How to make money from short videos? How do short videos make money?

Since 2018, short video platforms such as Kuaishou and Douyin have gradually emerged and are sweeping the entire country with a rapid growth rate. Many people have begun to film their daily lives. Some "experts" who usually cannot show their talents have finally found a place to use their talents. There are also many big Vs with over one million fans, but how to monetize them has been a problem for everyone. So how can short videos make money? How do short videos make money? Let’s follow Feng Chao from Jimifeng Technology to learn more about it!

How to make money from short videos? How do short videos make money?

「1」Channel Monetization

Before finding other more ideal monetization methods, channel monetization can be said to be the most reliable and easy-to-implement way, which mainly includes channel sharing, subsidies and rewards.

1. Channel share

Channel sharing is the sharing of platform revenue through the number of clicks and views of short videos. The higher the number of views, the higher the share. You need to apply to the platform to get a share of the profits. For example, after applying, Toutiao's average daily playback volume is 10,000, and the income is 20 yuan, which can be withdrawn within the specified time; Sohu platform's daily income from 10,000 playbacks is about 50 yuan, and the monthly income is 1,500 yuan.

For example, "Issue God's Skill"'s "Are the clothes you wear really made of pure cotton? Fabric experts teach you how to identify easily! 》This video has been played 640,000 times on Sohu, with revenue of 3,200 yuan. If you distribute the videos on multiple platforms, you can get a share of the revenue from each platform. As long as the content is good enough and can bring in a lot of views, the income will be considerable.

Channel sharing is a relatively common method of monetization. If you want to continue to earn revenue, work hard to increase the number of video views.

2. Channel subsidies

All major channels have been increasing their support for short videos, including subsidies for content creators. Huoshan Video, incubated by Toutiao, announced that it would set aside 1 billion yuan in the coming year to subsidize short video influencers who create high-quality content, and directly provide cash subsidies based on the "firepower value" derived from the system algorithm based on short video viewing behavior and interaction.

Previously, Toutiao has been focusing on subsidizing short videos. Creators who have obtained original features on Toutiao can participate in its "Thousand People and Ten Thousand Yuan Plan", which will guarantee that at least 1,000 top creators will receive a guaranteed income of at least 10,000 yuan per month.

Other platforms have also invested heavily in subsidies. For example, Alibaba Entertainment has launched the 2 billion "Big Fish Plan". The "Big Fish Bonus" will reward 2,000 outstanding content creators in vertical categories every month, with a maximum of 10,000 yuan per month. Therefore, channel subsidies still need to be taken seriously.

3. Q&A rewards and rewards

In addition, some platforms such as Toutiao have set up question-and-answer reward sections. After obtaining original content, we can also activate the reward function and obtain monetization directly from the audience.

To sum up the above, monetization through channels is a very direct and reliable way. As long as your content is high-quality enough, even if there is no commercial profit source, you can at least get a guaranteed income through channels. This is also the method currently used by most short video teams.

「2」Advertising Monetization

The advertising monetization model is that customers pay. After our videos have high playback volume and a large number of fans, we don’t need to rely too much on platform revenue sharing. We can explore monetization independently, such as taking on advertising. Short videos are very suitable for embedded advertising due to their fast transmission speed and recommended traffic. There are mainly several forms:

1. Advertisements in videos

It means inserting advertisements during video playback. There are various forms of content-based short video advertising, including sponsorship, patches, soft implantation, voice-over, customization, corner marks, etc. The first three have been discussed in detail before, so let’s briefly talk about the latter.

1.1 Oral Broadcast

That is, the host or actor reads out the advertisement in the video, such as the familiar "U Can U Bibi", where the host reads the advertising slogans in a variety of ways, which is called "fancy oral broadcast"; or introduce the product to everyone in the video like a live broadcast by an internet celebrity. For example, the influencers on Meipai rely on their high popularity. As long as they use patch ads or oral broadcasts in the video, the brand can get good exposure. This advertising method is easy to operate, has a high reach, and does not require any cost.

1.2 Brand customization

In addition to inserting advertisements in videos, we can also try to customize brand advertisements. For example, Ergeng began to try commercialization as early as June 2015. In addition to dealing with customers and content distribution platforms, they also cooperate with public relations companies and marketing agencies.

Brand customization has many benefits. Not only is the advertising cost high, but content customization according to the requirements of the brand owner can make brand implantation more native and natural. Therefore, an industry authority has said that "the future direction of native video advertising must be creative short films customized by advertisers."

1.3 Corner mark

Corner ads are dynamic logos that are hung in the lower right corner of the screen when the video is broadcast. They are also called floating logos. Many TV programs have such corner ads. Its advantage is that it does not affect the user experience, and the stay time is long so the effect is good. It is a method favored by many brand owners.

Summary: In fact, all forms of traditional TV advertising can be applied to short videos. However, due to the relatively short duration of short videos, "hard ads" such as patch ads are more harmful to the user experience. Therefore, when inserting advertisements, we still try to make the advertising information content-based as much as possible, and creatively process it to make it part of the content.

Also, if we have to insert hard ads, we can also put the ads in the end credits like Papi Jiang did, which can reduce the damage to the user experience, but it may also reduce the effectiveness of the ads.

2. Detail page ads

Advertising is nothing more than achieving exposure, so in addition to inserting advertisements in videos, using the detail page for exposure is also a good way. Now, Toutiao authors can directly check and apply for advertising permissions in the Toutiao backend. Once approved, they can place Toutiao ads or self-operated ads under the articles.

Moreover, with the development of short videos, many channels will further open their detail pages to video teams. We can manage the advertising space ourselves, accept ordinary commercial advertisements, or conduct paid promotions for other influencers.

At the same time, pinning messages on the message board can also achieve advertising insertion, because the message itself is a kind of advertisement. You can pin the message of the account you want to promote, or you can write a message for yourself and pin it. These are all ways to achieve exposure.

3. Fans Platform

Once our account has influence, we can also forward content from other IPs on the fan platform to assist in promoting other IPs. Common forms of entry include: Weibo-Microtask, WeChat public platform-traffic master, and third-party self-media marketing platforms, such as: Weiboyi, Lingku, etc., using their own influence to help other IPs or even advertisers to promote.

The influence of short videos can be measured in a data-based way, and can generally be presented from two perspectives: one is the “number of views” (which requires evaluation of the number of views on a certain channel or the entire network), and the other is the “number of fans”.

3. Commercial video production

In addition to working on advertising, the short video team can actually help Taobao or Tmall merchants shoot high-quality short videos for monetization. They can also write scripts for other video content teams, serve as their feed team, and so on.

4. Integrated Marketing

Since the short video production cycle is fast and can be flexibly adjusted according to the advertiser's overall marketing plan, we try to establish in-depth cooperative relationships with them as much as possible and cooperate with them in overall marketing. In this regard, Cheng Fangyuan, CEO of Qingteng Culture, also advised the short video team that when accepting advertisements, they should talk about integrated marketing rather than simple implantation, and talk about the entire quarter rather than a single program. This will not only increase profit margins from a commercial perspective, but also reduce communication costs.

For example, during the Double 11 period, Magic TV, a subsidiary of Xinpianchang, reached in-depth cooperation on the short video column "Brain Hole Research Institute" with eight brands including Braun, Durex, Fuji, Changhong, and Dyson through Taobao Toutiao. From November 1st to 11th, eight customized videos were broadcast on the entire network, which not only created an astonishing number of views and a best-selling brand effect on Toutiao, but also earned itself more than 1.2 million in remuneration.

Summary: There are many forms of advertising monetization, but the prerequisite is to have a strong fan base. Top influencers like Papi Jiang can receive a lot of advertising, but most teams may not be able to reach that level, so what should they do?