2.4 million followers in one week, revealing the survival rules of Douyin vlog

Although the scale of Douyin 's vlogs is gradually growing, there is still a serious lack of high-quality content. There is a lot of room for improvement in both the quality of a single category and the coverage of multiple categories. For vlog creators who want to develop Tik Tok, now may be the best time.

Recently, there has been a “vlog” craze on TikTok. When you open TikTok, you can frequently see vlogs about various topics such as travel, food, and learning. Although there were TikTok users who shot vlogs to record their daily lives before, it was a TikTok celebrity named "itsRae" who really made more people pay attention to vlog as a form of content expression.

Not long ago, "itsRae" released two vlogs about ending his life in New York. The total number of likes for the two videos has exceeded 4.5 million. According to Kas data statistics, "itsRae" gained 2.478 million followers in a week thanks to this wave of popularity, becoming the Tik Tok celebrity with the largest increase in followers that week, and the Kas index and ranking have been rising steadily for six consecutive weeks.

▲ Data source : Kas Data

Why can vlog inspire everyone’s passion for creation, interaction and dissemination? Will it become the next content trend for TikTok?

Based on the popular vlog videos on Douyin, this article will analyze the current situation and characteristics of this content format, explore the logic behind its explosiveness, and provide reference for relevant creators to enhance content competitiveness.

1. Let you know about vlog

Vlog, or video blog, is a content format that integrates text, images, and audio. Its main function is to record life. We can simply understand it as a video diary.

Vlog first became popular on YouTube . Casey Neistat, known as the "Father of Vlog", has updated vlogs for more than 600 consecutive days and has more than 10 million subscribers on YouTube. After vlog was introduced into China, driven by the wave of short videos , a group of vloggers (vlog video creators) who focused on shooting vlogs emerged in the PGC field. Creators in various fields also began to regard vlog as an important form of expression. The vlog content format is gradually becoming popular.

The reason why vlog can be accepted by the public is mainly due to its three advantages.

1. First of all, compared with traditional text blogs, vlog videos that have been shot, edited, dubbed and subtitled can present more vivid and three-dimensional audio-visual effects and carry richer information. It has obvious advantages in content presentation and emotional expression.
2. Secondly, compared with other PGC programs that are more purposeful and targeted, vlog's more lifelike, real, natural and fluent expression fills the aesthetic gap in the short video field.
3. In addition to the advantages in content, vlog is also simpler to shoot and produce than some PGC content, and has lower time and labor costs. Even with just a simple handheld device, you can shoot while walking and complete a work independently.

2. Analysis of Tik Tok vlog

At present, the two most popular topics about vlog on Douyin, "vlog daily" and "vlog", have a combined reading volume of nearly 2.2 billion, with nearly 60,000 participants. Obviously, at least from the data of these two dimensions, vlog, which was labeled as "niche" in the past two years, has now become a relatively hot topic, indicating that Douyin users have a very high acceptance of vlog.

The quantity is no longer a niche, but what about the quality of the content?

The author found that the current Douyin vlogs can be divided into the following categories:

1. Tourism

Travel is one of the most common and widely used themes in Tik Tok vlogs. For example, "rae Travel Diary" launched by "itsRae", goes to different countries and cities such as Dubai, Iceland, Morocco, etc., to experience skydiving, snorkeling, RV, and self-driving tours. After editing, combined with commentary monologues and appropriate BGM, a complete vlog is formed.

Unlike travel programs, the content of travel vlogs can run from before the trip to after the trip, instead of focusing only on what people see and hear during the trip and the customs and practices of the destination.

Travel vlogs emphasize recording the process rather than expanding the narrative, and the content can be various trivial things such as flying, eating, and staying in hotels. On TikTok, which has a higher time requirement, these travel vlog videos switch shots almost every 2 or 3 seconds. Presenting rich content and interesting personal style in a short period of time is the key and also the difficulty.

2. Food

The content of food vlogs all revolves around the theme of food, but there are slight differences in the details. Some people record cooking, some record eating, and some record the whole process from cooking to eating.

For example, a series of food vlogs launched by "A College Student Who Is Not Very Serious About Losing Weight" records the process of cooking and eating together. The double-speed effect and the fresh soundtrack are playful and warm. It not only demonstrates the methods of cooking, but also meets the audience's needs for practicality and audio-visual effects.

3. Learning

Since Douyin users tend to be relatively young overall, there are many users who are preparing for postgraduate entrance exams, civil service exams, and various certification exams. There are many people in this group who want to find study partners to encourage each other and get through the boring study period together. Therefore, learning vlogs have become one of the main content themes of vlogs.

The video content is very simple, usually showing the learning process, reading books and doing exercises. Some people choose inspirational quotes as background monologues, such as "You must force yourself to be excellent, and then live proudly. You still have a long life ahead of you, so don't panic." Some people choose to express what they want to convey in text form, placing it around the video to show it to the audience.

4. Love Records

Love is a topic that never goes out of style among young people. Douyin has gathered a large number of young people, and content about love will naturally be loved and sought after by this group of users. Love records, commonly known as "spreading dog food", is an important way to express love content. The content of a relationship vlog usually revolves around the daily interactions of the two lovers, including trivial things like eating and shopping, as well as more important "big" events such as birthdays and anniversaries.

To sum up, although the quantity of Douyin vlog content is rising rapidly, in terms of content quality, there are only a handful of top vloggers, and most of the high-quality content is produced by these top vloggers. Most of the vlog content is still at the bottom of the pyramid , and there are obvious problems with the content.

Most vloggers simply record, lacking both the soft power of personal style and the hard power of professionalism in shooting and editing. Most of the content is a continuation of PGC content in its respective field. For example, there is no obvious difference between food vlogs and food programs. They lack creativity and have repetitive content, which will inevitably cause visual fatigue to the audience if watched too much.

Therefore, from the perspective of content quality, Douyin's vlog is still in its infancy. This huge market needs more high-quality vlog content and the participation of vloggers.

3. Why do people love watching vlogs?

Some people may ask, why can't carefully crafted content please the audience, but simple records of life can move people?

The main reasons can be summarized into the following two points:

1. Rediscovering the sense of ritual

A sense of ritual is actually a focused and serious attitude towards life, carrying people's awe of life, which happens to be what many people lack. The fast-paced, high-pressure life makes people eager for quick success and dare not slow down. The sense of ritual is a luxury for many people. For creators, recording vlogs is about seeking a sense of ritual.

For the audience, it is also an indirect ritual experience that they cannot get in their daily lives. By watching the film, the audience can resonate with the creator's views, attitudes and emotions, thereby increasing their courage to continue facing a boring life.

2. Satisfy the audience’s need for companionship and social interaction

Recording content usually has a companion function, such as live broadcasts , food shows, etc., and vlogs are no exception. The pressure of life often causes many young people to fall into emotions such as anxiety, confusion, and loneliness. The interactivity brought by mobile Internet makes them eager to seek companionship through the Internet to meet their social needs.

In vlogs, the author and the viewer usually maintain a close distance, which brings the two sides closer together. Content focused on trivial matters in life will also make the audience feel more connected. At this time, experiencing the passage of time is a form of companionship and relaxation for the audience.

4. What should you pay attention to when vlogging on Douyin?

Just like other PGC programs entering Douyin, vlogs entering Douyin also need to make adjustments and adaptations in content.

Specifically, there are two main points:

1. Consider both content and duration

When vlogs are entering Douyin, the most important breakthrough is to coordinate the contradiction between "slow" content and "short" duration, but this does not mean speeding up and condensing a ten-minute video into a Douyin version. Creators need to re-establish the narrative rhythm and logic that Tik Tok users can accept. They need to let the audience feel the "slowness" conveyed by your vlog compared to fast-paced Tik Tok videos such as funny and beautiful women, and they also need to control the length of the content.

2. Pay attention to user accumulation

All creators will consider commercialization issues. When the number of users accumulates to a certain level, they should use other social platforms to complete the sedimentation of users. Allowing users to settle down paves the way for subsequent commercialization, so that traffic can realize its true value.

In short, although the scale of Douyin's vlogs is gradually growing, there is still a serious lack of high-quality content. Whether it is the quality of a single category or the coverage of multiple categories, there is a lot of room for improvement. For vlog creators who want to develop Tik Tok, now may be the best time.

Source: caasdata (ID: caasdata6)