Analyzing the rules and value of Douyin live streaming!

Luo Yonghao officially announced his entry into Douyin live streaming , and his fans exceeded one million within three hours; Liang Jianzhang, chairman of Ctrip, live streamed in Sanya, and sold 10 million products in one hour... After the fermentation during the epidemic, live streaming has further expanded its influence and become a standard for brand marketing. Not only did these two bigwigs make their products popular, they also brought the "promoter" behind the scenes - Douyin Live, back into the public eye.

Douyin's layout in the live streaming field began to show signs as early as last year. In April last year, Douyin announced the introduction of 1,000 live broadcast guilds; in September, Douyin Live released the "Dark Horse Plan"; in January 2020, Douyin Live launched the "Stars Love Fans Night"; on March 20, Douyin's "Super Big Name Live Broadcast Day" was launched.

Douyin's live streaming has expanded from celebrities to niche areas, and has been deepening step by step. So how can Douyin, which is generally considered to have creativity as its mainstream content and advertising as its main source of revenue, use its own advantages to establish a platform live streaming ecosystem? What’s special about the logic behind the sales of products by Douyin celebrities?

To this end, TOP interviewed three Douyin live-streaming influencers - husband-and-wife IP @大狼狗郑建鹏&Yan Zhen couple (hereinafter referred to as @大狼狗夫妻), "drama queen" @董代表, and the top beauty and fashion influencer @貝貝兔, to explore the rules and value of Douyin live-streaming from the perspective of influencers.

Entertainment + practical information, building a bond of trust

“When we were live streaming, the products were sold out before we even finished introducing them!” This is @大狼狗’s most intuitive description of the shopping scene in the live streaming room, and it is also the best embodiment of the trust economy between celebrities and their fans. While TOP was watching, he could hear comments like "Order for love" and "Must do something to support you" in @大狼狗's short videos and live broadcast room. This is the commercial value stimulated by fans' trust, and it also implies the underlying logic of Douyin celebrities' sales.

The influencer industry is built on the cornerstone of trust. Influencers inspire trust with their personal charm, forming a huge fan base and targeted marketing market. On Tik Tok, short videos and live broadcasts simultaneously provide a breeding ground for trust for influencers. The trusting relationship between influencers and their fans is the prerequisite for commercialization.

Drama expert @董代表, based on his own characteristics, performed 20+ different roles in Northeastern dialect, and the entertaining content strongly attracted fans. In addition, by frequently outputting short video content and only chatting without selling goods in the early stage of live broadcast, they can consolidate their interesting personalities and enhance fan stickiness.

After live streaming started to sell goods, the representatives even created a unique style of “selling goods through jokes”. Although the products he promotes will be strictly screened and evaluated by the team and himself, in the live broadcast room, he prefers to tell stories and jokes to attract users to buy. For example, after telling a story involving a product, tell users "You can do the same if you use it", give full play to your sense of humor and strengthen the connection between the short video and the personality of the live broadcast room.

Representative Dong has always maintained a trusting relationship with fans through entertaining content, which has largely solved the problem of the disconnect between pan-entertainment content and product sales.

Although both are pan-entertainment content, @董代表 needs to carefully divide himself into different roles in the video, while @大狼狗夫妻’s hilarious comedy is more of a “true to life” performance.

The couple uses daily life as inspiration to dramatically present the funny moments in ordinary daily life. At the end of last year, the "Rent Collection" series was very popular, and the number of fans increased to 20 million. During the Spring Festival, the addition of their daughter made the content even richer, and the number of fans increased by another 10 million in one month. At the same time, Zheng Jianpeng has experience in running an advertising company and has professional skills in storytelling and storyboard design, which makes the comedy and entertainment of the work better presented.

They also transferred such entertainment to the live broadcast room. Before getting involved in short videos, the couple's professional identities were singer and model respectively. Based on their own talents and performance abilities, they would arrange performance segments in each live broadcast, which greatly improved the watchability of the live broadcast, met audience expectations, and enhanced fan stickiness.

"Entertainment" is the tone that the two pan-entertainment celebrities use to build fans' trust, and @呗呗兔, who has been in the beauty and cosmetics sales track from the very beginning, has gained fans' support by continuously producing useful content.

@呗呗兔 is a personal lover of beauty products and is good at sharing her real experience of daily use through Tianjin dialect with its own "crosstalk feel". When selecting products during live broadcasts, she will conduct comprehensive evaluations such as personal trials and trials by her customer service team to select the best products and recommend them to her fans.

On a platform like Douyin where both entertainment and vertical content flourish, this method can help establish celebrity reputation and build fan trust, laying a solid foundation for selling products.

Short videos + live broadcasts, building a closed loop of weeding and weeding

After gaining traffic and trust, how can we use the platform’s “short video + live broadcast” format for commercial monetization? Can the combination of the two create a “1+1>2” effect?

@董代表 gave the following answer to Perfect Diary’s product promotion case.

@董代表 is well aware of the importance fans place on product appearance and cost-effectiveness, so he took the initiative to find brands to cooperate with in the early stages of the live broadcast. He first shot a soft-implanted advertisement for Perfect Diary through a short video, and after verifying the fans' love for the product, he started selling the products in the live broadcast room. By promoting the product through short videos and then directing traffic to the live broadcast room for precise sales, the product ultimately achieved 15,000 sales.

For influencers, this means the establishment of the "advertising + live streaming" business model, and for brands it also reduces the cost of trial and error.

@呗呗兔 also verified the success of this closed loop when promoting Yameng beauty devices during the "New Year Goods Festival". She first revealed the product and evaluated its efficacy in a short video, screening out a group of fans with a strong willingness to buy; and relying on the number of fans and their strong purchasing power, Beibeitu negotiated with the brand and got the lowest price, ultimately leading to a transaction amount of more than 5.8 million.

When fans purchase such products, "seeing the long-term effects in advance" is an important decision-making factor, so short videos are a necessary step. Finally, the post-purchase experience and feedback from the screened fans were very high, truly realizing “1+1>2”.

@大狼狗夫妻 hopes to do both video and live streaming, and the couple’s skills are perfectly suited to these two formats. During the actual operation, Zheng Jianpeng was responsible for the short video creativity, while Yan Zhen put more energy into the selection and coordination of live broadcasts. "In this way, our account can bring both fame and profit to the brand."

It can be seen that using short video content to attract fans, build trust, and direct traffic to the live broadcast room, or through accurate traffic recommendations given by the official in the live broadcast square, local page, official activities, etc., to increase the number of fans for short video content, such two-way traffic guidance is more conducive to celebrities breaking through the scale and going out of the circle. On this basis, the precise marketing of "planting grass + bringing goods" can be realized.

In this ecosystem, not only do the ceilings for top and bottom influencers are higher, but bottom influencers also have the opportunity to cold-start with live streaming and selling goods. On other e-commerce and live streaming platforms, top influencers share most of the profits, and the possibility of creators going from 0 to 1 is greatly reduced. As @大狼狗 said, this is a great opportunity for talented people with good ideas. Short video advertising and live streaming are flourishing on both sides, and this is also a business possibility that can only be fostered by the Douyin ecosystem.

Platform ecology, creating a new field for live streaming sales

From the logic and current situation of influencers selling goods, we can see that Douyin is building a new field of live streaming sales based on the platform's unique ecology. We can also see Douyin's huge potential in live streaming sales.

From the perspective of the expert's fans, @董代表 is targeting Generation Z, who value appearance, cost-effectiveness, and have their own opinions; among @貝貝兔's fans, the largest proportion are high-income urban women, who have no problem buying products with a unit price of nearly 1,000 yuan in the live broadcast room; @大狼狗夫妻 believes that intuitively, the buyers in the live broadcast room are mostly housewives and mothers. They have strong purchasing power and buy a wide range of categories, including beauty products, snacks, and household items. In addition, the ratio of male to female accounts reaches 4:6. Male consumers will also place orders for food and daily necessities in the live broadcast room. There is still a lot of room for development in this group.

The fans of the three influencers are a microcosm of the platform’s main consumer groups. Among Douyin’s 400 million daily active users, there is still a lot of potential that has not yet been tapped. In Douyin’s live broadcasts, the potential of “people” needs to be further released.

Under the guidance of the platform ecology, these "people" form a giant "field" where users can view live squares, city pages, official activities, and precise recommendations by sliding up and down. Multiple ports are used to enter the live broadcast room to meet entertainment and shopping needs. With the improvement of functions such as shopping carts and small stores, the commercial closed loop of live streaming with goods has been gradually improved, and the user experience and the experience of influencers with goods have also gradually improved. According to the description of @董代表 in the interview, since the live streaming with goods began last year, it can be felt that the platform has increased its inclination towards live streaming traffic.

On the one hand, the improvement of the business chain and the closed loop of planting and weeding can help brand owners solve the pain points of precision marketing. On the other hand, for consumers, trust in influencers allows them to reduce the steps in product selection and eliminate the fear of choice. Tik Tok live streaming is both entertaining and professional, which greatly improves consumers’ shopping experience. It can be seen that Douyin, with its unique platform ecology, satisfies the needs of both brand owners and consumers.

Based on the solid trust between influencers and fans, and the gradual improvement of the platform's people, goods and venues, Douyin Live has created its own unique ecology and business model. At present, the traffic dividend has been divided up and the competition between platforms is unprecedentedly fierce, but on Douyin, new ways of playing have just begun.

Author: TopMarketing

Source: TopMarketing