14 directions and 3 principles for short video topic selection!

One issue that is difficult to avoid when creating short videos is how to choose topics? The direction of the topic selection, the content of the topic selection, and the materials of the topic selection. It is important to make a good framework for topic selection and content planning in the early stages. This will not only ensure a steady stream of video output and increase user fan stickiness, but will also make it easier to produce high-quality content and popular videos, thus attracting more accurate fan users.

Next, let’s talk about how to select topics for short videos through the direction of topic selection, the principles of topic selection, the dimensions of topic selection, how to build a topic library, and some issues that should be avoided when selecting topics.

1. Short video topic selection

There are roughly 14 categories of topics for short video creation. The topic selection is about choosing a track. Different tracks have different ceilings (number of fans, monetization value) and different operating mechanisms.

In these short video categories, drama, entertainment, film and television, life, and business occupy most of the content areas, and it is also easier for some large-scale top resources to appear. These categories solve the problems encountered by most people in their eight-hour work and the entertainment problems in their eight-hour life. In the entire Internet short video industry, there are two relatively special fields, finance and health. For creators in these two fields, the platforms will require qualifications in relevant fields to create content. For example, the finance field requires a securities practitioner qualification certificate, and the health field requires a doctor qualification from a Grade 3 hospital or above. There is also a commonality among all categories, which is that content can be turned into knowledge, and the content can be output and disseminated by transferring the value of knowledge, that is, content is value and content is product.

2. Principles for selecting topics for short videos

When choosing topics for short videos, you must master three principles of topic selection:

1. Stay close to the ground. The content selection should be user-oriented and based on the needs of user fans. It cannot be separated from user fans. If you want to have a good number of views, you should first consider the preferences and pain points of user fans. Often, the content that is closer to user fans is more likely to be recognized by them, triggering a higher completion rate for the video.

2. Valuable. The content of the selected topics should be valuable and have substantive content. The output content should be valuable to user fans, meet the needs of user fans, and solve the pain points of user fans. Only in this way can user fans have the desire to spread the content and trigger user behaviors such as likes, comments, and forwarding, thereby achieving the fission spread of content.

3. To match. The content of the topics should be related and matched with our positioning, and have verticality, so as to enhance our influence in the professional field and better shape the IP. Only in this way can we attract accurate user fans and also improve the continuous following and stickiness of user fans.

3. Short video topic selection dimensions

There are five dimensions to consider when choosing topics for short videos:

1. Frequency. The content of the selected topic should have a high frequency of occurrence in terms of the needs and pain points of user fans. In other words, it should be a popular topic among the target user fan group. Only the high-frequency concerns of user fans can generate more playback volume.

2. Difficulty. Creators should also consider the difficulty of production after topic selection, and whether their own or their team's creative ability can support the content production and content operation behind the topic selection. Topic selection, content, and form are all factors to consider. User fans now have increasingly higher requirements for content quality.

3. Differences. Regardless of the category of the topic or the subject, there are many competing accounts in the short video field. It can be said to be a red ocean. Even some vertical segments already have leading accounts. At this time, we also need to consider how to establish the differentiation between us and competing accounts and increase user fan recognition.

4. Perspective. The perspective of topic selection is related to the feeling it brings to users and fans, and the topic should be presented from that perspective. Is it the athlete role from the first perspective of the user fan, the referee role from the second perspective, or the audience role from the third perspective. When choosing different topics, you also need to change your perspective based on the actual situation.

5. Action cost. It mainly focuses on the actions of user fans after receiving the topic content. Whether the topic content can make user fans understand it at a glance and learn it immediately. Only by truly meeting the needs and pain points of user fans can more actions of user fans be triggered.

4. Establish a topic database

Creators can better continue to produce content by establishing a topic library. The topic library is divided into three types:

1. Popular topic database. Pay attention to major popular lists, such as Douyin hot searches, Weibo hot searches, Toutiao Index, Baidu Index, and various popularity lists of third-party platforms, grasp hot topics, be familiar with popular content, and choose appropriate angles for topic creation and content production. The more popular the content topic, the more likely it is to arouse users' interest in watching.

2. Regular topic database. Day-to-day accumulation is very important. Whether it is the people, things, and objects around you, or the external information you receive every day, you can organize them into your own regular topic library through value screening. You can also filter and organize the topics into a topic bank based on professionalism and resources.

3. Activity topic database. The selection of topics for holiday activities can be planned in advance, such as Mid-Autumn Festival, National Day, Spring Festival, Valentine's Day and other holiday topics that the public cares about. Another source of activity topics is various short video platforms. The official platforms will launch a series of topic activities from time to time, such as the habitual national style power, the big fish's quark knowledge, etc. Participating in the platform's topic activities according to your own situation can get traffic support and cash rewards.

5. Notes on short video topic selection

1. Stay away from sensitive words. Short video platforms all have some restrictions on sensitive words. For example, a video may have a high number of views on a certain platform, but no views on another platform. Pay more attention to the developments of each platform and learn about some official notifications released by the platform. You can also use Juyi.com or Yizhuan.com to conduct preliminary screening of sensitive words in topic content to avoid illegal account blocking and banning on the platform.

2. Avoid blindly following hot topics. Many hot and popular contents will involve news, current affairs, political policies and other contents. These hot contents have always been sensitive topics and should be avoided if possible. If the scale of opinions and content is not well controlled, it is easy to fall into the vortex. Improper operation will not only fail to bring traffic, but may even bring the risk of being banned or blocked due to violations.

3. The title description should be reasonable. The number of words in the title should be moderate. On some platforms, the title will be automatically folded and hidden if it exceeds a certain number of words. The format should be standard, use Arabic numerals for numbers, and use Chinese as much as possible, avoiding uncommon characters and Internet vocabulary to facilitate machine algorithms to obtain and recognize them. The sentence structure should be reasonable. Many short video platforms generally require the title to have a three-paragraph structure, with clear expression and avoidance of exaggerated phrases.

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