Tips for making popular short videos!

I have always wanted to interview Zhu Feng to talk about why she was able to rush into the short video field when others didn’t understand it and become so successful so quickly?

With a content matrix of 200 million fans, and one hit short video after another, what is her methodology?

This time I finally have the chance.

Zhu Feng gave us a sharing session which was very shocking.

Today, I will share these methodologies with you.

1. Traffic dividends given by the times

Why did Zhu Feng choose to delve deeply into the field of short videos?

If we analyze what the most important factor is, it must be the era.

We live in an era where traffic is being redistributed.

In the past, offline traffic was locked in commercial centers, and merchants needed to use rent to buy traffic.

In the Internet age, traffic is locked in portal platforms, and businesses need to advertise to buy traffic.

In the era of mobile Internet, the traffic that was locked in business centers and portals began to break free from the shackles and flow freely to social apps such as Weibo and WeChat.

The flow that used to exist in solid form now begins to exist in liquid form.

Merchants can even leverage huge traffic at zero cost, which is the traffic dividend given to us by the times.

In 2011, Xiaomi launched the Xiaomi mobile phone. Li Wanqiang, the head of Xiaomi.com at that time, wanted to ask Lei Jun for publicity expenses. Lei Jun said, is it possible to do publicity without spending money?

Li Wanqiang thought Lei Jun was joking, but it turned out that Lei Jun really didn't give him the money.

What should I do then?

Li Wanqiang used Weibo to promote his products and achieved great success.

Therefore, Xiaomi spent almost no money on early marketing.

In 2013, when the WeChat era came, many people started to create WeChat public accounts.

Luo Zhenyu and I both opened our public accounts in 2013, but because my main business is consulting, I have been busy building influence offline, so to this day my public account has less than 1 million followers.

Luo Zhenyu has been committed to building influence online, and has firmly grasped the traffic dividend of WeChat. After a few years, he has accumulated 10 million followers.

But as of today, WeChat’s traffic dividend has almost been consumed, and the opening rate of public accounts has dropped to 2%.

Even if you are more talented than Luo Zhenyu, it would be very difficult to create another public account of the same size as Luoji Siwei.

So where did today’s traffic dividend go?

Zhu Feng said that today's traffic dividend is in the field of short videos.

At the beginning of 2017, China Unicom released a set of data showing that the top ten apps in terms of monthly traffic consumption were Kuaishou, WeChat, Bilibili, Douyin, Huya Live, Huoshan Video, iQiyi, Meipai, Sina Weibo and NetEase Cloud Music.

9 out of 10 are related to videos.

As of today, Kuaishou’s domestic monthly active users have exceeded 400 million, Douyin’s domestic monthly active users are estimated to have exceeded 500 million, and its global monthly active users have exceeded 800 million.

Short video platforms, mainly Douyin and Kuaishou, have become new traffic pools.

Zhu Feng keenly discovered this point very early on, so she decisively shifted the company's focus from the original long video platforms such as Youku to short video platforms such as Kuaishou, and quickly seized this wave of traffic dividends.

Currently, her company "Xingzhan" owns the largest content matrix of Douyin and Kuaishou, incubating more than 500 large accounts and accumulating 200 million fans.

When traffic is redistributed, seizing the released traffic means seizing the opportunities of the times.

2. Addictive short video platforms

So specifically, what exactly do short video platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou do?

Why do so many people now say that Tik Tok and Kuaishou are addictive and they can’t stop watching them?

Take Douyin as an example. Douyin is a music short video community where users can shoot videos of about 15 seconds in length, and then add songs and filters and special effects provided by the app to create their own short video works.

In addition to creating video content, more users are watching content on Douyin.

You don’t have to worry about having nothing to watch. After watching a short video, you can swipe your finger upwards to seamlessly switch to the next content.

Moreover, the content recommended by the system are all the things you like to watch. The more you watch, the more the content recommended by the system will suit your preferences. So when you start scrolling through Douyin, several hours often pass by without you realizing it.

Kuaishou first became popular in third- and fourth-tier cities.

Many "grassroots" people from third- and fourth-tier cities became famous overnight on Kuaishou through short videos and live broadcasts.

For example, there is a beekeeper on Kuaishou who attracted 1 million followers on Kuaishou by posting daily videos of himself collecting bees on the cliff.

He sells honey on Kuaishou, with an average customer spending of 170 yuan, and earns a stable income of 800,000 yuan per month.

And he is just a mid-level account on Kuaishou.

For example, Kuaishou has a top internet celebrity whose revenue exceeded 2 billion on Double Eleven 2019.

His main source of income is live streaming and selling goods.

One internet celebrity earned 5 million yuan from a single birthday live broadcast. Later, he opened a Taobao store and did live broadcasts on Kuaishou, earning 150 million yuan on the spot.

This is how ordinary people play Kuaishou.

However, a large number of traditional brands are still standing outside the door and "don't understand".

So Zhu Feng helped emerging brands to start their layout. For example, he helped the red wine brand "Zui'e Niang" to start its operation from scratch, increasing its followers to over 1 million and its monthly sales to over 1 million. In order to enable more companies to layout short video opportunities in a timely manner, he also provided matrix consulting and training services to companies.

Short video platforms are becoming increasingly popular. This is not only due to changes in user habits, but also changes brought about by technology.

Because the 5G era is about to arrive, mobile Internet speeds will reach 12G.

What is the concept of 12G? The internet speed at my home in Shanghai is 200M, and 1G is 1000M.

In other words, the Internet speed in the 5G era will be 60 times faster than it is now.

what does that mean?

This means that mobile terminals can carry more and more complex content.

In the past, watching videos on our mobile phones would consume a lot of data and cause lags. However, in the future, the playback of short videos will be very smooth, and the data charges will be almost free. This is the technological basis for this wave of traffic dividends from short videos.

3. Produce content using a data-driven approach

So, under such a general trend, what did Zhu Feng’s Star Station team do?

They studied the two platforms, Douyin and Kuaishou, in detail to find out why they can connect people. Why is it possible for an account to achieve huge exposure in a short period of time?

There is an essential difference between short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou and long video platforms such as Youku and Tudou: they are different for each user.

What's the meaning?

Do you know who decides which video can be on the homepage on platforms such as Youku and Tudou?

It is manually edited.

They have an editorial team of several hundred people who watch videos every day. When they see a good video that they think is high-end, clear, and has good content, they put it on the homepage based on their experience.

But Douyin and Kuaishou are different.

On Douyin and Kuaishou, all the videos you see are not selected manually, but are chosen for you by machines using a set of recommendation algorithms based on your preferences.

So the video that each person sees on the homepage is different.

This is why everyone has a different face.

The Star Station team has continuously tested data to develop the recommendation algorithms of the two platforms, and reversely "decoded" what kind of content is more easily recognized and recommended by the system.

Take Kuaishou as an example.

Kuaishou has a discovery page, which is where the largest traffic is concentrated, and it contains short video content recommended to you by the system.

If you want your video to be seen by more people, you need to find a way to get your video on the discovery page.

So how can you get your video on the discovery page?

You said that of course the content must be liked by users.

That’s right, only when users like your content will you get more attention.

But before being liked by users, you must first be selected by the machine.

What's the meaning?

Kuaishou has a visual recognition system. The machine will automatically identify your content first, and then choose whether to match it to relevant users.

If your content cannot be recognized and selected by a machine first, then no matter how good your content is, it will not be seen by many people.

So how can you be selected by the machine?

For example, if you post a video of a puppy, Kuaishou’s system will recognize that it might be a puppy, and it will label your video as cute pet.

After tagging, it will send the video to a small group of people who also have the cute pet tag.

If the opening rate of this group of people reaches a certain threshold at this time, the system will determine that this video is indeed a cute pet video, and then it will be recommended to more people with cute pet tags.

If the playback completion rate, number of likes, number of comments, forwarding rate and other data of your video reach a certain threshold, it means that users like your content very much, and the system will push your video to more users with the same tag.

With continuous matching and recommendations like this, your video will be seen by more and more users, and then you will become popular.

It’s similar with Douyin. If you operate Douyin more, the system will label you with relevant tags, and the system will distribute it through tag matching.

This is the logic of the platform. It enables communication with thousands of different faces to thousands of people. What kind of person you are determines what kind of world you see.

Therefore, if you want to be selected by the machine, you must first define your own personality and use various labels to let the machine recognize who you are, what you do, and what kind of people you want to influence, and then make users like you.

After understanding the logic of the platform, Zhu Feng's team developed some monitoring tools and algorithm analysis tools to reversely deduce and test the rules for producing content.

For example, which factors can determine whether you can become popular, including upload time, upload quality of the work, color level value, keywords, how to choose the title, the number of words in the title, the tilt angle of the title, the fast-forward speed of the video, the frequency of release, and dozens of other dimensions.

Then produce a large number of short videos, make fine adjustments on dozens of dimensions, perform AB testing, and use a large number of accounts to do horse racing.

For example, among ten accounts, three of them are growing in volume, while seven are not. We can qualitatively and quantitatively analyze which elements lead to their growth or lack of growth, and which elements lead to their popularity. At this time, we can derive the first set of relatively vague content production rules.

Then, do the second batch of horse racing.

After the second round of horse racing, we obtained a more accurate set of content generation rules.

This cycle repeats continuously to reversely deduce the recommendation algorithm of the entire platform.

In the end, through technical analysis, testing of large amounts of data, and a rapid screening mechanism, Star Station has developed a relatively effective set of short video production rules.

Then, video content is produced industrially based on these production laws.

Look at TikTok and Kuaishou from the perspective of a data engineer rather than a video designer.

As a result, Star Station has incubated more than 500 big accounts and accumulated a fan base of 200 million.

4. How to make machines choose you and make users like you

Hearing this, I can't help but admire the intelligence of these children.

Many people become Internet celebrities by accident and rely on luck, but Zhu Feng and his team create Internet celebrities in batches entirely through routines and methodologies.

So specifically, what are the tricks that can make machines choose you and make users like you?

First of all, you need to know that every account has a weight.

What's the meaning?

If the number of views of the first five videos you posted after registering a Tik Tok account does not meet the requirement, or your upload frequency is too low, then your account will basically be put in the "black room". We call such an account a zombie account.

Once you are locked in the "black room", your account will lose its weight, and the machine will think that you are not a serious creator, so it will not recommend your videos to others.

At this time, if you upload the sixth video, no matter how good the content is, the machine will not give you traffic.

Therefore, when operating your first account, you must ensure the frequency and quality of uploads, and label the videos very clearly so that the machine can better identify what specific content you are producing and expand your permission pool as quickly as possible.

Second, the universal rule for content is to create contrast and find resonance.

What's the meaning?

Generally speaking, a video has three parts: who, where, and what.

At this time, we need to create contrast in every link.

Let me give you an example. A girl is studying in school.

How do you create contrast in these three links?

I can replace the girl with an old lady and make a video of an old lady studying in school, which can enhance the contrast of the overall video.

This is subject contrast.

For customers like Xueersi, Star Station produced a short video like this:

Why make a video like this?

Xueersi’s goal is to gain more potential students during the epidemic, and to make students curious and feel that learning is interesting. Moreover, some of the products sold are not essential subjects like Chinese, mathematics and English. How should they be designed?

Therefore, Star Station has made such a positioning.

Most teachers are patient, serious and kind. In order to create a contrast, we will find a fat "drama queen". And his way of introducing knowledge is not through conventional lectures, but through storytelling. This is subject contrast.

By using this contrast, you can get a good playback effect.

Of course, it is impossible to build up an account with just one video. Instead, it requires a series of videos to continuously convey that knowledge is so exciting and interesting.

In addition, in terms of emotions, people's emotions are all connected. You have to speak for your fans and skillfully use MV techniques to create an atmosphere, which can easily resonate with everyone.

Don’t worry about whether the shooting equipment and techniques are high-end. On social platforms, videos are not works, but social particles.

Sincerity is more important than technique.

Third, at the packaging level, Zhu Feng's team tested a set of effective rules, which I list below:

Cover:

– It is best to use a vertical screen. This can increase the popularity rate by more than 30%.

– Color saturation should be high.

– The main body of the video should be complete and easily identifiable. Let users recognize it at a glance by looking at the thumbnail.

– The scene is easy to identify.

– Make an exaggerated frame and be a good cover party.

title:

– Primary title: bold; no more than 8 characters; tilted 10-30 degrees; system color: red>blue>cyan>yellow>orange.

– Advanced: custom fonts; subtitle explanation.

– Contrast with the background color.

– Use interrogative and imperative sentences to bring out the exaggeration.

How effective is Zhu Feng’s methodology?

Take my own Douyin account "Liu Run" as an example.

I asked the Star Station team to help me with a one-month trial operation. The number of fans increased from 0 to 699,000, the cumulative number of likes reached 652,000, the highest number of views for a single video was 8.23 ​​million, and the total number of views was 42.887 million. It achieved relatively rapid growth in a short period of time.

5. Should I use Douyin or Kuaishou?

Many students have a question when they first enter the short video field:

Should I focus on Douyin or Kuaishou? What is the difference between them?

The traffic of Douyin and Kuaishou follows two completely different logics.

Tik Tok is public domain traffic. If you want to gain big exposure in a short period of time, you must use Tik Tok.

Kuaishou is private domain traffic. If you need to cultivate fans for a long time and generate long-tail traffic, then you must use Kuaishou.

On Kuaishou, after your video becomes popular, the fans attracted will go to dig up your old videos. We call this action "digging up graves", so the number of views of your videos will tend to a stable range.

But TikTok is different.

At the beginning, you have no traffic, but suddenly one of your videos becomes popular, which will bring you 100,000 times or even 1 million times more exposure, but once it becomes unpopular, it will drop and return to the original low playback range.

On Tik Tok, few people will watch all your videos. Most people are consuming the instant happiness you bring.

Therefore, Tik Tok is more suitable for publicity and can bring great exposure in a short period of time. Kuaishou is more suitable for cultivating long-tail traffic and retaining fans.

6. Final words

In every era, there is always a group of the most sensitive, intelligent and outstanding people who can seize the opportunities of the times, and this group of people is usually young people.

After interviewing Zhu Feng, I summarized three points worth learning from.

1. You must know how to seize the dividends given to you by the times.

What are dividends?

The bonus is a temporary imbalance between supply and demand.

2. There is business logic behind everything.

For example, TikTok, there is nothing wrong with winning by relying on good content, but before having good content, the first thing you have to do is to be selected by the machine.

We should look at TikTok and Kuaishou from the perspective of a data engineer rather than a video designer.

3. Do things that match your abilities.

Zhu Feng was able to do all these things because her computer science and journalism background played an important role.

Once again, I marvel at how unfair this world is, as it gave her all the beauty, talent and wealth.

However, the world is also full of hope.

Because true elites can grasp the pulse of the times and change the world through market rules.

Author: Liu Run

Source: Liu Run (runliu-pub)