How to promote overseas influencers? Overseas influencer promotion tips!

Recently, a screenshot has been widely circulated among domestic new media practitioners and has been widely circulated in the industry’s circle of friends.

▲The widely circulated screenshot

There are several main points of information in this screenshot:

1. Xiao Ye ranks first in YouTube China.

2. The number of fans is 6.997 million.

3. The monthly income is 4.5072 million .

For content industry practitioners who are anxious about monetization, the revenue figures in the chart are too heartbreaking, leading to widespread discussion among practitioners.

▲The screenshots were widely circulated in the new media industry and sparked heated discussions

Industry professionals are most concerned about three focuses:

1. Authenticity: Is this picture photoshopped?

2. Accuracy: How accurate is the data on the graph? Is YouTube really that profitable?

3. How to do it: How did Xiaoye manage to rank first in China on YouTube? Can the Ono model be replicated?

After some inquiries, I found the original source of this picture. This picture is a screenshot from the data platform noxinfluencer, which is a data platform focusing on overseas influencer marketing. On this data platform, you can see the global YouTube celebrity rankings. Office Ono ranked first with 6.997 million followers (as of press time, Ono's YouTube followers have exceeded 7 million), and the second is Liziqi, with 5.2887 million followers.

▲Screenshot of noxinfluencer website

So the answer to the first question is that this picture is not photoshopped.

How accurate is the data on the graph?

I sent the screenshot to Jin Xu, the head of internationalization of Onion Group, and asked him three questions.

This team is responsible for the international content layout, operation strategy, market public relations, and commercial realization of many Internet celebrity IPs such as "Office Ono", "Mizijun", and "Qijiu Naoye". "Office Ono" has more than 30 million fans worldwide, half of whom are overseas fans. Ono's fan base ranks No. 1 in China on both YouTube and Facebook.

Jin Xu told me that the actual revenue figures did not reach the estimates of the third-party data platform, and the specific figures were not convenient to disclose, but the overall revenue was still considerable, and this part of the revenue was incremental.

Expanding on the topic of "Office Xiaoye" going global, combined with the analysis and research of the industry, I and relevant industry insiders discussed the following issues in the field of "Internet celebrity going global":

1. Why do internet celebrities want to go overseas?

2. Where to go at sea?

3. Which internet celebrities are suitable for going overseas? Who has successfully sailed?

4. How many steps does it take to become an international influencer?

01 Why go overseas?

Instagram has 1 billion monthly active users

YouTube has 2 billion monthly active users

Facebook has 2.41 billion monthly active users

…

Behind these monthly active users are the attention and time investment of global users, the trend of internet celebrities forming circles, the digital migration of huge brand advertising budgets, and companies hoping to seize the global market.

"Going overseas" is a word that has been frequently mentioned in the past two years.

Brands going overseas, tools going overseas, content going overseas, capital going overseas, games going overseas, e-commerce going overseas, behind each of these words is a huge track with many companies behind them.

Why do they go to sea?

Simply put, traffic is too expensive. The domestic market is oversaturated and competition is fierce.

In this environment, some companies chose to enter lower-tier markets, while others went overseas to look for new growth points.

The same is true in the world of internet celebrities, with a new pattern emerging every few weeks.

At this stage of fierce competition between short video platforms and internet celebrities, more and more internet celebrities are quickly pushed to the hot list and then quickly forgotten.

In this industry, traffic and monetization are the focus of anxiety for practitioners.

Some Chinese internet celebrities have quietly chosen to go overseas and carry out their own international transformation.

▲Public data shows that Facebook's global advertising revenue in 2018 was US$55.012 billion.

Why do internet celebrities go overseas?

1. Increased revenue

When internet celebrities go overseas, they deliver high-quality, personalized IP content to the international market, and through content and operations, they gain a foothold in the international arena.

Overseas content platforms such as YouTube are large in scale and have established a complete closed-loop revenue model between users, advertisers, and content creators. As long as the creators have enough views, they will get corresponding advertising revenue and gain free creative space.

For influencers, this is incremental revenue.

2. Overseas layout is promising in the future

Accumulating a certain number of fans overseas will also bring commercial possibilities for selling domestic products overseas in the future.

3. "Export to domestic sales" increases potential

By building influence overseas, we can gain greater visibility in China, and "export to domestic sales" has great potential.

02Where to go to sea?

YouTube / Facebook / Instagram

in the country, we can see a trend of users and brands migrating from graphic and text platforms to video platforms.

The same is true abroad, where users are shifting from Facebook to Instagram and YouTube.

In the past two years, Instagram has added short video shooting and sharing functions, and many celebrities have joined in. The fashionable attributes have made advertisers more eager to place ads.

▲Influencer Marketing Hub, a data analysis platform serving the Internet celebrity market, surveyed 800+ brands at the end of 2018 about their advertising intentions for 2019. The top three are Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, with shares of 79%, 46%, and 36%, respectively.

From the perspective of users to advertisers, these three platforms cannot be ignored by Internet celebrities.

We summarize the characteristics of these three platforms:

1. YouTube

1. Platform features

Large size

YouTube has more than 2 billion registered users per month, with each user watching an average of 90 minutes per day. Cisco, the world's leading provider of network solutions, predicts that by 2022, video will account for 82% of all Internet traffic.

Comprehensive and rich content

Covering multiple video categories and people of all ages.

Interactivity

All subscribers on YouTube can communicate in the dialog box on the right side of the YouTube creator's video content, making it easier for fans and creators to communicate.

2. Main monetization methods

YouTubers’ income sources can be mainly divided into platform sharing, advertising cooperation and product revenue.

Platform advertising revenue

Creators can participate in YouTube's Partner Program. For videos shorter than ten minutes, you can put interstitial ads at the beginning of the video, and for videos longer than ten minutes, you can put interstitial ads in the middle of the video to increase revenue. YouTube will share 55% of the advertising fees with creators, but the revenue per thousand views varies depending on the creator's fan profile and region.

▲One of the ways to display YouTube ads

The fans with higher value are from Europe and North America, while those in Southeast Asia and Africa are generally lower. A creator provided some of his own data for reference, which showed that fans in Australia were worth $5.45 per thousand impressions, and creators could earn $2.99. But the CPM of Vietnamese fans is worth $0.94, and creators can only earn $0.51. There is a huge price difference between the two.

It is difficult for third-party data platforms to understand the complete fan profile and pricing details of YouTubers, and it is also difficult to accurately estimate the quotes for fans in different regions, and then infer the income of Internet celebrities from the number of views. This is also why the monthly income of "Office Ono" on YouTube is not accurate.

Ad placement

Advertising is the fastest and most direct way to monetize. A gamer’s review of a new game and a beauty blogger’s trial of a brand’s full range of colors may all be sponsored videos. YouTube also provides corresponding channels, and advertisements can be distributed to creators through project partners and MCN companies.

Tap into the fan economy and recharge love through products

YouTubers use platform tools or external tools to tap into the economic value of fans, allowing fans to enjoy special treatment while paying.

For example, rewarding. Fans can pay through Super Chat during a YouTuber's live broadcast or premiere to prevent their comments from being deleted and to make the creator more noticeable. Fans can pay the host a minimum of $1 and a maximum of $500 per comment. The host can take 70% of the reward. Super Chat is the largest source of revenue for nearly 20,000 channels, with a year-on-year growth of 65%.

For example, crowdfunding. Many YouTubers will open their own accounts on the crowdfunding website Patreon, through which fans can give rewards to creators, and YouTubers will give some unique benefits to fans who give rewards.

Another example is paid membership. YouTubers with 30,000+ subscribers (gaming channels only need 1,000+), who are over 18 years old and located in certain designated countries, can join the YPP (YouTube Partner Program) and enable the paid channel function with the consent of their MCN. Fans can subscribe to the channel for $4.99 to get a unique badge, new emojis, and other special benefits.

In addition, there are some common ways of playing, such as using YouTube channels as a channel to sell your own products, or selecting some products to sell and obtaining CPS share.

2. Facebook

1. Platform features

Facebook is the world's leading social networking site, with more than 2.41 billion monthly active users and an average of 1.56 billion people logging into Facebook every day.

2. Main monetization methods

Fans paid subscription

Facebook launched its fan subscription service last year, where users pay creators $4.99 per month to get exclusive content, live videos and profile badges to show that they are subscribers and enjoy the service. For fans, this means they can interact with creators in a more private space. Facebook will charge 30% of this fee in 2020.

Advertising revenue sharing

The benefit Facebook gives to creators is sharing advertising revenue, provided that: the producer's video is at least 3 minutes long, the producer's personal number of fans is not less than 10,000, and the video must attract 30,000 clicks or views within two months. Producers who meet the above conditions will receive 55% of the advertising revenue.

3. Instagram

1. Platform features

Young and fragmented. Instagram is a photo and video social sharing software owned by Facebook. Compared to Facebook, it is younger, more fragmented and simpler in interaction.

Users have high aesthetic requirements for creators.

Has many stars. On Instagram, many top stars have more than 100 million followers. The entry of celebrity fan clubs has also occupied a lot of market share in the fashion field.

2. Main monetization methods

The way Instagram influencers monetize is mostly through product placement.

Usually advertisers contact influencers through private messages. Industry insiders revealed that brand advertising will be calculated based on US$10 per 1,000 followers, or US$0.25 to US$0.75 per follower per soft article post. The value of an advertisement is affected by the product category and the popularity of the account.

▲Ins’s product placement

03 Internet celebrities who have successfully gone global

What kind of content is popular among internet celebrities abroad?

PewDiePie, a top American internet celebrity, once said in his work that "fans attracted by personal charm will be more sticky."

Due to language and cultural barriers, it is very difficult for native Chinese internet celebrities to demonstrate their personal charm by unilaterally sharing and conveying their thoughts and attitudes through oral communication. So how do internet celebrities who export their content overseas demonstrate their personal charm?

"Office Ono" opened his YouTube channel as early as February 2017. The number of subscribers exceeded 1 million that year, breaking the growth record of YouTube creators. After more than two years of operation, he became the number one creator in China. The popularity of Office Ono lies not only in the video style with little dialogue, the program creativity and the idea of ​​food without borders, but also in its spiritual core: "Office is not only about KPI, but also about food and distant places."

▲"Ono's Watermelon Feast" single video hits exceeded 100 million

Needless to say, the whimsical creativity and imagination are great. The plots and details in Ono's videos also show his unique personal settings and charm. For example, in the video "Ono's Watermelon Feast", Ono bought a cart of watermelons from an old farmer and rode his tricycle directly to the office. After that, after a lot of trouble, they made a watermelon lantern with watermelon, a Minions with yellow watermelon... and made a lot of imaginative food. However, she went to all this trouble just to distract her office colleagues with a watermelon feast so that she could have a cup of coffee in peace. Ono's calm appearance and behavior form a contrast, showing her arrogant, cute and naughty personality.

The second-ranked "Li Ziqi" opened her YouTube channel in August 2017. She has 5.2887 million followers on YouTube and 2.255 million followers on Facebook.

▲Li Ziqi's YouTube channel

Her most popular video on YouTube is "Peanut and melon seeds, dried meat...", which has been viewed 28 million times. The simple traditional life of the Chinese people is displayed in the form of ancient food. People cut bamboo to make bamboo beds by themselves and use sugarcane to make traditional brown sugar. She lived the life that many people yearned for, and also lived the life that some foreigners imagined Chinese people to live.

▲An American netizen Kathaleen left a message under Li Ziqi's video, "Deep in my heart, there is a voice telling me that this is what life should be like."

"She is followed by dogs, lambs and other farm animals. She is natural and pure, like a little Disney princess."

The green mountains and clear waters, cute little animals and the quiet little village all highlight the pure and natural image of this girl. The care and concern that Li Ziqi showed for her grandmother in the video also left the audience with an impression of being kind, simple, hardworking and capable.

There are two types of content that are more likely to be popular on YouTube:

1. It contains content unique to China that cannot be seen in other countries in the world.

2. The world has content that China has done particularly well.

Combining the rankings of the top 100 YouTubers in the world, mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, we have observed the following opportunities:

1. In the list of the top 100 YouTuber fans in the world, the largest number is in the music category. 45 musicians occupy nearly half of the places. But looking at the Chinese rankings, musicians currently account for a very low proportion. There is a lot of room for musicians' output.

2. Judging from the ranking in China, food influencers account for the largest proportion. In YouTube's categories, food is included in the entertainment category. This large category accounts for as much as 40%, while the proportion of internet celebrities in the beauty and fashion category is relatively small.

▲The category share of the Top 100 Chinese YouTubers provided by Noxinfluencer.

3. Add China’s unique cultural labels to categories popular among global users, and find a unique positioning in complex and segmented fields.

In addition to the creation of personal charm, the more direct reason for the popularity of "Li Ziqi" and "Dianxi Xiaoge" is the photography of food. Just like "A Bite of China", it brings China's unique cultural output in direct visual sensory enjoyment, making fans salivate while appreciating natural life.

"Tingting ASMR" is another example of sensory enjoyment + cultural output. He has 774,000 followers on YouTube and 26,000 followers on Instagram. ASMR is an experience that has gained popularity in recent years, which is an experience that achieves physical and mental relaxation through stimulation of sound and images. Tingting finds sound materials and records videos from China's unique brushes, rice and lifestyle.

4. In terms of content categories, content without language barriers is best and can cover global users.

For example, pets, games, DIY, music, creativity, and food. The YouTube channel of "Dianxi Xiaoge" was established in July 2018 and already has 2.612 million followers, and also has 400,000 followers on Facebook. Both his and Liziqi's content has the two labels of "countryside" and "cooking", and there is little dialogue throughout the video.

"PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" and "Chicken Master" on the TOP100 list are both game-related content. "Huahua and the Three Cats" is the top pet up-host on Bilibili, with 525,000 followers on YouTube, and the highest number of views for a single video is as high as 39.07 million.

04 How many steps does it take to become an international internet celebrity?

"Office Ono" has 7 million, 4.77 million and 144,000 followers on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram respectively. "Mizijun" has more than 200,000 fans on YouTube. How did they do it? Jin Xu, head of internationalization at Onion Group, shared the path to becoming an international influencer.

Simply put, there are two ways:

The first one - do it yourself

You can do this,

1. Set content positioning:

Determine whether your personality and content are suitable for distribution overseas.

2. Choose platform operation:

You need to learn and understand the platform algorithms of YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, and operate based on the algorithms.

There are a lot of details involved: such as how to set up an account, the tag strategy for content publishing, how to operate a community, etc. The success of some content is based on luck, but if you master the operation methods, you can increase the probability of it becoming a hit.

Key points for operating three different platforms:

The three platforms have different advantages, and we will choose different operating methods and development methods for different content. Only when the three platforms are operated in conjunction with each other based on high-quality content, will 1+1+1>3.

YouTube’s algorithm has two most important purposes:

The first is to help users find the videos they want to find;

The second is to maximize viewer engagement and satisfaction.

Based on these two purposes, the video viewing time is a very important indicator. If you can help the platform retain more users and increase the time users spend on YouTube, you can gain more weight on YouTube. YouTube's algorithm changes every day, but its core purpose remains the same.

On Facebook, the relationship between creators and users will be closer, and it needs to be operated based on the purpose of "wanting to be friends with you."

The new algorithm mechanism in 2018 is based on Zuckerberg’s concept of “meaningful interaction”. Based on this mechanism, the new relationship importance ranking is: family > friends > business company.

In addition to searching for content of interest and presenting hot topics, when users join a community, they will be exposed to users who are interested in related fields. All you need to do is enhance user experience, increase user stickiness and spontaneous dissemination through communication and interactive activities in the community.

The five major factors that influence Facebook's algorithm recommendations include: comments, actions, comment replies, shared links, and interactions with content shared on the user's homepage. Different uploaded content will also affect the weight of the recommendation. The video’s opening rate, bounce rate, and completion rate will also affect the algorithm recommendation.

The core of Instagram's algorithm is account interaction rate. Once a piece of content receives a large number of reposts, comments and likes within a period of time, the system will automatically identify and distribute it to more users, creating a snowball effect. Instagram encourages posters to communicate more with users, and comments and interactions will affect the exposure of the content.

3. Commercial realization:

1) Content traffic monetization.

2) Advertising monetization.

4. Public relations:

1) Participate in official events and meet other content creators around the world.

2) Exposure in some important events and important media.

▲VidCon, the world's largest short video conference

"Geng's Handicraft" is widely known for being reported by media outlets such as The Washington Post, Daily Mail, The Guardian, and CNN Business Channel. He was called "Useless Edison" by foreign media and was hotly discussed by foreign netizens because of his funny and useless inventions. This is another way for internet celebrities to go overseas, relying on the media to build their popularity. Although he is no longer in the world, his legend remains in the world.

▲After attracting attention from foreign media, Geng’s handicraft became even more popular in the country.

For internet celebrities who make short videos, going overseas is a way to stand out from the crowd that is worth trying. However, the complexity of overseas platform rules, the risks of cross-border operations, the barriers brought by language environment and culture, and the high cost of trial and error also make many people daunting. In the opinion of Sunny from the marketing department of Noxinfluencer, it is difficult and challenging for influencers and their agencies to go overseas on their own.

"The first is the localization issue. Differences in language, culture, and habits will make it difficult for creators to adapt to the local environment." Some small individual internet celebrities choose to give up because they no longer have the support of an agency or advertising income. Several of Sunny’s YouTuber friends in the United States have stopped playing.

It is not easy for new companies to enter the field of internet celebrity overseas expansion. Some of their peers have already formed influence overseas, established barriers, and cultivated top internet celebrities. If you start from scratch, the cost of trial and error will be too high and too long. In addition, overseas Internet celebrities have been operating for a long time and it is difficult to make a breakthrough in a short period of time.

Jin Xu of Onion Group also agrees with this view.

The most difficult part of the operation is the cold start from zero to ten thousand fans. Even for a well-known IP like Ono, we need to start from scratch for overseas operations.

In such an environment, the most efficient way for mature internet celebrities is to find an MCN with operational expertise and overseas operation qualifications as a partner and authorize it to operate overseas. Let professionals do professional things, which also reduces the risk factor of investment costs.

The second type: win-win cooperation

If your content has been proven to be popular among users in China, the content and characters are suitable for overseas platforms, and you do not have a mature team to carry out overseas operations. This can be made very simple, the whole process can be simplified into one step:

Find a domestic MCN with relevant qualifications and overseas operation capabilities to cooperate with, negotiate the cooperation mode and profit sharing ratio and provide stable content. From the perspective of industry ecology, China already has mature content overseas expansion teams like Onion Group. They started by serving their own IPs, and after accumulating experience, they began to serve the short video industry and help Internet celebrities go overseas. They can operate everything from overseas content strategies and account operations to international business agents, which lowers the threshold for going overseas.

We also took stock of several companies that provide content export services:

When internet celebrities go overseas, it means the going overseas of personalized content IP, the going overseas of fans’ purchasing power, and also the going overseas of MCN. Based on their own characteristics, MCNs choose to focus on their strengths and expand their business boundaries, creating MCN+MCN, or MCN-MCN combinations.

This is another topic worth exploring.

Recommended reading:

1. Internet celebrity promotion: How do Internet celebrities make money?

2. How to maximize the effectiveness of overseas KOL promotion and marketing?

Author: Gu Gu

Source: Short Video Consultant (Viiideo)