the Internet celebrity world who claims that his mission is to "entertain netizens", became famous for his unique personal style in the BBS era, and now he is popular on Weibo and WeChat. His sharp spoofs are an enduring necessity as Internet culture develops.

In 2008, He Caitou joined Tencent and later appeared in "锵锵三人行". With his unique core competitiveness, he opened up multiple exposure channels. To this day, "Caobian Wangshi" is still a regular on the new list.

The ability to produce hardcore content is the basic skill of an internet celebrity . On this basis, cross-format content may become a powerful tool to extend career life.

The rise of short videos and live broadcasts in 2019 directly inspired a large number of graphic and text authors to explore the video field.

For example, last year's dark horse public account "Half-Buddha Immortal" gained 600,000 followers on WeChat, quickly moved towards the video trend, opened a video account on Bilibili, and reached 1 million followers within 45 days.

It is a choice and also a skill. “The reason I tried it is that I think I have good eloquence, but writing articles alone cannot show my writing skills, so I want to have another way to show myself.” said “Half-Buddha Immortal”.

2. Platform expansion: getting on the cusp of a trend depends half on luck and half on hard work

In a sense, a platform is roughly equivalent to a trend. It is not uncommon to gain a foothold in one trend, but gaining a foothold in multiple trends is considered experienced and has withstood the test of time.

While maintaining their own core content output capabilities, they specifically select newly emerging platforms for expansion - every celebrity is betting on which is the next WeChat or the next TikTok, and if the bet is right, it will not only mean the continuation of their career life, but may also lead to a career comeback.

"Our company has a long-lived app called 'Ruanruan' which started operating in April 2016. It is still quite active on Weibo, but of course it will also decline - the decline is based on the data of the entire platform. China's population will not double, so it is difficult to double the number of users on the platform. "Chen Yilong said.

However, even if traffic on a particular platform declines, a lean camel is still bigger than a horse. More celebrities choose to put their eggs in more than one basket.

Whether it is a picture and text influencer or a video influencer, they are all seeking multi-platform and multi-line development, especially the video ones, who are completing cross-platform and cross-format content production and distribution.

2019 is known as the first year of live streaming e-commerce. While internet celebrities are flocking to major platforms for live streaming, they are also not willing to miss out on making short videos, setting up WeChat groups, and operating private domain traffic.

Huo Nifang said: "I think we need to follow the development trend of the platform and change the layout as the platform changes . We need to get rid of some of our original thinking patterns, accept some new things, and be willing to try them. It is definitely not okay to stick to the original and existing ones."

Internet celebrities in the new media era are also constantly breaking boundaries. For example, "Lipstick King" Li Jiaqi and "Taobao's No. 1 Anchor" Wei Ya have not only opened accounts on Douyin, but have also appeared in variety shows and appeared on covers of fashion magazines, using both new and old media.

Even internet celebrities who grew up in the biggest trend are actively expanding to other platforms. No one feels that they are absolutely safe.

3. Breaking through the boundaries: Entrepreneurs who want to get rid of the label of "Internet celebrity" and celebrities who want to become Internet celebrities

When we understand "Internet celebrity" as an IP, then the person who creates this IP is actually the entrepreneur behind it.

The way many internet celebrities stay fresh is to keep starting their own businesses.

For example, Zhang Mofan founded a company in 2010; in 2014, Zhang Dayi signed a contract with Ruhan and opened a store; in 2017, Jiang Yilei (Papi Jiang) opened a company, filmed commercials, and acted in movies, trying to move from an online celebrity to a traditional "star";

There is also the most representative internet celebrity entrepreneur Luo Yonghao. "Mr. Luo Yonghao has been constantly starting businesses, and it is really awesome along the way. I will not be able to forget him until I am at least 40 years old." "Half-Buddha Immortal" admitted.

At the same time, we can also see that many celebrities are also moving towards becoming internet celebrities, such as Show Luo and G.E.M. on TikTok, who use their existing fame to develop into internet celebrities, thus achieving a traffic effect where one plus one is greater than two.

This also tests people's ability to accept new things.

“For example, comedians like Guo Donglin and Pan Changjiang, who are considered artist-level comedians, now go to Kuaishou to shoot short skits. In fact, their popularity was much higher than that of Internet celebrities back then, but I think it’s remarkable that they can put aside their status and work with you on new platforms and new ways of playing.” Ziquan said, “There are no Internet celebrities who deliberately give up on preserving their freshness. There are only creators who give up on self-change and can’t get out of the credit book. ”

What magical “preservation” tricks do you know of among internet celebrities? Let’s chat in the comments section!

Author: New Edition

Source: Newrankcn