Understand the marketing promotion of Station B in one article

On the occasion of Xiaomi's tenth anniversary, Lei Jun decided to make his official debut on Bilibili as a UP host. After operating the account for more than half a month, he gained a million fans. Today, Lei Jun makes no secret of his pursuit of the dividends of the wind. Perhaps the most famous sentence he has said is "If you stand on the wind, even pigs can fly." Since then, the "windfall theory" has swept across the country.

For marketers, identifying the right marketing trends and dividends can make brand promotion more effective. Where will the marketing trend be in 2020? Obviously, Bilibili’s marketing cannot be ignored. If you missed Weibo in 2011, WeChat Official Accounts in 2013, and Tik Tok and Kuaishou in 2018, then you should not miss this year’s Bilibili marketing.

But at the same time, we must also be aware that Bilibili may not be suitable for all brands, nor is it a so-called marketing panacea, and it is difficult to directly drive sales conversions. From some perspectives, marketing on Bilibili is even more difficult and has a higher threshold.

Today, Bilibili’s marketing is still in its window period, and there are huge marketing dividends to be tapped. So, how to do good marketing on Bilibili? What are the pitfalls that we need to pay attention to when marketing at Bilibili? How can Bilibili’s marketing feed back into brand building? This article may give you some inspiration.

This year is undoubtedly the year when Bilibili breaks out of its circle, from the "Most Beautiful Spring Festival Gala" at the beginning of the year to the "Hou Lang" controversy on May Fourth, plus a series of big moves such as signing Feng Timo and winning the exclusive live broadcast rights for LOL... Bilibili is undoubtedly the most noteworthy content platform this year.

In the second half of the Internet era when the demographic dividend has disappeared, Bilibili can still achieve growth at such a fast pace, which means that it has stepped into the future trend. If Weibo represents short messages, WeChat public accounts represent pictures and texts, and Douyin and Kuaishou represent short videos, then Bilibili represents the future of long videos . In addition, it is also a gathering place for a large number of young users , which also attracts a large number of brands.

Why do you say it will be too late if you don’t start Bilibili this year?

B Station Marketing "Two Do's and One Don't"

Today, Bilibili is at a delicate time point, that is, the platform is focusing on commercialization, but the mature commercialization model has not yet been fully implemented. It is during this platform transition period that a large number of platform marketing dividends will appear.

The platform ecology of Bilibili is also undergoing a reshuffle. Today, many well-known UP hosts on Bilibili, such as Banfo and Luo Xiang, are new UP hosts that have risen rapidly within a year. In addition, the proportion of Generation Z users on Bilibili exceeds 80%. For brands, Bilibili is undoubtedly one of the main battlefields for competing for young people.

But at the same time, Bilibili has its own unique community culture and content preferences. At the current stage, it is not a popular and universal marketing platform. We first need to figure out which types of brands are more suitable for marketing with Bilibili's tone today? Which brands may not be suitable?

Overall, we can use "two do's and one don't" to determine whether a brand should enter Bilibili. Of course, this is just a rough judgment, and the specific analysis should be based on the brand's own situation.

Brands that are more suitable for Bilibili can be divided into two categories, namely "two doings" :

Category 1: Brands related to ACG

Bilibili originated from the two-dimensional community and was originally used to follow anime. Later, it expanded to various "otaku culture" content such as games, music, otaku dance, and ghost animals. It gathers a large number of ACG (animation, comics, games) people , which is also the main component of Bilibili's old users.

Although the two-dimensional atmosphere has been diluted to a certain extent as Bilibili breaks out of its circle, ACG is still Bilibili's basic foundation, and game revenue accounts for the majority of Bilibili's overall revenue. If your brand itself belongs to the ACG category, such as games, figures, 3C and other products, then Bilibili is always a marketing platform that cannot be ignored. At the same time, there have been more and more brand IP collaborations and linkages in recent years, and these brands can also consider Bilibili.

Category 2: Brands with content extension capabilities

Bilibili is essentially a long video content platform. Brands need to have their own content capabilities or content scalability to gain recognition from Bilibili users. We usually call such brands "naturally appealing" brands.

A typical example is actually Alibaba’s “Zoo”. Tmall, Hema, DingTalk and other branded animal IP settings allow the brand story to be naturally extended, making it easier to create content on Bilibili.

Of course, the so-called "naturally appealing" brands are usually more active in tone. Not only Internet brands, but also 3C, digital, beauty, fast-moving consumer goods and other brand categories can have a lot of room for expression in content . Bilibili is a matching marketing platform for them.

Brands that are not suitable for marketing on Bilibili at the moment, or brands that are recommended to wait and see, that is, "not do" are:

Don’ts: Brands with weak personality

If your brand does not have any special personal content or special emotional perception , then the current stage may not be suitable for the overall marketing environment of Bilibili. It is recommended that you wait and see first, and then find the right time to try it later.

Among this type of brands, there are usually more traditional brands, such as some livelihood brands of rice, flour, grain and oil. Although they have a large user base and popularity, it is difficult to say that they can quickly extend a distinctive brand personality. Not every brand can have a recognizable brand personality like Lao Gan Ma, so the resistance they will face will be relatively greater.

Of course, every brand has its own unique characteristics and situations. Whether to focus on marketing on Bilibili requires specific analysis of the specific situation and cannot be generalized.

Why can’t I do well in my marketing at Bilibili?

Four major misunderstandings of B station marketing

I believe that many brands have tried B station marketing. Many people may wonder why my B station marketing is always not doing well? The data is not improving, no one is watching the videos, and I have invested time and energy but gained no fans... Let's talk about this topic.

We can use the example of Dior to talk about four common misunderstandings in Bilibili marketing.

Let me first briefly introduce the data of Dior's operations on Bilibili. Dior joined Bilibili in June this year and is considered to be one of the earliest luxury brands to open an account on Bilibili. From this, it is not difficult to see how much Dior values ​​young people and Bilibili. But as of August, Dior had only about 10,000 fans on Bilibili, and the number of views of a single video was usually around 1,000 to 4,000. For a first-tier luxury brand, the data is somewhat disappointing. So, where is the problem?

Myth 1

Treat Bilibili as a content distribution platform

If we search for "Dior" on Bilibili, it is not difficult to find that there are many related theme videos with playback volume reaching hundreds of thousands or millions. This actually means that Bilibili users have a demand for related content, but this also forms a big contrast with Dior's own playback volume. The reason is that the brand may simply regard Bilibili as another information distribution platform rather than a content creation platform. This is related to the brand's approach to entering Bilibili.

The picture is from the screenshot of B station

Bilibili has its own aesthetic preferences and community culture. If a brand wants to do a good job of disseminating content on Bilibili, it needs to make customized creations based on the cultural characteristics of Bilibili, rather than simply distributing content on Bilibili. The unique cultural atmosphere allows B station users to gain a sense of identity through the content. For example, "secret language" is often used in B station videos, which triggers audience carnival.

In short, the content of Bilibili needs to be customized. If it is just "submitted to multiple sites" to cover the content, it may not achieve the expected results. Observing Dior's content, we can also see that most of its content is just promotional videos and official video releases, which is still somewhat different from the creations of some UP masters.

Myth 2

Ignoring user interaction and participation

Unlike other streaming platforms, the biggest feature of Bilibili is the "bullet screen" culture . We often see users chatting through "bullet screen" while watching videos. Over a long period of time, Bilibili's unique "bullet screen etiquette" has been formed. "xswl", "awsl", "bullet screen protection", "the worst official" and other barrages are all used as iconic barrages for user interaction. Nowadays, Bilibili is undoubtedly the long video platform with the highest interaction rate in China. Judging from the proportion of users' reposts, comments and likes, it far exceeds other long video platforms.

Image from Station B

If we analyze Dior's video content, we can find that the official does not interact much with users' messages, comments, barrages and other information, which indirectly leads to a decrease in user interaction enthusiasm. Of course, as a luxury brand, Dior may be intentionally maintaining a cool tone.

But for other mass brands, official interaction is the key to stimulating content dissemination and topic promotion. Today, brand accounts can drive topics forward through “Weibo-style” comments, such as Tencent’s dynamic content and comments on Bilibili in the Lao Gan Ma incident.

Myth 3

Ignore the iterative upgrade of content

The content aesthetics of Bilibili is actually undergoing certain changes. For example, with the rise of knowledge content and lifestyle areas today, this also means that brands need to constantly adjust the content direction to adapt when doing content marketing on Bilibili.

Dior's B-site content is usually dominated by brand promotional videos, and in fact has not been continuously upgraded and iterated according to the characteristics of B-site. It is not difficult to see user needs from the barrage. For example, many Dior videos have barrages like "Please accept my knees", which actually means that users recognize the content. The brand can then adjust the content direction and ideas based on user barrage feedback. For example, sharing more content about garment making and clothing design, or inviting UP hosts to visit the front and back scenes of new product launches from the perspective of B station natives, etc., the effect should be much better.

It is not an easy task to strike a balance between the platform users and the brand’s own tone. Brands need to constantly create and adjust content in order to gradually master the way of communicating with Bilibili users.

Myth 4

Improper content release rhythm

Unlike platforms such as Weibo, Wechat and Douyin, the frequency of content updates required for Bilibili is not actually high, but it does require a certain content rhythm and quality. Judging from the current update frequency of UP hosts on Bilibili, "once a week" or even "once every two weeks" are normal rhythms. The key is that the content must match user needs.

This actually also means that brands cannot completely influence the release rhythm of Bilibili according to their own marketing rhythm. The reason why public accounts seem to have a content rhythm is because the WeChat platform forcibly stipulates that subscription accounts can only publish once a day. Although Bilibili has no restrictions on quantity and frequency, it is obvious that only by grasping the rhythm of content push can user habits be cultivated.

If you look at Dior's content push on Bilibili, you can find that it sometimes pushes a large number of videos in a day. It lacks planning and has not formed fixed sections. Naturally, Bilibili users cannot establish a habit of regular browsing, and users' perception of the brand is not that strong.

How to get started and master B-station marketing?

Four steps of marketing at Station B

Regarding B Station’s marketing, there is a saying in the industry: entry-level players buy B Station’s hard advertising resources for placement, intermediate players do the placement of B Station’s UP masters, and advanced players open their own brand accounts and content channels to attract B Station users to pay attention.

In fact, Bilibili's hard advertising marketing is relatively mature. What brands need to pay attention to is the matching of brand product categories with the tone of hard advertising exposure resources. At the same time, brands can also pay attention to Bilibili's official marketing IP, such as "Bilibili Call for Action", "Bilibili New Product Day", etc.

The more common marketing methods for brands on Bilibili are UP host marketing and brand content marketing. If you want to do a good job in content marketing and delivery, you can follow the following four steps .

STEP 1.

Clarify your own position

Before a brand starts working on Bilibili, it naturally needs to first clarify its own marketing goals, which is similar to planning for brand positioning. What kind of response do you want to arouse among which groups, and how do you want the target audience to perceive your brand? This is not only true for Bilibili. Brands entering any emerging platform must go through this kind of thinking and planning.

But the difference of Bilibili is that it has a lot of user interactive content, so the brand image needs to be more vivid and full. In fact, to put it simply, the brand needs to first plan its own "personal" image . It does not necessarily have to have an open IP or image, but it needs to have a very distinct personality feature.

STEP 2.

Locking target circle

There are many user circles on the Bilibili platform. According to official data, Bilibili has 2 million tags for community content and covers 7,000 core circles. The culture and content aesthetic styles vary between circles. If the content is spread across circles, it is very likely that even the "secret language" in the video will not be understood. For example, Lolita skirts and JK uniforms, Hanfu and ancient style, although they look similar in form, there are huge differences in the community culture.

The choice of circle will affect the partitioning and submission tags of the video, thereby affecting the traffic distribution of the content. From the current perspective, the ghost animal area is still a magic weapon for brands to break out of the circle. Traditional music, games, dance and other sections also have fixed and loyal users. Knowledge-based content and life areas are growing rapidly, and there are more possibilities for brand explosions , but the specific choice still depends on the brand's own characteristics.

STEP 3.

Choose the right UP host

In terms of UP host placement, Bilibili has opened the Fireworks system, which does not make placement too difficult in terms of procedures and operations. The difficulty for brands lies more in the coordination and linkage of UP hosts to maximize the communication effect.

Based on the rules of social marketing, it is recommended that brands adopt Shiqu’s “VIP” model to place UP hosts. At the same time, they can also select accurate UP hosts through the Shiqu Insight Engine we developed.

In addition, during the UP host collaboration process, brands need to focus on the "co-creation" of content . Brands can put forward advertising requirements and allow UP hosts to present content in their usual unique style. Brands do not have to interfere too much in the UP host's content creation, which can often achieve better brand communication effects.

Using the right UP host can help a brand achieve twice the result with half the effort. During this year’s 618, JD Computer used content from Bilibili to spark dissemination. In order to target the target audience of JD Computer, the brand selected 6 major technology UP hosts for topic cooperation, and divided them into drama UP hosts and grass-seeking UP hosts to form a "creative team" to start up for their passion. Through the combined content cooperation with KOLs, the entire event received more than 16 million exposures on the site and also gained recognition from the target circle.

Jingdong Computer XB Station

STEP 4.

Content format that suits user habits

As a content platform, the quality of content on Bilibili is actually the key to gaining dissemination volume . The difficulty for brands is that it is not easy to retain commercial information while taking into account the public's content needs. The solution here lies more in the form of content.

Let’s take Fanta’s Brain Hole Festival marketing on Bilibili as an example. Under conventional marketing ideas, fast-moving consumer goods beverages are more focused on hard advertising content output and KOL seeding cooperation. However, on the Bilibili platform, Fanta and Bilibili jointly create marketing IP through joint submission and user co-creation, which inspires users to create IP content and realizes the circle dissemination of topics. It is worth mentioning that Fanta used B station’s unique methods such as capsule machine interaction and customized UP main content in the event, and ultimately received over 190 million exposures.

Fanta XB Station Brain Festival

TIP

Three key words for B station marketing

Since Bilibili’s community culture and user composition are indeed different from mass media platforms such as Weibo, WeChat and Douyin, Bilibili’s marketing has obvious particularities. Generally speaking, Bilibili marketing needs to focus on three principles: authenticity, interaction, and love.

Currently, the data, interactions, and comments on Bilibili are basically the reactions of real users, and the overall community atmosphere is relatively real. If brands hope to gain recognition on Bilibili, they must first appear to be authentic and sincere enough. In addition, Bilibili is a content community, and brands can also see their own evaluation among the target user groups through the interaction of video content. If they maintain a high-cold state for a long time, the brand will get further and further away from young users. Finally, the discussion atmosphere of Bilibili is relatively harmonious, and the brand's content creation and dialogue attitude need to be "loving" in order to gain user recognition.

We can see B station's marketing ideas and methods from Xiaomi's marketing actions. During this year's epidemic, Xiaomi cooperated with B station to carry out a 72-hour "Don't Think of Defeating My Life" anti-epidemic support live broadcast. This slogan also became the barrage support language of Xiaomi's press conference. Through live support, Xiaomi also combined content dissemination with new product launches, further attracting attention from the entire network.

Xiaomi XB Station 72-hour Super Support Live Broadcast

How to take B-station marketing a step further?

Three suggestions to open your mind

Bilibili marketing not only involves Bilibili itself, but can also be considered in the entire chain of brand marketing. In this section, we will talk about three ideas and suggestions on how to maximize the use of Bilibili marketing.

TIPS 1.

Bilibili as a brand video streaming platform

First of all, a suggestion for brands is to start adapting to the future video streaming trend now. In the future, brands will need stronger video content production capabilities. Whether it is to deal with short video platforms or medium and long video platforms, this is a challenge faced by every brand.

With the lowering of the threshold for video production and the application of new technologies such as 5G, video production will become simpler in the future. One day, brands may not need to consider whether the communication this time is pure text, pictures, or videos, but rather, I need several videos and what specifications and levels they should be, and they will focus more on the accuracy of content production.

As a medium- and long-length video platform where young people gather, Bilibili is suitable as a core position for brand video streaming dissemination, allowing users to expand their marketing capabilities in video production and dissemination.

In addition, Bilibili is now one of the important birthplaces of Internet culture. Brands can even feed back the creative content and marketing activities that have been proven to be effective on Bilibili to the entire network. By using the power of Bilibili to attack users across the entire network and break the circle, the success rate of marketing may be higher.

TIPS 2.

Using Station B as a future traffic pool

Since the majority of Bilibili's users are Generation Z, for brands, Bilibili's marketing is equivalent to reaching the future main consumer groups in advance. Bilibili's traffic pool can be regarded as a moat for the long-term development of the company.

Due to the differences in consumption and aesthetic preferences among the young groups on Bilibili, this has also brought opportunities for many domestic brands and Chinese cultural products . The Hanfu, national trends, ancient style and other sections on Bilibili have strong content cohesion and consumption explosiveness.

In addition, although Bilibili’s marketing has not yet built its own sales channels and marketing closed loop, with the continuous improvement of Bilibili’s commercialization, it is very likely to open up a full-link marketing ecosystem that integrates product and effect in the future.

TIPS 3.

Try diversified marketing methods of Station B

As mentioned earlier, Bilibili itself is also developing and incubating marketing IPs, such as marketing products such as New Product Day and Brand Call. In addition, Bilibili's own film, television and variety show IPs also have a large number of marketing opportunities, such as "Happy Brothers", "Question Mark Face in the Animal Circle", "Rap New Generation", etc. At present, many IPs are still in a value trough. Brands can cooperate with Bilibili's self-produced marketing IP and diversify Bilibili's marketing methods, which may bring good ROI returns.

Every year, Bilibili’s annual major events are also good exposure opportunities for brands, and an excellent example here is Tmall. This year, Tmall and Bilibili cooperated with B station to launch BML (Bilibili Macro Link, similar to a large-scale concert of B station's top UP hosts). Tmall personalized the virtual IP image "Mao Tiantian", linked up with four of the top 100 UP hosts in the game area, LexBurner, B station's four big debt kings A passers-by, the vegetarian lion and the fear area's number one sister Xin Xiaomeng, to produce a series of dramas and deeply participate in the main story of BML, and cooperate with B station's virtual image 2233 Niang to complete a dimensional drift against a mysterious man and save B station.

BML adapted Hatsune Miku's hit song "Buy Buy Buy", integrating the brand appeal with young people's preferences, and completed the debut plan of Tmall's virtual image "Mao Tiantian" in a new way.

Tmall XB Station BW main visual

After BML ended, Tmall and Bilibili continued to cooperate on Bilibili World, and built an offline escape room installation - the Mysterious Cat House with the Shanghai National Exhibition and Convention Center. Through three consecutive days of exclusive UP linkage performances, the IP image of Mao Tiantian and the Tmall brand were continuously exposed, quickly establishing young people's awareness of Mao Tiantian's IP and the Bilibili persona of "ideal life big player". It also provides a good example for other brands that have already settled in Bilibili.

In short, Bilibili is currently in a stage of accelerated commercialization, which is a good window period for brands and a marketing dividend that brands can seize. In the future, dual microblog operations will only be standard for brands, and Bilibili will be the stage for brands to compete with each other.

Author: Time Fun

Source: Shiqu