Creativity and commercialization are the biggest challenges for challenge bloggers

This article introduces the secret to the popularity of challenge blogger @干饭了田田圈, his content innovation and commercialization exploration, as well as the development difficulties and industry trends faced by challenge bloggers.

The commercialization of challenge bloggers has gradually radiated offline.

Blogger @干饭了田田圈 (Laotian) is a challenge blogger. In the video, she attracts the audience's attention with her fancy challenges. The phrase "Come and see Laotian for a spicy meal" makes the audience remember her vividly.

At present, @干饭了田田圈 (hereinafter referred to as Lao Tian) has 2.008 million fans. Many netizens will look at each other in confusion: "Who is this and what does she do?" But when everyone watches the video, most of them will be attracted by her content.

Challenge bloggers have always had certain shortcomings in terms of increasing followers and commercialization, and their content is somewhat homogeneous. However, @干饭了田田圈 has been trying different commercialization models while innovating its content. Next, Crawley uses @干饭了田田圈 as an example to analyze the development trend of challenge bloggers from the perspective of content and commercialization.

01 The secret of Lao Tian’s popularity: persistence, sincerity, and boldness

In Lao Tian’s previous Q&A video, she talked about her creative process from appearance videos to store exploration videos, and then to the current challenge series.

The first video that Lao Tian kept was a challenge to eat only turkey noodles for a day. Although this kind of eating challenge has a certain amount of views, it is difficult to arouse the audience's strong interest, so Lao Tian did not make much waves in the short video field. However, Lao Tian was unwilling to stop there. Ten days later, Lao Tian released his first challenge series - Challenge 50 yuan to survive in Shanghai for a week. This series ushered in Lao Tian's first explosion point, with nearly 50 million views.

In terms of video content, Lao Tian accurately captured the hearts of the current Shanghai drifters, and also attracted many people who are interested in "Shanghai currency". Netizens shouted and questioned: How can this be successful?

When shooting videos, Lao Tian would even start the video by speaking while lying on the bed. Lao Tian's unconcealed true state makes the audience seem to see every bit of his life, and his simplicity and honesty become the unique charm of the video.

Image source: TikTok

Afterwards, Lao Tian began to release a series of content called "Surviving in Shanghai for a Week Starting from 0 Yuan" based on daily life content, which became the key to her breaking out of the circle.

This series also brought Lao Tian more fans, and the interaction in the comment area also increased significantly. One viewer made a suggestion: "I suggest taking a pair of scissors and opening packages for free next to the express delivery station, and making a fortune by collecting boxes continuously." Some viewers even called Lao Tian the "Bear Grylls" of Shanghai.

Image source: TikTok

02 Jump out of your comfort zone and challenge the limits of content

There is no set pattern to follow for the blogger profession, and every step is full of unknowns and challenges. However, it is precisely this unknown that requires more courage to explore and try.

The same goes for Lao Tian. Every challenge she takes is an adventure. If some challenges make netizens eager to try, some will make people hesitate.

Among the 24 series launched by Lao Tian, ​​the most popular one is "SIRI Kills Me". In this program, Lao Tian often calls out to SIRI to give a random number, and then Lao Tian arranges his daily diet according to the amount corresponding to this number. Such creativity will undoubtedly arouse people's strong curiosity.

For example, in the video on October 11, 2021, Lao Tian shouted to SIRI and got the random number 4. This result could not help but sparked heated discussions among netizens, and many people left messages in the comment area: "SIRI knows how to shoot videos." "Promise me that you will shoot this series until you die." Another joker said: "Next time, just use 0-5 random numbers, you can't use 6-100" and so on.

The picture comes from TikTok

So far, the number of views of Lao Tian's SIRI series has reached 110 million. Every time you click on a video, you look forward to the random number SIRI will give and how Lao Tian will "torture" himself. In the comment section, fans often say "I hope to see Lao Tian fail" and "I just hate that the number SIRI gave is too high".

If some people watched the video hoping that Lao Tian would fail, then some people were surprised by his success. With only four yuan to buy an eggplant, two green peppers, an egg and a small bag of rice, Lao Tian made two rice bowls. This seemingly impossible task won the love and support of users, making this video one of the works with outstanding user interaction.

After the SIRI series became popular, Lao Tian struck while the iron was hot and launched the Harvard Weight Loss Challenge, which was quite popular in the early stage. The 28-day challenge made many bloggers quietly give up because they could not see the data traffic for later development, but Lao Tian still persisted.

Lao Tian will bravely try challenges that most people cannot persist in. Of course, this will inevitably cause some netizens to question: There is a series of sustainable development hot spots, so why not stay in your comfort zone? This is precisely the charm of challenge content, bravely jumping out of the comfort zone and completing tasks that others cannot complete. For this reason, more and more viewers are attracted to challenge content.

Lao Tian does more than just challenge himself. When fans express their desire to eat Lao Tian's cooking, Lao Tian will squeeze out time to set up a stall at the night market. Moreover, Lao Tian even considers the fans' concerns about the distance, so he often changes the night market location. It is not difficult to see that Lao Tian is a careful blogger who runs both ways with his fans.

The content of Lao Tian's challenge series of videos is not new. It is essentially a kind of life vlog. The creators use challenges as a gimmick to record the real life situation over a period of time. At present, the creative boundaries of vlog bloggers are constantly expanding, from simple life records to learning and education, fitness, food and health, healing pets, creative challenges and other aspects.

03 Take an unconventional approach to monetization and create offline consumption scenarios

Challenge content will focus more on different life scenarios, with a variety of products and consumption scenarios appearing in the camera, which can naturally promote the product. Therefore, advertising placement is a common way to monetize challenges.

However, although Lao Tian has opened a window display, he rarely inserts advertisements in his videos. While most anchors follow the model of "taking advertisements and live streaming to sell goods", Lao Tian starts from the content and talks about the influence of the content radiating offline.

Lao Tian's irregular night market stall activities attract many fans who come here to buy offline. Compared with those shared through the screen, Lao Tian's stall setting can give people a more intimate feeling. People often line up in advance, hoping to complete a co-creation content with Lao Tian offline.

Image source: TikTok

Nowadays, more and more users are no longer interested in exquisite vlogs, but vlogs as a content form for recording daily life are still very popular. Content that is realistic, simple, and visually impactful is more likely to arouse users' identification and resonance. The blogger's true personality charm and unique lifestyle are the key to impressing the audience.

Lao Tian once admitted that she was a person with a serious procrastination problem. Whenever she wanted to give up, the invisible supervision of users made her persist. From this point of view, while bringing new challenges to the audience, Lao Tian is also constantly improving herself.

Just as Lao Tian wrote in the label, users are watching her adventurous life. For her, content innovation and commercial exploration are the challenges she is facing.

Today, the popularity of challenge content continues. Users watch bloggers' "challenging" lives and marvel at how others accomplish things they cannot do. For creators, how to complete challenges in life while finding breakthroughs in the creativity and commercialization of content is a difficult problem that challenge bloggers must solve.

What do you think about the development of challenge bloggers? Feel free to leave a comment in the comment section.