In 2020, Bilibili has successfully "broken out of the circle" and become a "cultural community where young Chinese people gather." Bilibil currently has 15 video sections including animation, TV series, domestic creation, music, dance, games, technology, life, entertainment, ghost animals, fashion, etc., with a total of more than 7,000 cultural circles and 2 million cultural tags. It is one of the most popular Internet products among Generation Z. If brands want to capture young people, Bilibili has become the first place to make money.

Currently, most of the brand cooperation is invested in the fields of technology, life, fashion, etc. For example, in April 2019, Estee Lauder's Platinum Liquid Foundation "swamped" Bilibili. Often brands will look for bloggers in corresponding fields based on the attributes of the brand or product, for example, looking for bloggers in the lifestyle area for daily chemical products. However, the overall cooperation price for up-masters in these fields is currently high, resulting in a low ROI.

Don’t forget that the small and broken websites that have successfully “broken their circle” started out by relying on the “two-dimensional”, with games and animations being the main areas of the website , and these underdeveloped areas constitute a marketing blue ocean. Break out of the inertial thinking and from the perspective of the brand's target consumers, as long as the fan portrait of the up-host matches the target group of the product, cooperation can be carried out, such as the gaming field x fast-moving consumer goods, the biological field x electronic digital products ... As long as you have a big imagination, everything can be on Bilibili! And if your target consumers are men of Generation Z, then you should definitely not miss the main site area of ​​Bilibili.

Estee Lauder "bloodbathed B station", the main selling point is "gem light, essence skin care"

Bilibili’s content marketing goals are divided into two types: brand promotion and brand-effect conversion. Brand promotion focuses on brand exposure and occupying the minds of consumers, while brand-effect conversion focuses on promoting sales conversion. Three points need to be emphasized here:

1. Products suitable for placement on Bilibili are those that have product power, personality, and are novel. Products with negative content will not be successful even if they are promoted by a million-dollar up-loader.
2. The selection of the up master is the key. Up masters are the communication medium between brands and users. Brands promote their brands and boost sales conversions by co-creating content with up-hosts, and reach a larger fan base with the help of up-hosts. Therefore, the selection of up-hosts determines the target group that can be reached.
3. The quality of content determines the effectiveness of brand promotion. The interests and consumption demands of Bilibili users are more diversified. They are more tolerant, sticky, interactive, and picky. They worship "real talent" rather than top streamers and authority. Therefore, only high-quality content can attract users and achieve real growth in brand power.

Site users have polarized attitudes toward commercial embedded videos. Most users understand that UP hosts also need income to maintain their continuous creation. When UP hosts they follow launch commercial cooperation videos, most users will express their approval and may even support them with barrage comments or even purchases.

However, if the UP host produces content of significantly lower quality than usual in order to make money, or if the products of the cooperating brand have obvious problems, but the UP host avoids talking about them in the content because of the cooperation, users will denounce them as "making money by cheating", which will affect their credibility.

B station up master Shiyin launched a discussion on up masters' acceptance of advertising

As a brand, if you want to enter Bilibili for brand marketing, you can use two official methods: one is commercial promotion on the Huohua platform, that is, long video brand promotion; the other is the bounty program, that is, adding product links in videos and live broadcast rooms.

It was revealed that the video playback page of Bilibili may present product links in the form of barrage, floating layers, icons, etc., while the live broadcast room will have a shopping bag in the lower right corner. In addition, product links can also be added below the UP host’s personal homepage, dynamic page, column article page, and video playback page. This is currently in the internal testing stage.

New business cooperation model for bilibili up masters

This article focuses on the unofficial PUGV content co-creation model, namely the "video + link" cooperation model: soft implantation marketing through customized videos by UP hosts, and then attaching product links. This is currently the most mainstream model of content marketing with goods on Bilibili. Since the medium and long videos on Bilibili can be watched repeatedly, such conversion is continuous, with a half-life of up to one month.

An industry insider who wishes to remain anonymous revealed a set of data to Yibang Power: a food UP host with a million fans sold a food item priced at one hundred yuan through a video, and the sales reached about 150,000 yuan; a UP host with half a million fans sold small household appliances, and the sales brought in about 100,000 yuan with a single video; a UP host with about 10,000 fans had a GMV of about 10,000 to 50,000 yuan for a single video... Everyone realizes that Bilibili is a value depression, but they are still confused about how to do a good job in marketing at Bilibili.

After reviewing more than 200 up-master cooperation cases, this is a set of lessons learned that cost 2 million yuan. This article will provide practical guidance from the following four aspects:

1. Know yourself and your fatigue: Understand the platform traffic logic to help brand placement
2. Pick one out of a million: qualitative and quantitative identification of up-hosts with goods
3. Content Co-creation: A Replicable Content Marketing Production Model
4. Communication matrix: master the rhythm of content delivery and make good use of the long tail effect
5. Experience accumulation: Review the promotion effect from two directions and form a delivery methodology

1. The traffic logic of Bilibili: good content + good interaction = good traffic

If you are on his turf, you have to listen to him. If you want to effectively "promote", you must first understand the traffic logic of this platform.

The first point: the feed page is different for each person. In terms of distribution logic, Bilibili adopts a relatively fair traffic distribution mechanism, relying on fan relationships and interest-based distribution mechanisms, and making customized recommendations based on data such as user-focused topics. Users will follow multiple up-loaders in the same field based on their interests. Therefore, we can dig deep into up-loaders in vertical fields and intensively target up-loaders in that field to create an atmosphere that the up-loaders I like and follow are all recommending this product. We can persuade users multiple times and achieve short-term brand memory.

The second point: popular recommendations for videos, that is, expanding the recommendation pool. The machine makes algorithmic recommendations based on user browsing habits and video tags (some recommended videos are labeled with labels such as 8,000 likes, 5,000 coins, etc.). Which video appears on the search page/related user homepage depends on the video's weight. The higher the video's weight, the more likely it is to appear on the search results page and related user homepage. In April 2019, Bilibili’s video weight algorithm was leaked (as shown below). Now there may be some changes in Bilibili’s video weight algorithm.

Video weight = coins x 0.4 + favorites x 0.3 + bullet comments x 0.4 + comments x 0.4 + plays x 0.25 + likes x 0.4 + shares x 0.6, the latest video (released within one day) will be increased by [total value * 1.5]

The weight of playback is the lowest because it is very easy to increase the playback volume through clickbait and gray methods, so it is given the lowest weight. Compared with the number of views, Bilibili pays more attention to the quality and interaction of the content, namely the so-called "three qualities". The number of likes, coins, and comments directly reflect the quality of the content. In actual content delivery, we need to make good use of this formula to increase video exposure.

2. Pick one out of a million: qualitative and quantitative identification of up-hosts with goods

The first step in PUGV content co-creation is to find the right up-master.

What is called appropriate? It needs to be judged based on our delivery goals.

1. With brand promotion as the main purpose and sufficient budget, find top ups (such as the top 100 ups) to carry out main advertising. These ups have a large number of fans and can increase brand awareness in a short period of time, giving the store more exposure.
2. With brand-effect conversion as the main goal, ROI needs to be considered. Different choices of up hosts may lead to very different results. Not all up hosts are suitable for performance-based sales, so specific screening is required based on data. At present, the average monthly number of active UP hosts on Bilibili reaches 1.8 million. In order to screen the UP hosts, we must first understand who the UP hosts are?

(1) Who is the up-host? How to find them?

1) Personal accounts: These up-hosts are divided into part-time and full-time. They are the core driving force of Bilibili’s content production. They have creative motivation and strong learning ability. They like to share their original content on the online platform, such as: professional field-related, hobbies, personal life, and opinions and attitudes on social events.

Up-hosts who create content for non-commercial purposes are more sensitive and cautious about commercial cooperation, and more strict and subjective in product selection. In order to gain the approval of the up-hosts, the product itself must have product strength. When cooperating with this type of account, you will communicate directly with the account owner, the price of cooperation is negotiable, there is no middleman to make a profit from the price difference, and the cost of cooperation will be low. However, since the up-host himself is not a professional advertising content producer, he cannot provide TVC/advertising copywriting level content.

2) Marketing company accounts: These accounts have signed contracts with MCN. These accounts have a dedicated operation team to design content to achieve commercial monetization goals. The price of cooperating with this type of account is generally higher, and there is a fixed range of cooperation fees. After all, there are middlemen who make a profit from the difference, and they need to share a part of it with the institution.

3) Official accounts: such as “DingTalk” which became popular due to begging for mercy. This type of account involves cooperation between brands and will not be covered in this article.

Generally, brands will find up hosts through two methods: contacting them privately on the site and cooperating with MCN agencies. If you contact a personal account, you can ask them to recommend it to friends in the circle.

(2) What type of up-host should we look for?

1) We go wherever the consumers are

According to the brand type and target audience, choose the appropriate community in Bilibili for promotion. Currently, judging from the top 5 video playback categories, life, games, entertainment, animation and technology have become the top five content categories in terms of playback volume.

In terms of the number of video submissions, the game area is still the area with the most submissions, but the number of submissions in the life area has increased rapidly, nearly tripling year-on-year in 2019, accounting for 30.5% of the total submissions, compared with a year-on-year increase of 98% in the game area, accounting for 37.1%. Currently, the submission volume of the "old three areas" of Bilibili, such as animation, games, and music, accounts for about 49% (compared to about 70% in 2015), while the submission volume of the three areas of life, technology, and digital accounts for about 38%, narrowing the gap with the former, and the proportion of playback volume has exceeded the former.

Content volume ratio of each section of bilibili

Year-on-year growth rate of submissions in each section of bilibili

Life, technology, and digital are often the first choice for advertising, but if you break out of the inertial thinking and look for up-masters to cooperate in promoting products, combining commercial content with knowledge will be a major trend in B station's content marketing . For example, paper clips in the popular science area have cooperated with OPPO mobile phone charging, and Fangstaff, a big name in the biology area, has cooperated with electric toothbrushes. While increasing knowledge, you can also place an order. It turns out that cultural people are different even in the way they "eat".

【PaperClip】Why does your phone charge so slowly? The uploader Paperclip is a serious science video creator. This video starts from the principle of charging, and analyzes in detail the development process and principles of OPPO mobile phone electrical technology. Finally, it brings out the reasons for the powerful charging function of OPPO Reno Ace.

In the billions of years of struggle between vertebrates and tooth bacteria, who is the winner? Fangstaff is a paleontology popular science up-host on Bilibili. She currently has over a million fans and uses scientific knowledge to make a living elegantly. This video introduces the history of the struggle between vertebrates and dental bacteria, popularizes the importance of dental health, and finally naturally introduces the electric toothbrush. It also comes with a bunch of references, and the final effect is unexpectedly good.

2) Conduct refined screening based on the data indicator system

1. Did the up-host make the right choice?

The purpose of cooperation between brands and up-hosts is to reach and influence their fans through the up-hosts, so it is necessary to confirm that the fans of the up-hosts are our target consumer groups. You need to first create a fan profile of the target users of the product, understand the hobbies of the target consumers, and then look for up-masters in the corresponding fields.

(1) The persona and product are consistent with :

Describe the fan portrait of the up: gender, age, hobbies, specialties, values ​​and attitude towards life, etc., whether there is a clear personality and value system that can influence fans. At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to the data performance of the up-master on other platforms (Weibo, Douyin, Kuaishou, etc.) and social public opinion to avoid the risk of placement. Of course, the overall cooperation of the up-host is very important, including the degree of acceptance of advertisements and recognition of brands/products.

(2) Fan matching :

Basic fan portrait (age distribution, gender ratio, region), fans’ emotional cognition (fans’ values, consumption willingness and consumption ability through the content of comments, etc.). If the unit price of the product is high, the fans are concentrated between 25 and 40 years old. These people have already entered the workplace and have a higher purchasing power.

(3) Fan stickiness and loyalty :

The degree of recognition and trust that fans have for the blogger.

• The appeal of the up master to fans . Is the up-loader the entertaining and funny type or the serious and serious type? I usually go to B station to watch some ghost videos hahaha, which is just right for eating. But when I opened Teacher Luo Xiang’s video, I sat upright, holding my notebook to learn knowledge. I think everything the teacher said is quite right! Fans of entertaining and funny up-loaders are mostly freeloaders, while fans of serious up-loaders are more likely to develop a sense of identification with each other because the up-loaders output knowledge-based content. For example, knowledge explanations in the field of popular science and multi-angle interpretations and analyses in the fields of film, television and animation often resonate with fans, which is a kind of spiritual attraction. In addition, the up-hosts who appear in person are usually close to their fans, so fans are more likely to trust the real people.
• Operation time means time for fans to settle down. Trust takes time. The earlier an account is operated and the longer fans interact with it, the higher their loyalty and trust will be. Especially for up-hosts who have gone through twists and turns in public opinion, fans who disagree with them have unfollowed them, and the remaining ones are old fans who have experienced ups and downs with the up-host and are still willing to support and trust them. The connection between up-hosts and fans is closer.
• The number of people who have charged and the proportion of fan medals reflect the fans' willingness to consume for the up. There are three ways to get the fan medal of the up-host: charge 50 batteries cumulatively; throw 20 coins cumulatively into the up-host video; give it to the anchor B Kela. The fan badge ratio can be calculated by calculating the ratio of fans with fan badges and ordinary fans in the recent comment area. The more people who charge, the greater the proportion of fan medals, which means the up master has more loyal fans.
• Fans’ attitude towards the up-host’s “eating” : You can check fans’ attitudes in the comment section of previous cooperation content. If there is none, you can also let the up-host post dynamic questions to test fans’ attitudes.

2. Has the up-host made the right choice?

(1) Evaluation of communication power: total number of fans and number of recent active fans . The total number of fans is a historical accumulation and cannot represent the recent performance of the up-master. Therefore, you can pay attention to the number of active fans in the recent period (the number of active fans can be inferred by the number of readings of the up-master's recent dynamics, and the client can view this data). There are currently 1.8 million active up-hosts at Bilibili. Given that Bilibili's private traffic characteristics are similar to the WeChat platform, up-hosts with more than 10,000 fans have a certain influence and can all engage in commercial cooperation.

(2) Influence evaluation: the number of views and interactions (coins, comments, likes, favorites, and bullet comments) of videos produced at a stable level.

You cannot just look at the number of views, but also need to distinguish whether the high number of views of the video is due to the high quality of the video itself or because of the clickbait title or hot content, such as the label may have "jojo", "Cai Xukun", etc. Secondly, you need to check whether the ratio of coins, comments, likes and views is at the average level of the entire field.

Because the number of playbacks can be easily inflated by machines, but the number of coins is difficult to inflate. This is because the number of coins in each account is limited and the cost of inflating the number is high. Therefore, more attention will be paid to the data of coins/plays. Generally, the up-master with more than 500 coins/10,000 playbacks has a stronger ability to bring goods.

What do you think of the sudden hit video of the up-host? Hit videos are hard to come by, which means that the up-host has the potential to create excellent content videos, but there is no guarantee that the up-host will have a hit video every time. In addition, if commercial promotion is not carried out through Bilibili's Fireworks platform, the video will be restricted, which greatly reduces the exposure of the video and the probability of it becoming a hit. Therefore, it is necessary to put aside the hit videos and comprehensively evaluate the up-master based on daily data performance.

3. Is the quality of the content guaranteed?

(1) Assessment of high-quality content creation capabilities

• The ability to continuously generate content : Is the content created continuously or is it randomly themed? Are the views of a series of videos stable within a certain range? Are there many fans following the series? Is there anyone asking for more updates?
• Video production capabilities : Is the video exquisite? Is the background music appropriate?
• Completion rate and fan-to-fan ratio of video playback : The higher the completion rate and the greater the fan ratio, the higher the fans' recognition of the up-master. The number of fans watching a video = video playback volume * fan ratio. Regardless of how the playback volume changes, this value is often within a fixed range. If it is difficult to obtain this data from the up-host, you can make a rough assessment using dynamic views, or estimate the minimum number of views in the last 10 videos.

(2) Commercial value

The effect of previous brand cooperation: whether the playback volume and interaction volume of the cooperative content are similar to those of the up-host’s usual videos.

3. Content Co-creation: A Replicable Content Marketing Production Model

1. Content Production

(1) Form of cooperation:

Bilibili’s video collaborations come in various forms, including product placement (simple verbal broadcasts/product placements), full-film customization, and interactive videos. Product placement is usually inserted into a small part of the main content of the up-host, and the up-host will introduce and recommend the product; the requirements for full-film customization are relatively high, and the up-host needs to combine creativity, which takes a lot of effort and is relatively expensive; interactive videos were supported by Bilibili for a period of time at the end of 2019, and now the popularity has passed, but if you have good ideas, you can still try it.

(2) Content form:

There are various forms of cooperation among up-hosts in the fields of life, technology, and digital technologies, including ingredient analysis, grass-planting evaluation, makeup knowledge and skills, and composite (plot, life implantation), etc., and there is no need to make an inventory.

But how can we cooperate with up-masters in the fields of gaming, animation, science, etc. who do not have real people appearing on screen? It usually takes the form of a patch, with the main film maintaining the original content of the up master, and embedded advertisements in the middle or at the end of the film. One thing that needs to be noted here is that the quality of the positive film must be guaranteed. If the quality of the feature film is significantly lower than usual just to make money, it will be criticized by fans and ultimately affect the effectiveness of the advertisement.

There are two strategies for embedded advertising content: rough advertising placement and refined advertising production.

Rough advertising. For a brand to produce a TVC, all the brand needs to do is for the uploader to insert an advertisement in the middle of the main film or at the end of the film. This type of advertising is very blunt and crude, which does not suit the tastes of Generation Z and has poor effects.

Refined advertising production, that is, personalized advertising. Every up-host has his or her own uniqueness and a personality that is deeply loved by fans. If you want fans to pay for it, you must co-create content based on the up-host’s personal style. Top up-hosts will inevitably create works that are completely in line with their personality and style, such as hand-drawn comics.

Mid-level up-hosts use a standard content production model to create content, so that the entire content output is "standardized and replicable". They need to establish a standard promotion framework, from Attention to Interest, to make consumers interested, know the brand, and then have the desire to buy (Desire), which is directly converted into action (Action).

The first step is to attract the subject. Any consumption behavior of users is to solve problems, that is, to solve pain points. If you want fans to buy, you must tell them clearly and simply that there is such a problem. The problem can be positive (yearning for a better life) or negative. Negative problems are more likely to cause fear among fans because everyone hates losses. For example, if you are shown a picture of a girl with large pores and pimples, would she panic when she sees it?

The second step is to stimulate interest and arouse desire. What is the cause of this problem? What needs to be done to solve this problem? The taste of rice is here! This step is very important and requires professional knowledge to show that the up-host is promoting the product with a responsible attitude towards fans. He or she can explain and introduce it from scientific principles, such as interpreting the ingredients of skin care products. Furthermore, by adding real-life usage experience scenarios , the product's functional selling points and appeals are displayed from multiple angles and in multiple scenarios, making the advertisement softer and relatively more acceptable. The blogger's real-life usage experience further enhances the persuasiveness of the product. Of course, you can’t just blindly praise the product. You need to talk about the product from an objective perspective to highlight its authenticity. Secondly, don’t be too greedy and want to write the content of your product in great detail. However, too much content will lead to a lack of impression on users. It is best to emphasize only one selling point at a time and concentrate on strengthening this core selling point so that users can remember the product in a shorter period of time.

The third step is to facilitate the order. Promotional activities are a key step to improve the final conversion. Special offers, extra gifts and other activities can be used to stimulate fans to place orders . Coupon links or store links can be placed in the comment area to attract traffic, which can reduce the user search process.

Here, brands can establish a modular material library, such as scenario-based pain point materials, product function materials, popular science knowledge materials, etc. What needs to be changed is the up-host's real-life usage experience materials. It would be better if the up-host is willing to cooperate in real-life shooting. If not, he can create his own special material library. After establishing the material library, you can use it in various ways. What needs to be noted here is that the rhythm, background music, and narration of the entire advertisement must be consistent with the personality style of the up master. After creating different versions, we conduct testing on small up-loaders. Through continuous trial and error, we optimize the material library, improve the quality of content creativity, and integrate the creative and production elements of multi-theme content creation, which are then distributed and re-created on a large scale. We have to emphasize a few key words of the content here: real, interesting, and informative.

2. Content Release

(1) Content is published between 8:00-10:00 p.m. and on Saturdays and Sundays

This is often the peak period for traffic. If you want to seize this period, you must upload the video in advance for review. Because Bilibili has a huge amount of uploads every day, the review time is very long. It often takes 1-2 hours to review a video, especially during peak hours, when the review time is even longer.

Generally , 5:00-7:00 p.m. is a more appropriate time period for posting, as it coincides with the peak traffic period. This can get users’ views and exposure, forming a stable playback pattern that makes it easier to be naturally recommended and get more exposure and attention. Never ignore basic traffic, as it is the guarantee of your later traffic and the standard by which the platform judges the quality of your content.

(2) Content interaction: one-click triple-click immediately after publishing

On the one hand, it is to increase the video data so that the video can get more exposure. According to the content promotion formula, it is necessary to increase the interaction of comments, barrages, etc., improve the weight of the video, and increase recommended exposure. On the other hand, make good use of comments and barrage to persuade users who have already been attracted by the product and guide them to purchase. You can add barrage topics here and let fans post more barrages to enhance interaction.

Mini's barrage topic: Have you ever eaten something that sounds strange to you, but you found it delicious after trying it once.

The comment area of ​​the fascia strong evaluation is guided by the water army

(3) After the content is released, it is necessary to follow up on the dissemination effect and public opinion in a timely manner

Communication effect: Check in time whether the playback volume of the promotional video after 24 hours has reached the fluctuation range of the recent 5 works. If not, you need to contact the up-host in time to retrieve the video and expose it again or re-upload the video. If the data is normal, you can ask the up-host to repost the video within 5-7 days after the content is released for further exposure. You can also contact other up-hosts to repost the video to increase the value of secondary dissemination.

Public opinion effect: Conduct sentiment analysis of the comment section and barrage, and the fans’ acceptance and discussion of the promotion.

4. Communication Matrix: Master the rhythm of content delivery and make good use of the long-tail effect

(1) Key points of strategy

Build a pyramid-shaped marketing matrix and concentrate firepower to promote sales conversion.

(2) Operation method

1) Search for up-hosts in a niche field in batches, preferably with overlapping fans. This can be screened through interactive friends in the up-host circle, combined with a pyramid strategy: 1-2 top up-hosts in the field + 2-3 mid-level up-hosts + 3-4 tail up-hosts. The number can be flexibly adjusted according to the budget, but there must be up-hosts above the mid-level to expose the brand first, and then use the tail up-hosts to spread the word. The platform attributes of Bilibili determine that it is more inclined to private traffic, so do not ignore the up-masters with low fan base. Usually, up-masters with small fan base pay more attention to content quality and have high ROI.

2) Differentiate and personalize content. Create content based on the advertising framework and the personality of the up-host, and make good use of comments and bullet comments to guide purchases.

3) Reuse content to amplify its voice. By having up hosts share and promote videos with each other, the value of secondary dissemination can be increased. If the video content of the top up-hosts is of high quality, they can work with mid-level up-hosts to intensively forward content recommendations (it is recommended here to only recommend the main content when forwarding, so that fans will be attracted to watch the content), creating an atmosphere that the up-hosts I like and follow are all recommending this product.

4) Make good use of holiday promotions and promote the event again with dynamic videos or dynamic graphics a week before the event to remind people of the promotion benefits and guide purchase conversions. Especially when the target group is women, the up-host needs to use more pictures and texts or forward videos to persuade users multiple times, so that users can believe in the efficacy of the product through real experience.

5. Experience accumulation: Review the promotion effect in two directions and form a delivery methodology

1. Content-oriented: Review advertising format

This part mainly collects basic data of advertisements: specific dimensions include basic data of up-hosts (number of fans, field, operation time, etc.), advertisement format (full-film customization, video implantation), feature film content and advertisement content (component analysis, seeding evaluation, etc.), advertisement delivery time, advertisement playback volume and interaction volume (coin insertion, comments, likes, collections, bullet screen)

2. Results: Review marketing results

This part mainly collects the sales conversion effect of advertising. One is direct sales conversion, which is measured by ROI. Generally, the sales volume, coupon collection and usage of the up master are counted to see which link plays a key role and whether there is any pattern. The other is brand exposure and traffic. You can look at Taobao’s search traffic and search term index to determine whether there is a relatively large traffic diversion in a certain period of time.

For advertising at Station B , please contact Qinggua Media

Author: Mjo's Playground

Source: Mjo Playground

Related reading:

B station advertising costs, advertising advantages and delivery process

Introduction to Bidding Ads and Access Industries at Station B