90% of people who want to make money as self-media bloggers have given up

Behind the glamour of the self-media industry lies a cruel reality: high competition, low income, and lack of inspiration. Many bloggers who have devoted themselves to this industry with high hopes eventually choose to give up under the blow of reality.

The competition in the self-media track is more brutal than in the workplace.

Those young people who quit their jobs to become bloggers finally discovered that there are too many people who can write copy and edit videos. They work diligently to produce content, attract traffic, and increase fans, and not only do they have to work hard from dawn to dusk, but their monthly income may only be two to three thousand yuan. Some of them can't even make it to the moment of making money and cannot support themselves at all.

Bloggers who have been running their own media for many years have also found that it is becoming increasingly difficult to make money from content. Not only are the direct cash rewards from platforms shrinking for creators, but the number and price of advertising from brand partnerships have also fallen sharply, almost halving.

An outdoor travel blogger living in Chengdu once complained that when the market was good, she could take 7 or 8 orders a month, each worth about 10,000 yuan, but now she only has 4 orders a month on average, and the price has dropped to 3,000 yuan. The video may be higher, but it is only 5,000 yuan, and her income is not as good as before. After deducting the cost of living from the 10,000 or 20,000 yuan income, she has begun to consider going back to work.

But the reality is that even if these bloggers want to return to work, there may not be suitable positions for them to work as "workers" in the current employment environment. Even if the self-media path cannot be "rolled", there may be no way out.

0190% of people who want to be bloggers and make money to support themselves give up

Xiao Nuan, a former store blogger, also shared with Wenlv her "actual" experience of quitting her job to become a blogger. She admitted that she had been tempted for a long time before making this decision.

During the epidemic, I stayed at home and browsed Douyin and Xiaohongshu every day. I was a little envious when I saw those bloggers who had tens of thousands of followers and could receive advertisements by posting content that they could also create. It seemed that the threshold to become a blogger was not that high.

So she tried to post a few pieces of content, all of which were related to food. The views and interactions were pretty good, and she thought that if she could devote all her energy to managing her account well, she should be able to make money. Since she quit her job and devoted herself to blogging, she updated nearly 300 pieces of content in half a year, and eventually accumulated nearly 20,000 followers.

The most difficult thing for her in this process is not producing content, but being able to persist in posting content every day even when there are no views for a long time, only a few likes, and no followers for several days.

What confuses her is that the content that she thinks will be popular and has carefully planned has mediocre data performance after release. On the contrary, sometimes the content that is casually posted in order to maintain the update frequency will have better interactive effects.

"It took me about two months to realize that if I want to make money as a blogger, I have to follow the platform's algorithm rules and learn to compromise."

The money you can make as a blogger is not as much or as easy as you might imagine.

When she was still a "little transparent" person with few fans, there were no so-called business orders to take. She went into the store to consume and shoot materials like ordinary customers, and this part of the expenses in the first month was several thousand yuan.

Later, I joined some order-taking groups, and there were invitations to experience new store opening activities. If I met more "conscientious" merchants, they might give me a few dozen or one or two hundred yuan as travel expenses, so I didn't have to pay for the trip myself, and I could save a few hundred yuan a month.

The first so-called business order she actually received was after her account had accumulated 5,000 followers. It was an activity related to hotel dining experience, presented in the form of pictures and texts, with a quoted price of 1,500 yuan, and the brand did not "bargain".

She thought it was a good start, but she didn't expect that this would be the highest priced order she received later.

For those collaborations with higher offers, brands prefer video bloggers. Her ability and ability to invest do not support her buying professional equipment to pursue video content, and she does not have the energy to keep up. When she decided to stop updating her account, her maximum monthly income was 2,000 yuan.

Before she made up her mind to stop updating, she did some calculations. If her account performed well in the future, she would have a million followers. Judging from the market conditions, the highest quote for each graphic and text collaboration would be just over 10,000 yuan. The actual collaboration price might be even lower, and the brand would use data such as views, reposts, likes, and comments to determine the results.

If I have one or two cooperation orders every month (under ideal circumstances), I can earn 20,000 yuan. After deducting the living expenses such as rent and food, and paying my own social security and provident fund, the money left in the end is really not as much as the salary from working.

More importantly, she has been facing a very realistic problem in the process of continuously updating content in the past six months, that is, inspiration will run out. The torment of trying to keep the frequency of updates and find inspiration is no less painful than going to work, and she does not have the ability and courage to support a team.

According to what she learned, although bloggers with teams earn more, the costs they need to pay are also rising. A team of three or four people with a monthly income of less than 100,000 may not be able to make ends meet, let alone make money.

After much consideration, she decided to stop updating her account and continue working as a "worker" for a few more years.

02 Top bloggers are struggling to make money, and opportunities are shifting to mid-level bloggers

Xiao Nuan’s experience is also a true epitome of most young people who are currently trying to track the self-media track.

According to the "2024 Mid-Level Influencer Growth Research Report" released by iResearch, relevant data also shows that in 2023, the scale of creators with more than 10,000 fans on major social platforms continued to grow, and the total number has exceeded 14 million. Only 1.7% can "squeeze into" the top camp and make big money.

For most ordinary people, it is not easy to become a blogger at the middle level. To reach the top level depends more on luck than ability. And since last year, many big bloggers with tens of millions of fans have also felt the "chill" of the market.

Another report released by Clourage, "2023-2024 Advertiser KOL Marketing Market Inventory and Trend Forecast Report", shows that the KOL investment market size in 2023 will be 90 billion yuan, and the growth rate has slowed down significantly compared with previous years. Brands' investment has begun to tilt towards the middle and lower end, and the top bloggers are struggling to survive, and the competition is particularly fierce.

One of the important reasons is that the cost of single cooperation for brands is decreasing, and the commission of top bloggers is high. For brands, choosing more mid-level bloggers at the same cost may bring better returns.

On the other hand, when brands consider factors such as ROI, they no longer just look at traffic, but focus more on the overall output of the project.

But we also need to see one thing, which is what was mentioned earlier, that the supply of mid-level bloggers currently exceeds the demand, the competition is also very fierce, and these bloggers are highly replaceable.

According to the report released by iResearch, based on the combined data from Tik Tok, Weibo and Xiaohongshu, the number of times brands have placed ads with mid-level bloggers has also been declining, down about 5.7% year-on-year, but the amount of investment has increased slightly, up about 0.3% year-on-year.

In other words, the commercial value of high-quality mid-level bloggers who are selected for advertising will be improved.

A senior life aesthetics blogger @一只小尾巴 also recognized this trend in her communication with Wenlv. In addition to her own media, she is also a high-quality talent resource provider and runs her own company.

She said that brands basically launch packaged plans, involving the top, mid-level and tail levels. At present, it seems that mid-level bloggers are indeed more popular with brands. Judging from the professionalism of the content and data performance, the cost-effectiveness is also relatively high. The cost of one top blogger can select more than a dozen better mid-level bloggers to cooperate with.

In addition, the most popular ones to cooperate with are the tail bloggers. These bloggers hardly account for any cost in terms of the entire project expenditure. In addition, the brand side will not have too many requirements and assessments on them. The main thing is to increase exposure. Sometimes the works of these bloggers can bring them more surprises, and some works will become hits.

She also mentioned that from the brand's perspective, when measuring whether a blogger is worth investing in, in addition to content professionalism and data performance, what they value more is actually the degree of cooperation.

Can they fully understand the needs of the brand and respond in a timely manner, and make adjustments to the content in accordance with the brand's needs? If the degree of cooperation is not enough, even if the content performance is good, there is a high probability that there will be no cooperation next time. Bloggers below the mid-level are more recognized by brands in this regard.

Regarding the current survival status of self-media bloggers, Xiao Weiba bluntly said that it is indeed very "competitive" and cruel. If the goal is not to be a full-time blogger, but just treat it as a side job, in fact, the survival status of the tail bloggers is the most comfortable.

"If you want to make money and get more orders, being a blogger is just a job. You need to cater to the market and bear the same competitive pressure. Too many glamorous bloggers have worked hard from dawn to dusk to get what they want. You can take off the fantasy filter of being a self-media blogger."

03 Know yourself and the market. If bloggers want to make money, they still have to rely on technology and expertise.

So, among the tens of millions of self-media bloggers, which niche areas offer greater opportunities for making money?

According to the report data released by Clour, in 2023, "beauty and personal care" brands will still account for the largest proportion of advertising, followed by 3C digital, food and beverage, and automobiles. These four categories will account for more than 60%. In terms of content format, the needs of brands are also more diversified, with short videos and live broadcasts being more popular.

From the perspective of the delivery platform, Douyin, Xiaohongshu and WeChat are the mainstream, and brands have a better understanding of the business of Douyin and Xiaohongshu bloggers, and the business ecosystem is more mature. Of course, the supply and competition of bloggers in these fields are also more intense.

In comparison, the supply of high-quality professional bloggers in the "travel and tourism" track is relatively small, both in terms of quantity and professional ability. However, judging from the activity of their posts, for example, on the Xiaohongshu platform, the number of "travel and tourism" bloggers is already higher than that of "beauty and fashion" bloggers, and a diversion trend has emerged.

But in comparison, the cost of becoming a travel blogger is higher than that of bloggers in other fields. Filming equipment is the most basic, and the pursuit of exquisite pictures may also require drones, costumes, props, etc.

There was even a netizen who shared her experience of trying to be a travel blogger. Because she thought that travel bloggers could make money while having fun, she quit her job and spent a lot of money to buy a motorhome and started traveling by car.

As a result, after traveling around China for half a year, I only posted two videos. It was not because I had no material but because I had no ideas and didn't know how to edit them. In the end, my travel self-media income was 0, and my number of followers was very small. However, the total investment was hundreds of thousands.

In this regard, the well-known travel blogger global traveler @杨宝迪 also shared her views with Wenlv. She said that the most important thing for a blogger is to have a clear self-awareness, what you are good at and what you can do, and you need to have a professional positioning.

For example, she herself comes from a TV station background and understands media and communication. She has also been exposed to a lot of hotel and tourism-related resources through her early career. Many of the clients she has come into contact with are in this field. When she transforms to become a self-media person, she will be more inclined to be a hotel vertical blogger, because this track can bring together her professional skills and experience reserves to highlight her own advantages.

It is also based on such professional advantages that, compared with ordinary bloggers, her content presentation is more recognized by brands. But at the same time, she herself is constantly learning and improving in her understanding and presentation of content. She wants her content to be recognized by the B-side and loved by her fans, and to be truly useful to her fans. How to strike a balance between the two is a test of her professional ability.

At the same time, she also suggested that for those who want to be bloggers, whether in travel or other fields, the biggest cost investment must be placed on polishing the content, and strive to make the content more professional, rather than front-end data maintenance.

Because today's brands have become more and more professional, their ability to judge the authenticity of data and appreciate the quality of content are improving.

She also gave some advice to brands, that is, they must find reliable suppliers to cooperate with, they must clarify their own advertising needs, and communicate clearly and efficiently with bloggers, especially for expectation management. They should consider what kind of feedback the bloggers can bring based on their budget, and then proceed with advertising if they are willing to accept it. Cooperation with bloggers who have their own outstanding advantages is definitely a two-way choice.

In the era of "traffic economy", many ordinary people have the opportunity to become famous and rich overnight, but only a small number of them can seize the opportunity to make a comeback. For most ordinary people, if they do not have professional ability and skills, being a blogger to make money and support themselves is really not a good choice that can lead to success easily.

The picture comes from photo.net

Author | Guo Hongyun Editor | Lan Lan This article is written by the operation author [Wenlv], WeChat public account: [Wenlv], original/authorized to be published on the operation party, and any reproduction without permission is prohibited.

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