Zhou Hongyi's IP business is not just about traffic.

In the digital age, how entrepreneurs use emerging communication channels to connect with users has become a hot topic. As an entrepreneur active in the field of short videos, Zhou Hongyi has not only made remarkable achievements in personal IP construction, but also set a benchmark for other entrepreneurs.

After managing his short video account carefully for nearly a year, Zhou Hongyi has become the image spokesperson of the entrepreneurial IP track.

More and more entrepreneurs have opened short video accounts and started live streaming, and the media have come to ask him for his opinion. Opposition has gradually increased, and after Nongfu Spring founder Zhong Shanshan publicly expressed his opposition to entrepreneurs live streaming to sell goods, the media has flocked to interview him. Even on social media, there are constant people tagging him, asking him to share his opinion.

Strictly speaking, Zhong Shanshan is not against entrepreneurs becoming internet celebrities, but he says that entrepreneurs should not sell goods through live streaming, and believes that entrepreneurs can do more valuable things. More precisely, he is resisting the low-price competition in e-commerce caused by live streaming, and believes that this is a huge harm to the industry.

Zhou Hongyi also emphasized this point in the short video he shot, saying that entrepreneurs should not compete with ordinary people for jobs and engage in live streaming sales. There are not many entrepreneurs in China who truly engage in live streaming sales. Most entrepreneurs who build personal IPs are actually not selling goods, but promoting their own products. For example, Lei Jun, for example, himself.

But the public still seems to have misunderstandings, and some discussions have extended from live streaming to the debate over whether entrepreneurs should do live streaming and generate traffic.

When attending the 2024 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, Zhou Hongyi explained it in detail again. He said that entrepreneurs engaging in traffic is not a waste of time, but a practice of entrepreneurial spirit. "Entrepreneurs should always maintain the courage to get involved and explore the unknown, and use actions to find new breakthroughs for the development of the enterprise."

Why are live streaming and traffic generation related to entrepreneurship?

Zhou Hongyi's speech at the World Internet Conference

1. The End of the Universe is not just about live streaming

There has been a huge debate on the Internet about whether entrepreneurs should sell goods through live streaming. There are supporters, and many media organizations have published commentary articles emphasizing that live streaming should not be completely denied. For example, the Beijing Business Daily said that "there is no need to look down on entrepreneurs selling goods through live streaming", and the Securities Times also emphasized that "any new business model is worth learning."

There are also many voices of opposition. On social platforms, you can find many consumers opposing entrepreneurs’ live streaming sales. Some small and medium-sized businesses in the physical retail industry have been constantly emphasizing the harm that live streaming sales cause to the business environment.

In fact, it is no longer the climax of entrepreneurs selling goods through live streaming. The period when Chinese entrepreneurs were most enthusiastic about selling goods through live streaming was three or four years ago. Because offline business was shut down, a large number of entrepreneurs, including Liang Jianzhang, swarmed into the live streaming room to seek self-help. This was the climax of entrepreneurs selling goods through live streaming at that time.

Later, most of the people who were listed as representatives of entrepreneurs selling goods through live streaming often made difficult choices in times of crisis, such as Luo Yonghao, who owed 600 million yuan, and Yu Minhong, who wanted to find a way out for New Oriental.

But in any case, as a new form of e-commerce, live streaming sales no longer needs to be overly proven. Some of the chaos that exist in live streaming e-commerce today cannot conceal the role that live streaming e-commerce plays in driving the real economy.

Most entrepreneurs who have entered the short video industry are not looking to sell goods. When Zhou Hongyi first started shooting short videos and live streaming, the media frequently speculated whether 360 would start a live streaming sales business. In the second half of the year, such voices almost disappeared - because more and more entrepreneurs entered the live streaming room and started to build personal IP.

The highly competitive automotive industry has the highest density of live broadcasts by entrepreneurs. Almost all CEOs of auto companies are doing live broadcasts, shooting short videos, and communicating face-to-face with users on social platforms. New forces such as Li Bin, He Xiaopeng, and Xia Yiping, and traditional auto companies such as Wei Jianjun of Great Wall Motors and Yin Tongyue of Chery Automobile have all started live broadcasts. Some auto companies even have all their employees "on duty", from management to front-line sales, all of whom are active on social platforms.

But the most popular one is Lei Jun. Now, he has more than 35 million followers on Douyin and has received more than 160 million likes, the most followers among all entrepreneurs. Seven months ago, he had less than 10 million followers. Under his leadership, almost all executives of Xiaomi Group started shooting short videos.

Lei Jun has more than 35 million followers

Many traditional entrepreneurs have also started live streaming. For example, Zhang Wenzhong, founder of Wumart Group, and Huang Hongsheng, founder of Skyworth Group. Zhang Wenzhong is 62 years old this year and calls himself a "60s old naughty boy". When he talked with Zhou Hongyi, he said that he was originally resistant to live streaming, but he still embarked on the road of live streaming under the leadership of the young people in the company, and Yu Minhong and Zhou Hongyi also constantly encouraged him.

"The Internet has now entered the era of self-media, and communication and marketing have also entered a new field." Zhang Chaoyang, who has been doing live broadcasts for many years, fully recognizes the value of entrepreneurs becoming Internet celebrities. When he and Zhou Hongyi talked at the 2024 China Internet Conference, he said that entrepreneurs and celebrities becoming "Internet celebrities" is also a strategy to cope with the media communication model in the new era. Entrepreneurs "must put down their airs and accept and embrace new changes."

"Entrepreneurs create IPs and short videos not to bring goods, sell facial masks or make money, but to endorse their own products." Zhou Hongyi said that in the past, entrepreneurs were high and mighty, but in the era of short videos, users and entrepreneurs are on the same level and need face-to-face communication. "Making short videos and live broadcasts is also to understand users better."

It seems that there is no need to discuss too much about the value of entrepreneurs doing live broadcasts and shooting short videos. This is already an unstoppable trend of the times. Recently, even Richard Yu, who can be called an IP, has begun to embrace short videos and opened a WeChat video account. He has shot several short videos to warm up for Huawei's upcoming flagship phone, Huawei Mate 70. In the past, Richard Yu never had an account on a short video platform.

Yu Chengdong's newly opened short video account

2. Entrepreneurs should be where users are

Many people on the Internet think that traffic is shameful. This is largely due to people's long-standing negative views on Internet celebrities. The many chaos of attracting traffic in the era of short videos has aggravated this stereotype. But traffic itself is neither right nor wrong. To be more direct, the company's brand communication is ultimately to gain the attention of the public, which is also a kind of "traffic-generating" behavior.

This is probably one of the reasons why Zhou Hongyi never shies away from "creating traffic". He said at this year's World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit that many people saw him in short videos and thought he was not doing his job. He wanted to clarify that creating traffic is not not doing his job.

In his opinion, any business model needs to acquire customers and strive for traffic, which is essentially to make more friends with users and reduce the marketing burden of the company. Times are changing, and traditional marketing in the form of press conferences is no longer feasible. In the era of short videos, video is the most direct and effective way to communicate with users, and it is also the best tool for corporate publicity.

Zhou Hongyi's words make sense. Different eras have different communication channels, and corporate communications in different eras also have distinct characteristics of their own era. Looking back at the growth history of Chinese companies over the past 40 years, it is a true record of the changes in communication media. From newspapers, television, the Internet to the current short video era, corporate communication strategies have also changed with the changes in media.

The earliest communication channel was newspapers. In January 1979, the third page of Tianjin Daily published an advertisement for Tianjin Toothpaste Factory, which was later considered the first newspaper advertisement after the reform and opening up. The advertisement was extremely inconspicuous, with only 20 lines, and was placed at the bottom of the third page of the newspaper. But in the early days of reform and opening up, such a product information alone was enough to attract people's attention. At that time, the Ta Kung Pao commented that "the appearance of the advertisement was like a flute, marking the beginning of the Chinese economic giant ship."

Toothpaste advertisement published in Tianjin Daily

The first TV commercials arrived almost simultaneously. A few weeks later, Shanghai TV aired an ad for a liquor brand. A year later, CCTV also began to broadcast ads. Later, CCTV's prime-time ads even evolved into a bidding competition, with entrepreneurs vying for CCTV's "bid winner" in the hope of opening up the national market.

Zhang Ruimin's Haier Group began running television commercials as early as the early 1990s, and even at that time creatively used animated stories to promote its brand - the once popular cartoon "Haier Brothers" was invested by Haier Group.

Most of the brands that are familiar to people today have entered thousands of households with the help of television, including Wahaha, Hengyuanxiang, and even Melatonin and BBK. Their advertising slogans have even become classic memories of a generation.

With the advent of the Internet era, corporate communications have become more diverse. But perhaps the most impressive thing is the "Vancl" launched by Chen Nian in 2010. That was probably the first time that entrepreneurs realized the power of Internet viral communication. In the craze of the Internet, Vancl became an instant hit.

Vancl invited Han Han to shoot the "I am Vancl" advertisement

Now, all kinds of PC advertisements and App advertisements have become the norm. No entrepreneur will give up online marketing. Together, they support hundreds of billions of advertising revenues for Internet companies.

But no matter how the media changes, the only thing that has not changed is that entrepreneurs must constantly adapt to the times and keep up with the trend. No matter how things change, the essence remains the same: entrepreneurs should be where the users are.

As Zhou Hongyi repeatedly emphasized, we have entered the era of short videos. More than 95% of Chinese netizens are short video users. The media release news on short video platforms, and ordinary people use short videos to record their lives. Short videos have been fully integrated into people's lives, entertainment, and even work. In this case, entrepreneurs must learn to change their marketing methods and embrace short videos.

The success of Xiaomi Motors is the best example. A person from a new car-making company once told The Mountain that the marketing of Xiaomi Motors is a dimensionality reduction attack on traditional car companies. Previously, car companies mainly relied on traditional channels for marketing, but Xiaomi relied entirely on social platforms. Lei Jun's personal influence helped Xiaomi Motors accumulate a lot of attention in the early days.

Of course, not every entrepreneur can have the same super influence as Lei Jun, and not every entrepreneur can become an idol like Musk and Jobs. But as Zhou Hongyi said, entrepreneurs may not be good at IP, but they must be good at traffic, at least they must know how to use short videos and live broadcasts to attract traffic. Just as Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, lamented before, "Nowadays, even good wine needs to be hidden in a remote alley."

3. True Entrepreneurship

To some extent, the wave of entrepreneur IP craze initiated by Zhou Hongyi is a microcosm of the innovation and change of entrepreneurs in the current era, and it is also the best interpretation of entrepreneurial spirit in this era.

The climax of the discussion about Zhou Hongyi's IP was when he sold the Maybach he had driven for many years. After that, he successively purchased several domestic new energy vehicles and went to the factories of Chinese car companies several times to do live broadcasts, talk about technology, and discuss the intelligent experience of domestic new energy vehicles.

The CEOs of car companies are also happy to take in this huge traffic. They delivered new cars to the downstairs of 360's headquarters, and experienced the progress of intelligent driving with Zhou Hongyi in the live broadcast room, and talked about the overtaking of China's automobile industry in the new energy era.

Many users also realized the progress of domestic new energy vehicles from waves of hot search terms and short videos. This can be regarded as one of the evidences that entrepreneurs use their influence to promote conceptual innovation. In early April when Zhou Hongyi sold the car, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China exceeded 50% for the first time. In the past few months, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China has been steadily above 50%.

After Zhou Hongyi started the live broadcast trend in the automotive industry, more and more CEOs of auto companies also started live broadcasting, going into factories to test battery life, safety, and products. After all, no one knows their own products better than the CEO.

More importantly, entrepreneurs can boost sales and popularity of their own businesses and products by taking part in the event. Xia Yiping of Jiyue Automobile once said in an interview with the media that only when the CEO steps forward can more problems be solved. It is not enough to just write articles, hold press conferences, and do reviews. He started shooting videos at the end of May and has released more than 220 videos so far. Since June, Jiyue's sales have doubled continuously, from more than 400 units to more than 3,000 units in October.

This is also one of the misunderstandings that most people have about Zhou Hongyi’s IP work. Zhou Hongyi himself said, “Many people asked me that in the short videos, you were unkempt, unshaven, and talking nonsense. Are you not doing your job properly?”

In fact, the most significant effect of Zhou Hongyi's IP development in the past year was the promotion of 360 AI sector. For example, 360 AI search is very popular. Last month, the monthly user visits of 360 AI search reached 280 million, which is more than three times that of Perplexity AI, the most well-known AI search engine overseas, and continued to be the world's most visited AI native search engine.

360 AI Search

However, 360 AI Search has not been widely used in the market. In the list of AI applications exposed by the media, 360 AI Search was not even ranked. In addition to the excellent product experience of 360 AI Search itself, the more direct driving force should be Zhou Hongyi's oral advertising in short videos - he has more than 10 million fans on the entire network.

Isn’t one of the core responsibilities of an entrepreneur to help the business of the company develop better? In Zhou Hongyi’s words, if he were to be a hands-off boss and travel around every day, “who can do anything to me?” But he has to be responsible to shareholders and employees, so he must seek innovation and change, and must make the company keep up with the development of the times, otherwise he may be eliminated at any time.

Short video released by Zhou Hongyi

This may be the true entrepreneurial spirit, which is to be humble but also have the courage to explore and move forward.

People are also happy to see such down-to-earth entrepreneurs. In the past, people rarely had the opportunity to get close to entrepreneurs, and could only find a few words from entrepreneurs about entrepreneurship or management from TV interviews, media reports or biographical books, and could not get timely answers.

Now, the era of short videos has eliminated these distances, and users can directly ask questions in the comment area and communicate privately. In addition to content about AI and new energy vehicles, a large part of Zhou Hongyi's short videos are his own thoughts on entrepreneurship and management.

Zhou Hongyi also said in his speech at the World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit that in addition to popularizing AI and experiencing digital technology products, he also made short videos to help more small and medium-sized enterprises start businesses. He himself is a veteran entrepreneur and can share many experiences and lessons. During the live broadcast, he also constantly visited industry leaders to exchange business philosophy, "so that everyone can avoid detours and pitfalls." He specially set up two short video collections, "Red Clothes Sharing" and "Red Clothes Living Room", to include his entrepreneurial insights and conversations with other entrepreneurs.

It's not just Zhou Hongyi. Most entrepreneurs who are keen on shooting short videos are not stingy in sharing them with the public. Lei Jun's short video account also has a special collection of "Follow Lei Jun to Talk About Digital", which includes some technical popular science in the electronics industry. Zhang Chaoyang even gave a physics class in the live broadcast room, setting off a wave of basic science on the Internet. In the past few years, Yu Minhong has done more than 100 live interviews, and the guests have covered many fields such as business, technology, and humanities. He has compiled and published these live interviews.

Short videos are not a scourge, and entrepreneurs creating IPs are not doing their jobs. Their core purpose is still to help companies develop and boost the social economy. There may be many explanations for entrepreneurship, but the core has never changed. It's just that different times have different ways of expression. Live streaming and traffic generation are one of the solutions in the current era. In Zhou Hongyi's words, the times are always changing, and entrepreneurs must not be complacent. They must maintain an open mind, keep pace with the times, keep learning, and transform more traffic into positive energy for society.

The more "Internet celebrity" entrepreneurs like this, the better.

Author: Wang Bin This article is written by the operator author [山上Hillvue], WeChat public account: [山上], original/authorized to be published on the operator. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.