"Story of Yanxi Palace", which became a hit in just one week, was actually a promotion without any budget?

All popular products are never accidental, they must be due to the operation team behind them.

Story of Yanxi Palace - a web drama that went down in history

Recently, the phenomenal drama "Story of Yanxi Palace" that attracted thousands of people has come to an end. However, even after the show has ended, the popularity seems to be still continuing. Looking through the relevant information in the past two days: some say that the show became popular because it took the audience's IQ seriously, some say that the success of Yanxi Palace is a turning point in the development of China's film and television industry, and some say that this palace fighting drama restored my country's "tax history". It is unprecedented that the evaluation of an online drama can be raised to such a high level. Compared with the previous "bad reviews for bad dramas", Yu Ma has really made a beautiful comeback this time.

Use data to tell you - what is the peak of drama life

But, how come palace fighting web dramas are so popular? What did Yu Ma do? The editor couldn’t help but look up the data of “Story of Yanxi Palace” and found out that this drama reached the peak of its popularity in just one week!

"Story of Yanxi Palace" was launched on July 19. Judging from the Baidu Index, the amount of information began to increase sharply on the second day after the premiere (July 20). After the first full week, that is, on July 30, it reached the first peak, with the data volume reaching nearly 500,000 at one point.

Cheats revealed——What a powerful skr man

There is no such thing as passing fans becoming fans without reason, and there is no such thing as a drama dominating the screen without reason. The editor dug deep and unraveled the mystery, and found that in addition to the dazzling array of viral materials, shallow and deep PR manuscripts, and paid or exchanged channel resources that everyone has seen, the promotion of "Yanxi Raiders" also did a lot of meticulous work that didn't cost any money - "bottomless" digging into the surplus value of the actors, playing the game of "unity is strength".

The power of unity 1: "All-out attack" at important nodes

July 16th was the press conference for "Story of Yanxi Palace". A successful "press conference" can lay a good foundation for the release of the drama, and firing the first shot in the entire communication cycle is the first important node that every drama promoter wants to take.

At this important juncture, all the actors did the same thing. They all came out and posted a Weibo related to the "press conference" on their Weibo accounts. According to incomplete statistics, on July 16, a total of 12 actors including Wu Jinyan (Wei Yingluo), Xu Kai (Fu Heng), and Charmaine Sheh (Empress Xian) posted on Weibo to assist, with a total interaction volume of (repost + comment + like): 163,000.

July 20th is the second day after the premiere, the most important day for word-of-mouth fermentation after the premiere. Whether the drama can earn good reputation in the early stage basically determines whether the drama will be a failure.

This time, the drama promotion did not let the actors go, and they used the same old trick again, inviting everyone to stand up for the drama's reputation. According to incomplete statistics, on July 20, 10 actors including Nie Yuan (Emperor), Qin Lan (Empress), and Su Qing (Er Qing) posted Weibo posts related to the drama, with a total interaction volume of 238,000.

These two waves of operations have greatly helped the reputation and popularity of "Story of Yanxi Palace".

The Power of Unity 2: Weibo interactive sync plot "super strong sense of substitution"

After reading the Weibo posts of several leading actors, I found that during the broadcast period of "Yanxi Strategy" (July 19th to August 27th), blog posts related to the drama occupied most of their Weibo posts. in:

• Wu Jinyan posted 42 posts in total, 29 of which were related to "Story of Yanxi Palace", accounting for 69%;
• Nie Yuan posted 17 posts in total, 15 of which were related to "Story of Yanxi Palace", accounting for 88%;
• Xu Kai posted 33 Weibo posts in total, 20 of which were related to "Story of Yanxi Palace", accounting for 60%;
• Qin Lan posted a total of 48 Weibo posts, 36 of which were related to "Story of Yanxi Palace", accounting for 75%.

From this, we can see that several leading actors have really made great efforts to promote this drama~

Apart from that, the blog posts and interactions between the actors that synced up with the plot were hilarious and made the audience feel very involved. They really attracted a lot of fans!

If you don’t believe me, look:

(1) Operation analysis

On the day when Concubine Xian turned evil, Charmaine Sheh first posted a message saying "I've been idle enough, it's time to get busy", hinting that she was preparing to turn evil. Then Nie Yuan retweeted this Weibo and said in the tone of the emperor "Concubine Xian, I think you are a little different."

(2) Analysis of the merits

The two actors each brought the characters in the play into reality, and their words reflected the latest plot being broadcast at the time. This interaction was real and interesting, creating a subtle feeling that the play was being broadcast online, and the characters in the play were conversing with each other in real time using psychological activities offline.

In addition, the plot is synchronized on Weibo, which is highly timely and closely connects fans who follow the drama, causing resonance among fans and generating real interaction. I think, from the data shown in the above screenshots, everyone has already felt how much volume this wave of naughty operations has brought.

(3) Operation analysis

Before August 20, "Story of Yanxi Palace" will be updated every Thursday to Sunday at 8:00, with two episodes updated every day. Fu Heng first appeared at around the 41 minute mark in the third episode. Based on this calculation, it should be around 20:41 on July 20. This Weibo post was published at 20:47 on July 20, which can be said to be the first time the character appeared online! one! hour! between! hair! out! of! One can't help but wonder if Yu Ma's promotion team gave Master Fu Heng a death order (snickering)

(4) Analysis of the merits

It is perfectly synchronized with the plot, whether it is the character himself or the promotion team, whether it is sent on a scheduled basis or manually, it can be said that they all put a lot of thought into it. Similarly, it will definitely be able to firmly capture the fans who are following the drama, and creating a sense of time travel as if the real Lord Fu Heng is right next to you will add a lot of extra points.

The power of unity 3: We-media cooperation reveals its true intentions

If you think that the "surplus value" of actors can only be explored on Weibo, then you are too naive. The promotion of "Story of Yanxi Palace" really used the influence of celebrities to the extreme! ! !

(1) The promotion will not let go of Zhihu

The topic of "Story of Yanxi Palace" on Zhihu was first modified on July 13, 2018. It can be inferred that the topic was established on July 13 at the latest. The topic was established before the release on the 19th, or even before the press conference on the 16th. This shows that this channel was a pre-planned communication channel during the overall promotion process. As of August 30, the number of people following the topic has reached 33,034.

Nie Yuan, who plays the emperor, and Tan Zhuo, who plays Concubine Gao, posted on the topic, receiving 10k likes and 1,631 comments and 15k likes and 1,186 comments respectively.

(2) Douban will not be spared for promotion

As of 19:07 on August 30 (the time is so accurate because the data really changes every minute [covering face]), "[TV series] Story of Yanxi Palace" has a total of 149,109 reviews and 3,450 discussions. The earliest discussion was posted on May 25, 2018. The editor has to admire that the promotion plan was done very early and very powerful~

I directly used the Douban account of Tan Zhuo, the actress who played Concubine Gao, to post an article as the creator, which was collected 2,226 times and forwarded 241 times.

In addition, the promotion is also vigorously carried out on channels such as Xiaohongshu , Bilibili, Baidu Tieba, etc. I will not describe them one by one here. Those who are interested can go and check them out by themselves.