Tik Tok’s tag recommendation algorithm becomes fan recommendation, has Tik Tok’s private domain become a reality?

TikTok has recently started testing a new recommendation algorithm for some accounts, upgrading the previous [Account Tag] recommendation mechanism to a [Fan Growth] fan recommendation logic, which is to increase the exposure of works to fans.

Let’s first look at the official definition of this [Fan Growth]:

What are the core fans of Tik Tok?

1. What are core fans?

Strongly support your fans. Their long-term love for your work will result in completion and interaction data far above average.

2. The monetization value of core fans

Die-hard fans account for a very low proportion of the total fans, but more than half of the payment behaviors on Douyin are contributed by die-hard fans, and their payment rate is more than 6 times that of others.

3. Stable reach to core fans in the future

Tik Tok will increase the exposure of your videos among your loyal fans, making your video traffic more stable.

4. How to use core fans data analysis

You can view the changing trend of the number of loyal fans in Creator Service Center-Data Center-Fan Data (there is a "Total Number of Loyal Fans").

If the number of loyal fans drops significantly, it means that your loyal fans do not like your recent video content. You can adjust the content in time to enhance interaction with fans.

If the number of loyal fans increases significantly, it means that your fans like your recent content style very much and you can summarize your experience in time.

5. Build emotional connections with fans to increase the number of core fans

Share your feelings and thoughts with fans in the comment section to strengthen the sense of closeness.

It's a bit long and a bit wordy, but the simple understanding is:

On Douyin, data will analyze the loyal fans of your Douyin account, which will increase the exposure of your works among Douyin's loyal fans in the future. At the same time, data shows that the monetization value of Douyin's loyal fans is 6 times higher than that of ordinary users.

Specifically in the presentation layer:

In the past, after a video was released, it would have 200-500 views by default, and the proportion of fans was not that high, probably only around 10%, and the rest were almost all strangers (such as contacts, people in the same city, tag recommendations, etc.).

After the adjustment, the reach and viewing volume of [fans] will be greatly improved.

For example, when you release a video, your fans may account for 60% or even 80% of the viewing share. The fan group is the main judge of short video works. If even your fans think that the quality of your video content is not good, then it will be difficult for your work to enter the larger public traffic pool for recommendation.

It is not clear at the moment what conditions the accounts must meet to be included in the internal test.

But the number of followers of an account will be an important indicator, such as an account with more than 10,000 or even 100,000 followers.

The algorithm recommendation of [Fan Growth] in this internal test will have a huge impact on the entire content creation ecosystem of Douyin.

1. It is more difficult for creators to gain followers, and they need to create more crazily

Especially for creators, it can be said to be an extreme involution, which is reflected in all aspects:

As mentioned above, short video works must reach certain indicators among the fan base (especially die-hard fans) in order to gain recommendations from greater public domain traffic.

This may be bad news especially for bloggers who relied on the bonus of Douyin in the early stage to get started. They will be trapped by the traffic of their own fan base.

If there is not a large amount of public domain traffic to reach the potential target user group, it would be good enough if you can gain a few followers and not lose them.

As the saying goes, the things that make you successful may limit your ability to achieve greater success.

As a creator, your work needs to pass many tests from die-hard fans before it can finally meet your potential fans.

So how can we break through the fan traffic pool?

The only thing they can do is to create crazily, innovate crazily, and try to please their own fan base (especially die-hard fans) crazily, no matter in form, content or theme.

If you can't, then there is no recommendation for (more) public domain traffic.

This truly realized what Douyin proposed half a year ago: [Private domain feeds back public domain traffic] [Cover face]

2. Users are difficult to please and aesthetic fatigue

Nowadays, with the penetration of short videos, everyone is pursuing a short, fragmented fast food culture.

On the one hand, users are becoming less and less patient. In the interactive experience of sliding up and down, if you fail to grab the user's attention within 3 seconds, you will never have another chance.

Users’ threshold for being pleased has also been trained to be higher and higher, and they have also been trained to constantly pursue new things.

Even your die-hard fans will get tired of your content after consuming it continuously:

You've filmed this scene three times.

You have already talked about this knowledge point.

I've seen this template several times. Can you give me something new?

On the other hand, in addition to users changing, creators are also changing.

A user may follow you because of point a, and then you start to try points b and c, but points b and C are not in the interests of some of the fans who followed you because of point a, so these fans who followed you because of point a will naturally drop off.

3. The Impossible Triangle of Content Creation

Under extreme internal circulation, the impossible triangle of content creation becomes more prominent.

What is the impossible triangle of content creation?

Original, popular, high-yield

Even if you are in the general entertainment field and making jokes, originality takes time and you cannot be very productive. Even if you are very productive, can you guarantee that it will be a hit?

In the case of high productivity, non-originality will inevitably appear. For example, in any industry or vertical category, there may be only so much content that can be produced, and it will eventually be used up.

This is an impossible triangle model of content creation under extreme internal circulation: originality, explosiveness, and high productivity.

4. The number of views may become more stable

Of course, in addition to internal circulation, new results will also occur.

The biggest benefit of having core fans and loyal fans is that creators' works can get more stable playback traffic.

At the very least, it can ensure interactive rate indicators such as forwarding and likes, and improve the data feedback of a single work.

Suppose you have 10,000 fans. As long as your fans are active enough, it is possible that your work will reach a basic playback volume of 3-5K.

It’s not bad.

5. Enhance private domain attributes

The adjustment of the entire algorithm recommendation strategy this time, from focusing more on distribution efficiency to focusing more on emotional connection, can be said to be a big step towards private domain operations.

Douyin proposed the concept of Douyin private domain half a year ago. At that time, I wrote an article titled "Is Douyin private domain a false proposition?" 》

It also briefly analyzes the poor stickiness between users or fans and bloggers due to the current content-oriented algorithm recommendation mechanism of Tik Tok.

Although the official said that Douyin can also do private domain, if private domain services are only provided at the tool level and the basic traffic distribution mechanism remains unchanged, private domain operations will not be feasible for creators or merchants.

Now it seems that we are serious about this.

In the past, Douyin fans were known to be the most snobbish and least valuable on the entire Internet. Now, fans have begun to have value.

It seems that the saying that Douyin fans are worthless will no longer apply.

When fans and bloggers have a deeper connection and more emotional resonance, they can support you with practical actions through short videos and live broadcasts.

Whether it is giving rewards, selling courses or selling goods.

So, is Douyin’s private domain going to be successful?

6. Kuaishou becomes TikTok, TikTok becomes Kuaishou

Douyin is gradually improving its private domain attributes, while Kuaishou is constantly strengthening its algorithm recommendations.

On the Douyin side, as Douyin adds more content recommendations from followed accounts on the recommendation page, this will further enhance the stickiness and trust between fans and bloggers, similar to Kuaishou's double-column follow-up.

As for Kuaishou, both version 8.0 and the express version have strengthened the single-column algorithm recommendation, that is, the distribution of public domain traffic.

But to some extent, it will inevitably dilute the private domain attributes that it has always been proud of.

Kuaishou's Q3 2021 financial report shows that Kuaishou's e-commerce repurchase rate has reached 70%.

This ultimately leads to another interesting consequence:

Kuaishou becomes Douyin, and Douyin becomes Kuaishou.

Interesting, huh?

7. Why did Tik Tok make such adjustments?

One of the more important reasons is to prevent the Matthew effect, or to say, to cut the mountain top.

For example, Taobao’s Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi’s pre-sales on the first day of Double Eleven exceeded 20 billion, and Kuaishou’s Simba’s pre-sales reached 10 billion in one day.

In comparison, Lao Luo is ranked first on Douyin e-commerce’s live streaming sales list in 2021, with [annual] 5 billion. Note that it is the entire year.

Moreover, this achievement was achieved with the support of Lao Luo who has 9 vertical live broadcast rooms with multiple shows and even 24-hour broadcasts.

Let me say a few more words here. For example, Taobao has long been troubled by the distribution of traffic to super top celebrities such as Li Jiaqi and Viya.

In the early days of Taobao Live, Taobao needed influencers like Li Jiaqi and Viya to increase the conversion of users entering the live broadcast room and cultivate users' shopping habits in the live broadcast room.

Even if they were not there at that time, there would be Huang Jiaqi and Li Ya.

But success and failure are both due to Xiao He.

Later on, they became so powerful that they hijacked Taobao's traffic and even the brands' pricing power (such as the last L'Oreal low-price incident).

However, in order to assess the overall GMV and its own KPI, Taobao has never been able to find a more reasonable traffic distribution strategy.

Some time ago, Wei Ya was inspired by the common prosperity, which is actually a good thing for Taobao Live.

Similarly, Simba of Kuaishou also has similar troubles.

Tik Tok’s goal is to reduce the number of users and to prevent the Matthew effect from occurring. It also needs to find a way to provide more “reasonable” traffic distribution to the super-top users.

On TikTok, there is always a top, but there is no permanent top.

at last:

1. Douyin will certainly not upgrade the [Account Tag] algorithm recommendation strategy that is content-centric to [Fans Growth]

After all, the success of TikTok has proved the victory of account tag algorithm recommendation.

As I quoted in "How do fans of public accounts become fans of video accounts":

Tik Tok’s current success has proven the victory of algorithm recommendation. WeChat lost to short videos and live broadcasts, not because WeChat content did not include short videos or live broadcasts, but because it could not use algorithm recommendations as the basic way for new humans to obtain information like TikTok.

Including Kuaishou, which clearly seized the dividends of short video live streaming content media. The reason it was surpassed by Douyin was not because of its organizational ability, but because when the supply of short video live streaming product content was sufficient, it still stuck to the basic double-column social relationship distribution base and failed to decisively complete the transformation to algorithm recommendation as the core.

2. No matter how things change, they still remain the same

Regardless of the recommendation logic of [Account Tag] or [Fan Growth], [High-quality Content] is the most important code for traffic growth and breaking the circle.

3. Private domain is becoming more and more important

When we talk about private domains, our first reaction is often WeChat.

We also have to admit that, to a certain extent, the WeChat ecosystem does define and represent the private domain.

But can private domains only exist on WeChat?

Obviously, Douyin and Kuaishou both have their own answers.

In fact, as long as the channel can help us control the traffic in our own hands and reach users directly at a lower cost, it can essentially be a private domain.

Wow, hahaha, this is really the most inward-looking era, but also the best era!

above.

Author: Meng Dawei

Source: Dawei Talks about E-commerce