Short video fan increase skills: "topic planning"

The sudden popularity of TikTok has promoted the rapid development of the short video industry. In the past, celebrities were stars and internet celebrities, but now any ordinary person has the opportunity to become a celebrity through short videos. With the fierce competition and huge user base, it is becoming increasingly difficult to increase followers. The author of this article summarizes three major topic selection strategies and teaches you some tips on increasing your followers.

Why do some short videos become popular overnight, while others remain unreceived for several days after being posted? In addition to factors such as content, music, shooting, and actor performance, there is another very important reason, which is "copywriting."

In fact, copywriting in the era of short videos has many similarities with copywriting in the era of traditional pictures and texts. Both include topic planning, article layout, etc. It requires studying the user's psychology and setting different "highlights" to arouse desire and trigger viewing.

This series of articles is divided into 3 parts, which explain how to produce "short videos" that users can't stop watching from the three aspects of "topic planning", "structural main line" and "user psychology".

When creating a short video account, you must first do a good job of content positioning and be clear about what type of video you want to shoot.

You can create "sales promotion short videos" based on "products", such as beauty, clothing, jewelry, snacks, etc.; you can also create "personal IP short videos" based on "characters", such as plots, oral broadcasts, knowledge sharing, etc.

On the basis of doing a good job of "content positioning", it is necessary to output a single piece of content, and at this time "topic planning" is very important. Just like writing an article, the “topic” determines how many people will read it, which directly affects the open rate and reading rate.

1. How to do short video "topic planning"

1. Expand and refine the keywords around the "field" to form a series of topics

"Beauty" accounts can choose keywords in the field of "makeup and skin care" to expand, such as: How to whiten and moisturize? How to apply eye shadow and blush? Which color of lipstick looks good? Precautions for applying facial mask...and so on.

While popularizing "beauty skills" for girls, they can also "promote products" and the effect will be good.

"Knowledge sharing" accounts can combine the user's growth path and select keywords in the field for expansion and refinement. For example: Financial management accounts can be expanded to include investment avoidance guides, financial product analysis, industry information, and financial management advice.

"Drama-type" accounts can create serialized themes around "character background or event background", such as: "Going Home for the New Year" series, interview series, single dog series, girlfriends' quarrel series... and so on.

For example, the Douyin account "Mr. Ye" currently has more than 20 million fans. Although she is a beauty blogger, she is very good at creating serialized plots and has her own unique style. She can easily leave a deep impression on the audience with her unique scene settings and character settings.

In addition, drama accounts can divide an episode into two parts; set up suspense at the end of the first part and set up a situation review at the beginning of the second part.

To expand around the "keywords" in the field, here is a very practical tool - [Nine-grid Creative Method] :

In simple terms, after determining the target users, radiate out and diverge around the topics that the target users are concerned about to quickly find more content directions.

For example, analyzing Du Zijian’s videos, we can expand on this by focusing on children aged 10-18:

1. Draw a 9-square grid;
2. With children at the core, list the core relationships;
3. Then use the core relationship as the core of the 9-square grid and draw common communication scenarios, preferably with conflicts;

For children aged 10-18, we can easily get the first layer of core relationships:

1. Parents
2. teacher
3. classmate
4. Brothers and sisters

Within these four core relationships, we extend four second-level relationships.

What are the main primary scenarios surrounding children and parents? Of course, it can also be children and teachers, or children and classmates.

Based on the primary scenario, we continue to fill in the secondary scenario. Find 3 dialogues for each of the 8 secondary scenes, such as doing housework:

1. Conversation about washing dishes
2. Mopping conversation
3. Laundry conversation

Just like that, the video material is out. Isn’t it simple?

Feel free to create videos based on the various scenes in the nine-square grid. Gradually, you will feel that there is not enough content at the beginning, and then you will feel that there are too many creative ideas.

In summary, the topic selection method of expanding and refining around the keyword "field" can help us produce content in a serialized manner and expand the scope of content creativity; it can form a long-term "attraction point" for users and greatly increase fan stickiness.

2. Combine "hot" topics to improve the "social attributes" of short videos

"Hotspots" are natural traffic magnets and are also the topic of new media content creators' writing. In the field of "short videos", hot topics are not brought randomly, so it is necessary to screen hot topics in order to attract more accurate fans.

For example: you can participate in the challenges and hot activities regularly released by "Tik Tok Assistant". The previous "Kick the Bottle Cap" activity was very popular and triggered imitation across the entire platform.

You can also take advantage of the "star effect" and use the star's halo to increase traffic. For example, many people imitate Li Jiaqi’s way of selling lipstick to sell courses, husbands, and real estate... The phrase "OMG" has become the standard for selling goods on the entire network.

Negative news about celebrities can also be turned into material for “short videos”.

The biggest winner of the "Show Luo incident" must be "Nanning Show Luo". On that day, the popularity of Nanning Show Luo's live broadcast room reached 50,000 people, which was just taking advantage of the popularity. I was the lucky one that day as I passively took advantage of the popularity.

There are three types of hot spots in Douyin:

1. Event Hotspot
2. Music Hotspot
3. Form Hot Spot

The way to attract traffic from hot events is to produce videos related to the hot content. Note that you do not need to be completely related to the hot event, as long as you mention the hot elements.

Then, add hot topics to the title of the copy, and make sure that the video content is associated with an element of the hot topic. After recognition, the Douyin system can associate your video with the hot topic and push it to the traffic pool of the hot topic attribute.

Take the "Luo Zhixiang incident" as an example:

• Those selling cosmetics can mention Luo Zhixiang’s dark circles;
• Those who are engaged in training can mention Luo Zhixiang’s time management;
• Those who work in education can mention Luo Zhixiang’s diploma and academic qualifications;
• Those who make mashups can review Luo Zhixiang’s screen acting skills;
• When recommending good things, you can definitely add a sentence “Believe me, we will never let you down like Xiaozhu” (Show Luo’s nickname is Xiaozhu).

Music hot spots are relatively easy to understand. The music hot spots here not only refer to music, but also include popular original creations by popular talents.

For example, Erlonghu Haoge's "Wow, so ruthless"; Giaoge's "It's so hard for me"; Teacher Guo's "Out of nothing, secretly crossing the Chencang Pass..."; Sanzhihua's "Show your talent, EGM". After a piece of music or an original soundtrack becomes popular, try to integrate it with your own work, and you will also be able to take advantage of the traffic within a certain period of time.

Form hot spots, this type of hot spots is more concerned with timeliness.

For example, the walking and talking of "Nine Distant Places"; the low-B style poor acting skills to interpret positive abilities - "The Light of Righteousness"; the dressing up of "刀小刀sama", these hot spots are more suitable for retail investors who have no clear positioning and no personal style, or experts who mainly engage in live broadcasting.

The form hotspot fills the content gap on the platform. In a specific period of time, this form will be more likely to receive traffic and become popular. This is related to the temporary recommendation inclination algorithm of Douyin's content vacancy pool.

In conjunction with hot topics, content producers need to pay close attention to online hot rankings in real time. For example: Douyin hot list, Zhihu hot list, Weibo hot list, etc. For hot topics of major events, especially those in the entertainment industry, first look at the Weibo hot list.

By predicting which posts will ferment on Douyin from the Weibo hot list, and then taking advantage of the time difference to produce related video content on Douyin, you will be able to catch the first wave of traffic.

You can also pay attention to the hot content on Feigua Data, which has been screened and processed and is more comprehensive. Only by selecting content that suits your own positioning from various hot spots and designing it can you effectively "leverage marketing".

It should be noted that planned hot topic-riding should start with two hot content videos; if the first one does not have a good effect, the second one should be pushed forward. This is the practical experience I have gained from actual operation, and it has worked every time.

3. Learn from benchmark accounts and create an "innovative" style

If you want to make "short videos", you have to watch videos for a long time, especially the short videos of benchmark accounts. On the one hand, you can be labeled as "vertical field" by the platform algorithm during the account maintenance stage; on the other hand, you can also learn the topic selection and planning of the benchmark accounts.

Here is a [four-dimensional restoration method] :

This method can be called a fighter among imitation methods. It allows the imitation to penetrate into the soul and bone marrow. It can not only imitate the opponent's skin, but also the heart, liver, spleen and lungs. One [four-dimensional restoration] of a popular video can help you find inspiration for creating 10 or 100 similar cases.

The first step of four-dimensional restoration: [Content restoration]

Describe the entire video in words. Written directly on the spot:

[Title]: @杜子建Who was the first person who made your child lose face?

【Music】: Original soundtrack composed by Du Zijian himself (mainly synchronous sound)

【Screen】：

Du Zijian, medium close-up, composition to the chest,

Sitting, facing the camera from the left front, arms crossed, wearing a black sweater,

The background is a bookcase door, blurred;

Serious expression, frequent nodding, blinking, communicating, scolding tone

[Lines]:

Children should be encouraged and educated, and should be actively nurtured.

It must be appreciative education and appreciation of growth

His parents didn't appreciate him.

Insult him and humiliate him every day.

I wish I could let my children live with their heads down every day.

The first person who makes a child lose his head must be his parents.

We call this analytical method "one-dimensional development" : using words to unravel things and describe them completely. Similar to the way the three-dimensional world falls into the two-dimensional world in The Three-Body Problem. During the dimensionality reduction and expansion process, countless details will be recorded and displayed, and the amount of information will be fully presented.

After [expanding the content] of Du Zijian's hit video, what did you discover?

1. If we were to simulate a conversation, who would Du Zijian be talking to?
2. What did he say? Why is this grammatical structure used?
3. After you say it, who is expected to have what reaction?

If you still don't have an answer at this point, let's do [two-dimensional expansion] together: expand the comments and see how Douyin users react after watching this video.

The user feedback we need already has a lot of first-hand information in the replies. Let’s find representative ones among these 50,000 replies and present them one by one.

Read 200 comments and you’ll discover a little secret:

1. The vast majority of users who responded were children;
2. What they want to do most is: how to let their parents (accidentally) see this video.

Now the question is: Do you see what public relations methods Du Zijian is using?

If not, let’s move on to [Three-Dimensional Unfolding]: Identity Restoration. By tracing back the identities of real listeners and users who like and reply to the video, we can find out who the users are, what they care about, and why they care about this popular video.

Following the clues, we can see the identities of the users who commented. They are: 13, 14, 17 years old...

This is the real average age of Tik Tok users; this is the person Du Zijian really communicates with.

Then, why did Du Zijian still speak in the tone he used to talk to his parents? Why? Come on, everyone give us an answer!

Next, let’s move on to the last dimension of [Four-Dimensional Restoration]: Uncovering the [Planning Logic Restoration] of Du Zijian’s Planning Team

Who is this video for?

——For mainstream Tik Tok users;

Who are the mainstream users?

——Children aged 13-17;

What to tell them?

——What do they care about?

What do they like to hear the most?

——Help them speak their minds, say what they want to say but dare not say;

So what do they want to say but dare not say?

——Different opinions from parents, teachers and other adults.

Everyone, after seeing this, can you make 100 videos like this?

Tip: Du Zijian has created a [social currency] here, which appears to be addressed to parents but is actually addressed to children. This currency is suitable for children to give to their parents.

Without the [social currency] method, the effectiveness of this video would be greatly reduced. For example, this:

Mr. Zhong Shan from Hunan TV uses the same operation template as Du Zijian. The target is also Douyin users in their early 10s, and the topic is: the contradiction between one and two children. However, the social currency is not in place and the traffic is half as much.

Let's review the [Four-Dimensional Restoration Method]:

1. The goal of the four-dimensional restoration method is not to imitate the popular content superficially, but to [restore the planning logic]. With the planning logic, you can make 10 or 100 similar videos yourself.
2. The four dimensions of the four-dimensional restoration method are: [content restoration], [comment restoration], [user identity restoration], and [planning logic restoration].

Currently, some big accounts on Douyin were established based on benchmark accounts. For example, Zhu Yici’s boring life borrowed from similar personal IP accounts and adopted a different style. Of course, the "reference" mentioned here does not mean blatant plagiarism, but innovation on this basis.

Among so many beauty bloggers, why is it that only Li Jiaqi has successfully broken out of the circle through Douyin? This is not unrelated to his innovation. After watching many beauty videos, it feels like they are always talking about the same things, including Li Jiaqi, who also talks about loose powder, lipstick, and liquid foundation.

But why do we remember Li Jiaqi?

Because I saw something innovative in him, for example: when a man tries on lipstick, his lips are so fresh and juicy, and look better than women's lips; for example: his OMG, buy it, buy it, little assistant and Never... These are all innovative changes, which make it easier to differentiate himself from his peers and establish his own differentiated personality.

“There is nothing new under the sun”, innovation is a new combination of old elements. We can learn from more classic cases, try some harmless new ideas appropriately, and approach the topic from different angles when shooting to form our own style.

Here are three ways to choose a topic:

1. Topic series: expand and refine around the key words of "field";
2. Socialization of topic selection: combining "hot" topics;
3. Innovative topic selection: learn from benchmark accounts and create an "innovative" style.

It should be noted that Tik Tok is a “time killer” and most of the users who use Tik Tok do so for entertainment and relaxation. Either they come to see the "beauties and handsome guys" or to "eat melons"; the better ones will learn some "new knowledge and information" through Douyin.

No matter what kind of needs of the public we cater to, our content selection requires that it is easy to understand. Short videos that even square dance aunties can understand are likely to become hits. Because its dissemination cost is very low and it is easier to spread, once the user base increases, the explosion of short videos will not be far away.

Author: Copy Hunter April

Source: Copy Hunter April

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