The rapid popularity of Tik Tok has promoted the rapid development of the short video industry. Both children and the elderly are very familiar with short videos, and some even participate in the shooting of short videos themselves. The huge user base means that only a small number of them can become popular. In such a fiercely competitive environment, how should short videos be created? This article will reveal these five rules for you.

The year 2020 can be said to be a mixture of ice and fire for the short video content creation circle.

What is "hot" is that various roles have entered the market in various ways, making the content track richer and more diverse; what is "cold" is that in the era of personalized recommendations, having content does not mean having traffic, and having traffic does not mean being able to monetize.

Whether it is an organization or a talent, they need to overcome the dual challenges of "creativity" and "monetization" in order to grow rapidly. Therefore, it is foreseeable that more people will leave the market in 2020.

According to Kas Data, as of October 2019, the number of active influencers (≥1 video update within 30 days) with more than 100,000 fans from seven major platforms (including Douyin, Kuaishou, Xigua, Volcano, Bilibili, Meipai, and Miaopai) has exceeded 200,000.

Among them, Douyin influencers have the fastest growth rate, increasing 1.47 times in one year, but the top influencers with more than 3 million fans only account for 2.89% of the total number of active influencers, and 85% of the accounts have between 100,000 and 1 million fans.

This means that behind the rapid growth, there is a huge structural imbalance in the expert ecosystem.

Although the current monetization paths for influencers include advertising, live streaming, e-commerce, knowledge payment, etc., taking Douyin as an example, advertising is still one of the core monetization methods for influencers.

In most cases, advertisers will choose institutional or head-and-shoulders influencers who have experience in commercial cooperation. Therefore, the monetization of a large number of mid- and tail-end accounts is not ideal, and most of them are in the stage of "creating for love".

Take the game industry on TikTok as an example:

Data shows that the advertising order acceptance rate for influencers with more than 3 million fans is between 28% and 29%, while for influencers with 100,000 to 500,000 fans, it is only 1% to 4%.

In the short term, such data is not conducive to the growth of influencers; in the long term, it is not conducive to the continued prosperity of the content ecosystem.

1. Short video content creation: Please remember these 5 rules

1. The core rule of short video content creation: the law of attraction

When creating short videos, we often hear questions like: "How can I prevent my video from being swiped away?", "How can I make a video that people can keep watching?"

Behind all the questions, the same point is reflected: on the TikTok platform, the attraction that keeps people watching is very important. So, how can we make users decide to "keep watching"?

After restoring the "mind journey" of users when watching a large number of TikTok videos with magical "attraction", we found the four-word secret: "build expectations."

How can we build expectations? This is the "law of attraction" for short video creation mentioned in our title.

It means: by setting some "inducements" at the beginning of the video, a certain "motivation" is implanted in the minds of viewers, thereby successfully establishing "watching" expectations, allowing users to be pulled by this "unknown expectation" and watch on in an immersed manner.

Does it sound a bit awkward?

The simple explanation is that you should not forget to bury "hooks" in the content to hook users' "expectations" and keep them reading.

So what does this hook, or “inducement”, look like?

There can be many kinds of incentives: it can be music, the charm of the characters, visual spectacles; it can also be identity substitution, copywriting previews, etc. The expectations for implantation can be: it will be funny, it will be beautiful, it will be touching, etc.

▲ The law of attraction of short videos ▲

Take the most important element of Tik Tok short video content - "music" as an example: different music styles will bring different emotional feedback to users, thereby directly establishing corresponding viewing expectations.

Common examples include: humorous music, which can build up the expectation of "it will be funny"; sentimental music, which can build up the expectation of "it will be touching"; inspirational music, which can build up the expectation of "it will be exciting"; and music with "twist-ups" can build up the expectation of "what will happen".

It should be emphasized here that there is not just one "incentive", but multiple incentives can appear in combination to create a stronger motivation for watching. But "motivation" must come from the creator's real insight into the target users. Only real "insight" will trigger real interaction.

2. Using the “Syllogism”: From Insight to Content

Above we mentioned triggering users' viewing motivation. The most important thing is: creators must have a deep insight into users' real demands.

Insights into the population can be divided into three categories: social population, consumer population and participant population. The insights into each population can be broken down using the "syllogism", so that better quality (commercial) content creativity can be produced.

▲ The "three-part theory" of insights from different groups of people ▲

Take "consumer insights" as an example: we must first gain insights into the core consumer groups of the product to understand their most common cognitions and behavioral concerns when purchasing/using such products; then sort out the "commonalities" to embed into content creation in order to establish the broadest resonance; finally, provide solutions (when promoting a certain product) to be more convincing.

The target consumer group of a certain series of vivo mobile phones is "young people who love playing with mobile phones", so we need to understand the biggest demands and concerns of this group of people when playing with and buying mobile phones.

For example, if you are worried that your phone will be overheated and its operation will be hindered, then influencers can create creative content based on this concern, and finally come up with a solution for new mobile phones - "Try the water-cooled vivo." Wouldn’t this help build up users’ expectations that the product will be useful, thereby planting the seeds of product desire more deeply and leading to more effective conversions?

For example, to understand the "social population", the most important thing is to explore the commonalities of the social population according to the communication goals, and to create situations through content creativity based on the insights (such as young couples, the commonality is that there is always a gap between boyfriends in reality and boyfriends in reason, and the best way to create a situation is to "shoot a visual comparison video" for users to perceive). This will bring wider viewing and allow the product to be implanted smoothly.

As for insights into the "(platform) participating population", we need to carefully analyze the most popular content on the platform (including popular videos, popular music, etc.) and find out why they are popular, so as to pre-embed mechanisms that can stimulate user interactive participation, empower content creation, and stimulate deeper interactions.

3. 5 methods of content creation

After gaining a deep insight into user needs, it is time to set “incentives” to create content that builds user expectations for viewing. Compared to racking your brains to research how to create content, this article summarizes 5 ways to get creative inspiration:

▲ 5 ways to get creative inspiration ▲

1) The first method: imitation method

That is: imitate the most popular videos at the moment, create content by remaking them, using the original soundtrack or the same BGM, actively participating in challenges, etc. I believe that our expert friends have all learned and used it.

Of course, you can also add personal characteristics to your creations based on your own account situation. If the original video is in a hot period, it will produce better results and achieve more exposure.

2) The second method - secondary creation

That is: to create divergent works based on hot searches, news, and well-known film and television dramas. Compared with simple imitation, this form of creation is more in-depth and can well link to hot spots and win traffic.

3) The third method - reversal method

That is: the normal development outcome of an event that everyone expects is A, but you can abandon this point and find another way to change the ending so that it unexpectedly develops into B. This method is often seen in popular drama videos. The more reversals are set up, the more watchable the plot is.

4) The fourth method - professional extraction method

That is: convey your professional knowledge reserves to users in a simple and easy-to-understand way. This method is particularly suitable for vertical content creation, and it is easy to gain highly sticky and demanding fans; common examples include: beauty, automobiles, mother and baby, etc.

5) The fifth method: life observation

That is: make use of folk wisdom, record the stories that happen to you, your family, and your friends, and extract the essence to create content; because down-to-earth life is more likely to resonate with the general public, thus achieving better communication effects.

The lifestyle vlogs that have been popular on Douyin recently adopt this form. Representative accounts include: Yaoyang’s Grandpa, I am Grandma Tian, ​​Zhang Ruoyu, etc. They all use the life observation method to record life and emotions from a first-person perspective, which can easily bring them closer to users.

4. Leveraging the “Follower Effect”: Transforming a Video from a Hot Trend to a Popular Trend

Among the five methods of content creation mentioned above, "imitation method" and "secondary creation method" are the most commonly used methods by creators.

In fact, on Douyin, we often see some creative contents from experts/amateurs. Due to the magical music, funny actions, and highly followable and imitative content, they attract a large number of creators (including KOL/KOC/amateurs, etc.) to follow suit and imitate, thus evolving into a "hot topic" that spreads on Douyin.

Among these, there is the "follower effect" that cannot be ignored when creating content. In order to make the content a "trend" and "traffic", the role of the first batch of followers is often more important than that of the leader.

▲ The follower effect that cannot be ignored ▲

If this effect is applied to the field of commercial creation, it is the "challenge competition" that we often see.

Therefore, the core of the challenge is to set up the first batch of followers (i.e. KOL crowd creation) while pre-burying the motivation that can stimulate the most users to participate with low thresholds, so that the first batch of followers can lead more followers to participate voluntarily; thereby achieving a breakthrough in marketing and counterattacking from a hot product in the circle to a hot product for the masses.

▲ The follower effect applied to commercial creation: Challenge ▲

5. Six major themes and common structures of popular content

Finally, let’s take a look at the common features of popular short videos.

They often have one or more of the following six thematic points: hot spots, funny points, knowledge points, justice points, conflict points, and tear points - and the core value of these thematic points is to make users resonate.

▲ 6 themes of popular content ▲

Good content actually has a relatively stable structure, which can be simply summarized as follows:

1. In the first 3-5 seconds of the video: Be sure to highlight the key plot point and never challenge the user's patience. This is the key to increasing the completion rate.
2. Mid-time: Control the rhythm of content development and set enough inducements (including music, character relationships, etc.) to "attract" users and avoid users jumping out due to boring content (specifically, a small joke every 30 seconds and a big joke every 60 seconds for a horizontal screen video);
3. At the end of the video: there should be something unexpected, with surprises, reversals, and interactive encouragement to encourage users to watch repeatedly, increase the replay rate and interaction.

2. From daily content creation to commercial content creation: It is important to keep these 3 steps in mind

As we all know, in the era of algorithmic media, there are both advantages and disadvantages for brands.

The "positive" side is that it can help brands quickly target consumer groups and make accurate content recommendations; the "negative" side is that users are immersed in the "information cocoon" woven for them by personalized recommendations and cannot perceive the outside world. This is what we call circle fragmentation.

When commercial brands find it difficult to cover all circles, opinion leaders (KOLs) in each circle become new media to help brands efficiently cover target consumer groups. This is what we call the value of influencer marketing.

Compared with the era of Weibo and Weibo, which mostly adopted content cooperation forms such as forwarding and direct posting, on short video platforms, influencers almost always reach fans through original content; therefore, it can weaken the sense of advertising to a certain extent and enhance users' favorability and trust in brands and products.

So, how can influencers better help brands penetrate the circle?

On content platforms, “good content” always comes first. Because only good content can lead to good dissemination, and good dissemination can bring more conversions.

So, how can we produce good business content?

1. Step 1: Make sure you thoroughly understand the brief

Brief can generally be divided into three parts: basic information about the brand, brand equity, and other information.

What is the basic information of a brand?

Including: brand name, project background, promoted products and promotion goals. Generally speaking, different brands will have different preferences.

For example, global brands care about the impact on user psychology and emphasize the tone of content, while local brands focus on effective promotion of products.

At the same time, brands in different industries have different preferences. For example, 3C digital products are updated and iterated quickly, with the focus on product promotion in the early stage, product effectiveness in the middle stage, and product sales in the late stage; while beauty and skin care, and fast-moving consumer goods brands emphasize promoting products and paying more attention to ROI.

After understanding the basic information of the brand, it is time to deeply deconstruct the needs of a communication event.

Specifically:

1. The form of cooperation that the brand hopes to achieve is to produce long/short videos online, or to attend offline events, live broadcasts, or visit stores;
2. The form of product exposure, whether there are special requirements such as oral broadcast and sticker use;
3. Whether it is required to add conversion components such as shopping cart/Link, whether to add topic tags or interact with brand blue V, etc.

▲Other requirements in the Brief▲

After completing this round of work, we will understand the brand's other demands. For example: portrait authorization, video usage authorization, e-commerce authorization, etc.; at the same time, the brand may, based on its own experience, provide some regulations and guidance on content creation, interaction, release time, etc.

Only when the influencers have a clear understanding of the above information points can they stay on the brand direction, better win the brand’s trust, and thus get more business recommendations.

2. Step 2: Clarify your goals and create on demand

From the perspective of communication objectives, advertisers’ needs are nothing more than brand promotion, brand effectiveness and brand sales. Different advertising forms can follow different creative principles.

▲Different advertising formats require different creative keys▲

Taking the creation of "brand-effect advertising" as an example, we can reverse the scene from the product, and then construct the plot from the scene, so that the connection between the product and the plot can be more natural.

When it comes to specific connection forms, it can be divided into: splicing, implantation and fusion. The requirements for creators of these three forms increase gradually. The higher the level, the more delicate the content and the more ingenious the implantation is often.

1. Splicing: Focusing on the plot to attract users to read on, revealing the product in the plot (usually at the end), and the exposed part hardly affects the integrity of the content.
2. Product placement: presenting the product as part of the plot in the content, highly integrated with the plot, and the product can be used as a "key prop" to promote the development of the plot;
3. Integration: The content and the product are inseparable and perfectly combined, and the product benefits can be conveyed very smoothly and vividly.

Above, we focused on analyzing how to do the most common brand-effect advertising on Douyin.

For product promotion and product sales advertisements, if implementing product promotion advertisements, influencers must find the connection between themselves and the brand image to create creative content in order to better interpret the brand spirit and brand proposition.

Product sales ads, on the other hand, require users to switch perspectives in a short period of time - from "viewers" to "consumers". Only by using highly immersive and empathetic content can users' purchasing decisions be better influenced.

3. Step 3: Remember these 5 tips to boost your business creativity

1) Adhere to the "Golden 6S Principles" of content creation: Be good at attracting users through video covers, titles, music, etc. For example, set a dramatic beginning to build users' expectations of "it will be good" to increase the completion rate, etc. We have already talked about this pre-process link;

2) The content must be native. The higher the proportion of native content, the more conducive it is to retention and conversion;

3) Reveal product information in the last 1/3 of the video to improve completion and reduce user bounces;

4) Try to introduce the product selling points in a colloquial way, so that users will be more receptive;

5) In terms of publishing time, you should prepare for publishing between 2-4 pm. 4 pm is the best publishing time to meet the traffic peak after 5 pm.

▲Video recommended release time▲

So, you might ask? What exactly is good business content? Is there any data that can quantify the definition?

According to third-party data, from January to May 2020, an analysis of all short video content showed that videos with shopping carts accounted for 19%, with the most concentrated distribution in the beauty and drama categories; followed by food, appearance, and mother and baby accounts, which will receive more native creation needs with conversion guidance.

▲Type of Star Chart with Shopping Cart Video Account▲

From the perspective of video completion rate, the completion rate of videos with shopping carts and videos without shopping carts are 15% and 22% respectively. It can be seen that videos with shopping carts do not have a significant impact on the completion rate.

But what if we use data to define what constitutes good sales video content?

The definition given by this agency is: shopping cart click rate 2%, link click rate 1%.

Specific to the content type: the 5-second completion rate of drama expert videos must reach 30%, while the 5-second completion rate of beauty expert videos must reach 20%, and the positive comments must be more than 25%.

3. Taking the gaming industry as an example: How can experts come up with good business ideas?

In the previous content, we shared with you how to be creative and how to create commercial content creativity. Let’s take the gaming industry as an example to explain how experts can come up with good business ideas.

Before discussing this content, it is necessary for Kas Data to reiterate the recommendation logic of Douyin:

As we all know, Tik Tok is a content recommendation platform. In order to better increase the time users spend on the platform, Douyin’s key interaction indicator for content is the user’s viewing time. This means that the video completion rate and effective viewing time are higher than the video attention rate, interaction rate and other data indicators.

▲TikTok content recommendation logic▲

As for the interaction quality score, in the early stage, data calculation pays more attention to the interaction score of the expert's "fans" (because these people are verified to be interested in your content).

From the perspective of data calculation, only content that fans are willing to "pay for" is worthy of recommendation beyond the circle. If fans do not approve of your content creation, then what is the point of recommending traffic to non-fans?

But what needs to be emphasized here is that although early fan interaction is important, the number of fans does not equal content exposure rate; for accounts with a large fan base, more advantages are reflected in the advantages of initial traffic push (more) during cold start. Whether a video can eventually become a hit depends entirely on its own quality.

Here is an additional set of data: the higher the completion rate of a video, the higher the probability that the video will be played; and in terms of specific numbers, for fans' completion rate, 40% is the watershed for a hit video, and 35% is a relatively good number.

From the above content recommendation logic, we can get the following inspirations for business content creativity:

• Distinctive labels are important so that you can get more accurate traffic recommendations. Don’t let the system confuse you and let the system understand you.
• When creating commercial content, it is important to keep it consistent with past highlights (including content structure, character appearance time, etc.), so as to ensure that fans’ love for the content does not decrease; only when fans are satisfied can the content break through the circle;
• Be good at using some techniques, such as: shortening the length of the video, creating suspense in the title or cover, or attracting users to watch on by constantly reversing the rhythm, so as to better increase the completion rate and playback volume.

So, what kind of content consumption preferences do game users have on the Douyin platform?

Contents that are in line with the public's aesthetic taste, such as super funny, skill display and daily life, are also loved by game enthusiasts.

When it comes to game topic selection and creation, game videos with high playback volume often have the labels of "practical" and "admiration for strength". Live, commentary, information, social and other topics are all favorite topics among game enthusiasts.

▲The content types and topic types that gamers like▲

After analyzing users’ content consumption preferences, let’s compare the two common influencer marketing models on Douyin:

1. Grass-seeking content: There is no doubt that such content often has strong game guidance and screen implantation, with the goal of increasing download conversion, but such content often comes at the expense of playback volume;
2. "Freeloading" type: They pursue the exposure range of the game more, and the requirements for game exposure are not as many as "grass planting" types. Increasing the base of playback is the core.

Affected by the epidemic and the adjustment of the Douyin link position (moving from the recommendation page, above the influencer's name to the comment area), game advertisers are currently less interested in the game's traffic-piggyback gameplay; on the contrary, the demand for grass-planting games is increasing.

This means that the difficulty of content creation for game companies has further increased. If influencers do not want to affect the fan experience and interactive playback data, producing higher quality works is the only way out.

Let’s go back to user insights again, but this time, we are not studying content consumption interests, but users’ advertising interaction interests.

According to the data, the four major demands of game players are: welfare attraction, social needs, scene needs and game playability. In other words, only by bridging these user demands with content creation can we better impress users.

▲Marketing information that strongly attracts gamers▲

Taking the creation of "welfare attraction" type game business orders that are most likely to impress users to download as an example, we can use rare game props/equipment as advertising materials, or we can use high explosion rates, long-term play to exchange points for surprises, etc. as advertising materials. So what is the way to bridge the content?

There are two specific types:

1. By sharing good opportunities with others (such as giving benefits to fans, helping friends/family solve short-term financial difficulties, etc.)
2. The "contrast method" is used, such as: people who are big shots in the game are also more respected in real life.

It is worth mentioning that it does not mean that only game experts can take orders from game companies. In fact, brand owners will pay more attention to the degree of match between the expert’s fans and the target users (that is, TA matching).

For example, the user portraits of automobiles and games are very high, which is why @虎哥说车 received 7 orders in the gaming field in October last year.

In addition to short video ads, inviting influencers to do live broadcasts (to sell goods) for (advertisers) is also a very important part of this year's tasks. Therefore, the course also specifically sets up the sharing of practical skills in e-commerce live streaming to help experts tap into the new trend of live streaming e-commerce without any foundation, in addition to advertising.

First of all, we should recognize the nature of the anchor, that is, someone who influences consumers' purchasing decisions through original content and detailed explanations.

To transform from an influencer to a live streamer, you should have four basic abilities:

1. Ability to immerse oneself in the live broadcast: Users can be quickly immersed in the live broadcast, turning from viewers to consumers;
2. Ability to express personal emotions/values: Ability to convey personal usage experience, endow products with values ​​and emotions, and activate users’ desire to buy;
3. Interactive ability: not only can they explain the products well, but they can also take care of the emotions of most users in the live broadcast room and answer questions in a timely manner;
4. Sales skills: Whether the anchor can resonate with users and make them go through the entire journey of their hearts from "watching" to "desire" to "illusion (the situation when they own and use the product)" and finally "place an order" is the meaning of the topic.

After acquiring the four basic abilities, the anchor must also have insights into the audience in the live broadcast room in order to adjust product selection and live broadcast strategies.

Generally speaking, men and women have completely different consumer psychology.

Men’s aesthetic taste is linear, and anything across the line is “beautiful”. Therefore, they are relatively more rational when buying things, and pay more attention to the "process" - reasonable price, high cost performance, professional explanation, and good girls may all affect their ratings in the "process" and decide whether to buy;

Women’s aesthetic sense is based on a point. Beauty lies at that point. This point may be cheap, practical, good-looking, service, experience, etc. For women, as long as the host’s explanation hits a “point”, they may make an impulse purchase.

Having said so much, let’s get down to the practical part, that is: How can a host really do a good live broadcast?

They are:

1. Preparation work for being an e-commerce anchor;
2. The format and positioning of live broadcast;
3. How to express yourself verbally;
4. How to deal with long live streaming pits;
5. Interaction Instructions;
6. The psychological phenomenon of anchors;
7. Review and reflection, etc.

▲Seven basic aspects required for successful live streaming▲

Taking "preparation work before live broadcast" as an example, it can be divided into software and hardware preparation: software refers to the host's mentality adjustment; and hardware includes whether the publicity and preheating are in place? Are the personnel (including assistants, operations, and field control) in place? Are the product settings and explanation scripts complete? Whether the packaging work is complete, etc.

Taking “how to express yourself well in words” as an example, the anchor should always be enthusiastic but calm when introducing products, be confident in the products they are selling, and be good at creating topics and guiding shopping from the user’s perspective.

When people with different opinions appear in the live broadcast room, the anchor should stabilize his emotions and keep a cool head; he should organize and process the content of the black fans, and give response strategies to make the replies reasonable and well-founded. Through clear and fluent replies, he can gain the trust of more users and ultimately convert them into purchases.

Author: Kas Data

Source: caasdata (ID: caasdata6)

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