I run a guild in Southeast Asia: I have 5,000 anchors and I am in the top 10 in one year

Southeast Asia, with its huge population base and rapid development of mobile Internet, has become a popular destination for Chinese guilds to go global. This article will take you to understand the development history of a Chinese guild in Southeast Asia, how it quickly rose in less than a year, became one of the top ten guilds in Indonesia, and signed 5,000 anchors.

The wave of domestic guilds going overseas is becoming increasingly turbulent.

In the past two years, Xinbochang has continued to pay attention to the fact that many domestic guilds have chosen to go overseas and regard TikTok as the next gold mine. During this period, many guilds made their first pot of gold overseas.

Is it still a good time for guilds to go overseas? Which country or region should they choose?

Recently, Xinbochang learned that a guild went to Southeast Asia and became one of the top 10 in Indonesia in less than a year, signing contracts with 5,000 anchors.

Xinbochang talked to the village chief, the person in charge of the guild. In the opinion of the village chief, "If you have been doing entertainment live broadcasting in China for a long time, then it will be a refreshing experience to start a guild in Southeast Asia."

1. Reaching the top 10 in Indonesia in less than a year

The village chief is a senior practitioner in the entertainment live broadcast industry and was once the operations manager of a leading domestic guild. In recent years, as the domestic entertainment live broadcast industry has entered a period of stock competition, many guilds are seeking opportunities to go overseas, and the village chief is no exception.

In 2022, TikTok opened up domestic guilds in many countries and regions, including Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Japan.

At that time, the village chief chose to do TikTok's entertainment live broadcast in Japan and accumulated some overseas experience. However, with the adjustment of TikTok's policy, domestic guilds going overseas to do TikTok's entertainment live broadcast must set up offline companies in the local area, that is, localized operations.

In August 2023, introduced by a friend, the village chief led a team to Indonesia for inspection.

The village chief said that when he was doing market research in Indonesia, he found that there were not many local guilds and there was a lot of market space. In addition, Indonesia has the advantage of population size, and the local Internet development skipped the PC stage and directly entered the mobile Internet era, which laid a good foundation for the development of guilds.

After investigation, the village chief decided to set up a guild in the local area. So, after several months of preparation, they officially entered the entertainment live broadcast in Indonesia in December, and the first platform they chose was TikTok.

"We recruited 1,200 anchors in the first month. It was also during the recruitment process that we got to know more about the specific live broadcast content in the local area, such as some of the gameplay and specific rules of live broadcasts."

The village chief introduced that they spent about three months understanding the local entertainment live streaming ecosystem, including the local users' acceptance of entertainment live streaming, the local user payment rate, what kind of content the top users prefer, and what kind of operations and content the anchors can accept. Finally, they explored a set of strategies that are suitable for the local area.

Starting from April 2024, the revenue of their guild began to grow rapidly. "Basically, the growth in May, June and July was more than 50%."

Today, they are one of the top ten guilds in Indonesia, with sixty to seventy offline anchors and more than 4,000 anchors signed backstage.

Moreover, in addition to TikTok, they currently operate Bigo and a music live streaming platform. The combined monthly turnover of the three platforms reaches hundreds of thousands of US dollars.

2. What should the guild do when going overseas?

“If you have been doing entertainment live streaming in China for a long time, then it will be a refreshing experience to start a guild in Southeast Asia.”

The village chief told Xinbochang that compared with the domestic market, the entertainment live broadcast market in Southeast Asia is far from saturated, and users' consumption habits are still in the cultivation stage.

Therefore, when they first started doing entertainment live broadcasts in Indonesia, they encountered two major problems. One was that the local user payment rate was relatively low; the other was that the public's spiritual needs were easy to satisfy and the local pace was relatively slow, so the efficiency was not as high as in China and the guild growth was relatively slow.

But it also means new opportunities.

First, influenced by religious culture, most Indonesians have a strong desire and ability to perform, and they are very receptive to live streaming, so the threshold for guilds to recruit anchors is relatively low; secondly, the local user base is large, and user consumption habits are still in the cultivation stage, so it is a market worth cultivating for guilds.

(Photo: Guild anchor)

"Among all the overseas countries where TikTok is used, Indonesia probably has the largest number of users, so it has great potential."

However, for guilds that want to go out to sea, the village chief believes that now is no longer the bonus period of "recruiting people". If the guilds want to go out to sea, they cannot hold the mentality of "harvesting and making quick money".

"As long as the guild is not thinking about harvesting and making quick money, but wants to do business and create good content, then as long as it takes root, there will be many opportunities."

In addition, as Southeast Asia becomes the preferred destination for more and more Chinese companies, the cost of going overseas is also increasing.

The village chief said frankly that if you only do entertainment live streaming and do not have channels and resources, it is not recommended for people and companies to go overseas, because the cost of setting up offline live broadcast rooms is very high and the model is relatively heavy; in addition, if you must do it, then before going overseas, you must have a deeper understanding of the local market conditions, and then you must find a good track, do a good job of segmentation, and find your own core competitiveness.

(Photo: The Guild’s live broadcast room in Indonesia)

3. Growth Points Beyond Entertainment Live Broadcasting

In addition to entertainment live streaming, the village chief’s guild has also entered into game live streaming and MCN businesses.

"Because Indonesia was influenced by the early Japanese and Korean anime culture, the whole country has a strong gaming atmosphere, so the local people have a great demand for gaming content, so we have also laid out a gaming section." said the village chief.

In addition, after accumulating many anchors and celebrities, they also entered the MCN business. "Now many MCNs in Indonesia are engaged in e-commerce, but we did not choose e-commerce, but chose the path of celebrity commercialization and anchor commercialization."

There are two considerations for doing this.

The first is to help anchors and celebrities expand their influence and expand monetization opportunities beyond rewards.

It is understood that there are basically various competitions in large shopping malls every weekend in Indonesia, such as e-sports events, and their celebrities will be invited to participate, which can not only generate commercial monetization income, but also increase their own exposure, and help celebrities support online content and achieve online and offline connectivity.

(Photo: Celebrities participating in offline events)

Second, they saw the demand for influencer marketing among many overseas companies.

"Domestic mobile phone brands such as OPPO, Xiaomi, and Huawei have been deeply rooted in Indonesia for many years, and car companies such as BYD have also gone overseas. Now Indonesia is also guiding the local development of game technology and Internet industries from a national policy perspective. So we also made a comprehensive judgment, combined with our own resource advantages and the development direction of influencers, and chose the guild + MCN path."

The village chief said that they have now reached promotion cooperation with some brands. The online promotion of brands in the Indonesian market still has great development prospects, and the commercialization market potential of overseas companies and local celebrities is huge.