How Weibo red envelopes replicated the magic of the Ice Bucket Challenge

Red envelopes are given out every year, but this year there are especially many. Today is the Little New Year, and the Weibo #LetRedEnvelopesFly# campaign has been online for the 10th day, which has already created an atmosphere of red envelopes flying everywhere. With Alipay and WeChat engaging in full-scale battles today, users' enthusiasm for red envelopes will reach a new high.

Weibo's early efforts have already achieved good results. Data shows that by noon today, Weibo has sent out more than 56 million red envelopes, and the average number of people grabbing red envelopes per day in the first ten days exceeded 5.6 million, which has exceeded the peak data of 4.82 million people grabbing red envelopes on WeChat last year's New Year's Eve.

In this red envelope war, the first to discover the popularity of Weibo red envelopes were actually the industry Vs. Self-media @万能大熊 and others emerged as a dark horse, sending out 240,000 cash red envelopes in a week, with more than 20,000 people paying for him, and a cumulative increase of nearly 300,000 followers. After that, entrepreneurs and celebrities rushed to join in and began to have a great time. In the endless cycle of "stuffing-grabbing-stuffing-grabbing", we seem to have smelled the flavor of the "Ice Bucket Challenge" that was popular on Weibo last year.

How are Weibo red envelopes and the Ice Bucket Challenge similar?

First, it is in line with the occasion. The Ice Bucket Challenge is in line with the occasion of donating money to people with ALS, which is a public welfare theme. Weibo red envelopes are in line with the occasion of the Spring Festival, and this year the overall popularity of Internet red envelopes is higher than in previous years, so Weibo red envelopes have naturally taken advantage of this opportunity to rise.

Secondly, the similarity in gameplay. On February 6, Cao Guowei sent out red envelopes at his "home court". More than 20 minutes later, Jiang Nanchun retweeted this Weibo post and said: "Old Cao's red envelopes are still big enough." Cao Guowei immediately responded: "Old Jiang, send some too." This is very similar to the "@three friends" relay gameplay during the Ice Bucket Challenge. Later, Jiang Nanchun also sent out a red envelope of 10,000 yuan on Weibo. This kind of "teasing" between celebrities is actually a PK. The big guys are not short of money, and they can't be short of face, so they have to follow suit. This kind of gameplay naturally attracted the attention of fans, and through the Weibo fission-like communication chain, red envelopes quickly became a hot topic on Weibo, and netizens also participated in the army of grabbing red envelopes, stuffing red envelopes, and sending red envelopes.

Of course, what is more important is the resemblance. Behind this kind of celebrities "naming" each other, netizens watching and spreading and following, is the relationship chain of Weibo's open social network, fission-like communication capabilities and hot spot focus effect. On Weibo, we can watch celebrities anytime and anywhere and participate in discussions about topics related to celebrities. In addition to the previous forms of watching by reposting, commenting and liking, red envelopes also provide a new interactive gameplay. After Wang Feng successfully proposed to Zhang Ziyi, Cao Guowei immediately sent the two of them the "most gossipy" red envelope gift, which won the applause of a large number of fans and also increased the popularity of Weibo red envelopes again.

Why is the second “Ice Bucket Challenge” so popular?

This red envelope drama triggered by Weibo has become popular unknowingly. There are several key factors that must be mentioned as to why.

1. Celebrities and big Vs mentioned each other by name, and fans gathered around to watch and create a stir.

This is the hot spot of Weibo red envelopes. Whether a set of activity mechanisms can be successfully promoted mainly depends on the attention and participation of users. The most efficient way to attract users is the demonstration effect of celebrities. Just like the ice bucket challenge, nearly 200 celebrities from various fields posted videos of completing the challenge on Weibo. Tfboys' video was forwarded more than 100,000 times in 8 minutes, and Wang Sicong alone brought in more than 2,500 donations.

Celebrities and influencers are Weibo's resource advantages. Their interactions, banter, and mutual challenges trigger game mechanisms similar to the "Ice Bucket Challenge," such as Li Bingbing's response after Cao Guowei stuffed money into her red envelope, and Ren Zhiqiang and Pan Shiyi's jokes on Weibo about the topic of red envelopes. Fans will automatically participate in the dissemination when watching, thus heating up the topic of red envelopes. The increase in topic popularity will attract more netizens' attention, and the threshold and process of stuffing and grabbing red envelopes are even lower than the Ice Bucket Challenge, so the participation rate is naturally high.

2. The method of stuffing red envelopes is very provocative to fans.

This kind of teasing gameplay gradually pushed Weibo red envelopes to a climax.

Netizens can top up money to celebrities and influencers, so that they can send red envelopes together with them. For fans, giving money to idols is a very prestigious thing, not to mention that giving red envelopes can give them an extra chance to win a prize. Fans are naturally willing to do this good thing that can kill two birds with one stone.

More importantly, fans believe that the number of "red envelopes" directly reflects the popularity of their idols. They will naturally not miss this opportunity to win face for their idols, so we saw that the three members of TFBoys received more than 10,000 "money" in less than 10 hours after the event was launched. On the one hand, they jointly sent red envelopes with their idols, and on the other hand, they boosted the popularity of their idols. With this "one charge and one send", it is unlikely that the red envelopes will not become popular.

It has to be said that this kind of gameplay can only be played on Weibo. It has become a habit for celebrities and fans to interact on Weibo, and Weibo is an open social platform. Giving money to celebrities is a one-way behavior of users, which makes it easier to play. In fact, from the fact that Lu Han set a record for the number of comments on a single Weibo post twice last year, it can be seen that fans are no longer satisfied with simple ways of interaction such as forwarding, commenting and liking, but hope to make the interaction have more practical meaning. Stuffing red envelopes is one of them, and it is a typical simple and crude way of playing, which is of course suitable for fans.

3. From “enjoying happiness alone” to “enjoying happiness with others”, bring in as many people as possible.

This is the “last mile” behind the popularity of Weibo red envelopes.

Although the user's relationship chain has been expanded through social networks, it is only an extension in the technical sense. According to the Chinese tradition during the Spring Festival, friends and relatives like to joke with each other and ask for red envelopes when they get together. Most of the ways to play with Internet red envelopes are just to move the original offline process of sending red envelopes online. Although it expands the extension of the Spring Festival red envelopes, it weakens the family connotation of the red envelopes, so "playing" is very important.

The gameplay provided by Weibo red envelopes is not limited to "friends". On Weibo, we can see that ordinary netizens, big Vs, small and medium Vs, and enterprises have all participated. It can be said that all aspects of society have been completely connected, from the traditional one-on-one "enjoyment" of red envelopes to the "enjoyment of the public". While grabbing red envelopes, netizens can also watch the jokes and competitions of celebrities and big Vs, and even dig out gossip from clues, which has a great effect of national entertainment. This is the change that mobile Internet has brought to users' lives. It is also the participation of the whole people that makes Weibo red envelopes, like the ice bucket challenge, have the possibility of becoming a social phenomenon.

It can be said that the reason why Weibo stood out in this year's red envelope war is mainly due to its rich gameplay and wide participation. It has created a win-win situation of "red envelope senders promote each other and fans benefit", which may explode with greater power on New Year's Eve.

In general, whether it is the Ice Bucket Challenge or Weibo Red Packet, they are inseparable from the characteristics of Weibo itself, that is, open social and fission-like communication. In fact, the value of Weibo as a public participation platform is very clear. For enterprises, it means the imagination space of viral communication, and for users, it means that everyone's power can be amplified. This may be the meaning of social media.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.