B station marketing promotion methods and strategies!

Brand marketing is a long-term thing. The community atmosphere and content of Bilibili are very suitable for long-term marketing, and Bilibili's brand marketing has considerable potential that is worth exploring.

In the first quarter, life almost entirely shifted online, and Bilibili's user data also reached a new peak.

Questmobile data showed that the quarterly MAU increased by 19% quarter-on-quarter, and the total user time increased by 67% year-on-year. But what is most surprising is that in March, the average daily usage time of DAU reached 120 minutes, a record high, far exceeding platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xigua Video.

In addition to the growth in traffic, as the content ecology and business ecology gradually improve and mature, Bilibili has been targeted by more and more brands.

How many ways are there for brands to play on Bilibili?

1. Live broadcast of brand conferences, any number of hours is fine

What is worth noting recently is that major brands have chosen to hold new product launch conferences on Bilibili live broadcasts, including but not limited to mobile phones, fast food, sports, beauty, etc., which are basically areas that young people usually pay close attention to.

Bilibili has also prepared a standardized solution "Bilibili New Product Day" for commercial cooperation of new product releases. See the end of the article for how to obtain it.

It can be said that all major domestic mobile phone manufacturers have basically held a round of press conferences live on Bilibili. In February, when the epidemic was at its worst, Xiaomi held an online press conference, with a 72-hour live broadcast directly to end users. In April, which is just halfway through, Huawei, OPPO, OnePlus, and Honor have all completed live broadcasts of new product launch conferences on Bilibili.

In the fast food industry, on April 15, McDonald's held a 24-hour continuous food broadcast on Bilibili to launch its new products. Even earlier, KFC had already held an event on Bilibili last Christmas.

The Fashion Zone is one of the most commercialized areas in the entire Bilibili, and beauty brands have also set their sights on this area early on. In February, Lancôme cooperated with Bilibili to launch its new product "Aurora Water" online, giving new products to users during the live broadcast. After they experienced the product, the review video they uploaded also served as a secondary promotion process, achieving two goals at one stroke.

Online press conferences are free from geographical and time constraints, barrages can be used for real-time interaction, and can also directly bring visible benefits to users through coupons and new product gifts.

2. Create an official account to connect with young users

Another common way is to set up an official account on Bilibili and build connections with young users by submitting videos.

An excellent example in this regard is DingTalk, which has become a well-known case of restoring its reputation through a ghost video in February. But DingTalk didn’t get the idea right away. When it first created its account, it just used Bilibili as a promotional channel, and its tone was as serious as it could be. But after the inspiration came, DingTalk put aside its airs, showed weakness and acted cute, and then it overtook Bilibili and became the top brand account.

After that, in addition to DingTalk, dozens of Alibaba Group accounts on Bilibili began to change their style suddenly. In the videos they posted, the most common phrase in the barrage comments was "Another crazy one", but this kind of madness is not derogatory, but another kind of affirmation of the brand's humble attitude and effort to approach the young group.

▲Video style of Alipay official account

After Alibaba, Tencent, the actual shareholder of Bilibili, also began to realize the situation. The official account acted cute and posted a video titled "【Tencent forced to operate】 Bilibili shareholders perform art to get on the front page", and there were also responses and interactions with Alipay.

▲Tencent’s official account claims to be a doll factory

There are more and more official brands on Bilibili. According to the current situation, the popular video types are mostly in line with the style of Bilibili: ghost animals, animation, vlog, music cover, etc.

Among the ghost videos, there are many brands that directly mock the CEO himself, and B station users call it "official ghost videos are the most deadly." Xiaomi can be regarded as the pioneer in this regard. As early as 2016, after sweeping Bilibili with the song "Are you ok", its official account began to post a ghost video of its CEO from time to time. Currently, the brand’s official account has 870,000 followers, and the video with the highest number of views has 1.286 million. The first video released by McDonald’s official website also chose the ghost animal style.

If a brand has an anime character, it will be an excellent material for animation creation. DingTalk's official character "Ding Sandu" appears frequently in videos and is often used for secondary creation, gaining popularity. Another form is to re-translate and "change the heads" of popular clips in anime works, which can easily bring people closer to users.

On the official account of Honor mobile phones, the video with the highest number of views is the vlog of UP host Xin Xiaomeng's first day at work at Honor headquarters. This kind of video of visiting the living areas inside a large company is also very attractive.

Music cover videos usually cover popular songs on Bilibili, and the main form of creation is writing lyrics. Recently, songs such as "Kiss Everywhere", "Dala Jump Bar", and "You Look So Good When You Smile" have not escaped Alibaba's major official accounts. Official accounts of different businesses have high-frequency interactions through these cover videos, achieving the effect of mutual diversion and increasing fans.

3. UP host launches, and the business ecosystem is gradually improving

The other is the UP host’s delivery. In addition to the original form of UP hosts directly connecting with advertisers, Bilibili has also launched an official commercial order-taking platform - the Fireworks Business Order System.

The Fireworks system is similar to the Star Map system of Douyin. The entry conditions are that you must be over 18 years old and have completed real-name authentication, the number of fans must be greater than or equal to 10,000, and you must have an original video released within 30 days. However, it is not fully open yet, and we are still gradually inviting UP hosts to join.

The Fireworks system supports individual signings with UP hosts, as well as signings with MCN agencies. This provides more security for individual creators who do not want to sign with MCN agencies, and they can quit at any time after joining. The platform will review the qualifications of both the brands and the UP hosts to better improve the matching efficiency. This is also an effort made by Bilibili in its commercialization process.

Bilibili also launched a content promotion mechanism similar to DOU+ - Commercial Takeoff. The video that is launched will display the "promotion" icon, and brands can purchase it based on CPM bidding. The display mechanism is the same as that of information flow ads. There are three placement positions for Commercial Takeoff, including small pictures in the recommended page information flow, large pictures in the home page information flow, and up-main video page information flow.

Can Bilibili and brands achieve a win-win situation?

What kind of brands are suitable for marketing on Bilibili? I think as long as it has content attributes, you should seize this opportunity.

Nowadays, brands have shifted their focus to online, and people born in the 1990s and 2000s have gradually taken over the dominant role in consumption. Bilibili's business model has become clearer, but it is still far from reaching the ceiling of content and traffic. There is no better time to enter the market than now.

However, it is still quite difficult to become the next DingTalk.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Brand personification. Personalization means having individuality, a clear identity and label. Only a personalized IP can interact with users.
2. Be quick to pick up the gag. Bilibili is a place that often produces trendy cultural memes. If you can produce high-quality videos by successfully connecting with the memes, the chances of being liked by users will be much greater. Of course, a more advanced way to play is to create your own memes. If your memes go viral, why worry about your brand not going viral?
3. Communicate with users on an equal footing. If a brand wants to develop on Bilibili, it means lowering its profile. This does not only mean giving up its lofty image. Sometimes rolling around to act cute or lowering your head to show weakness will win the favor of users. It also means giving up the habitual mindset of either killing or fighting in response to negative feedback, and not trying to educate or deceive users.

Although Bilibili has been very careful in maintaining its community atmosphere and insists on not adding interstitial ads before videos, as the amount of marketing content increases, maintaining a good balance between business and community remains a big challenge. With the influx of more and more diverse content, the trend of de-ACG is becoming more and more obvious, and the old 2D players of Bilibili are beginning to feel dissatisfied.

A small episode is that B station’s old friend - A station (Acfun) recently posted a sentimental Weibo, welcoming Acer, which is gradually losing its position, back home. This Weibo post was quickly forwarded tens of thousands of times.

Brand marketing is a long-term thing. Short videos have excellent ability to promote popularity, but they seem to have a hard time meeting the needs of long-term marketing. Bilibili's community atmosphere and content ecology can just make up for this shortcoming, and there is still considerable potential to be tapped.

For Bilibili, which currently needs to achieve commercial results, the favor of brands will help Bilibili to take a more solid path towards commercialization. On the other hand, brands are also constantly looking for marketing methods that keep up with the times, and Bilibili happens to be the place where the most young people gather. Both parties need each other, so why not do it?

It is foreseeable that in the coming year, more and more brands will enter Bilibili, and Bilibili’s business path will continue without looking back.

Author: Jin Jin Jin

Source: Jin Jin Jin