Douyin is attacking pictures and texts again, not just "hunting" Xiaohongshu

Douyin, a social platform that started with short videos, has recently launched a new round of offensive in the field of graphic content. From the graphic-text switching option in the recommendation column on the homepage to the graphic-text section in the "Experience" column, Douyin is gradually deepening its layout in graphic content. This strategic adjustment not only reminds people of another graphic community giant - Xiaohongshu. This article will explore Douyin's new trends in the graphic field, analyze the business logic behind it, and the possible impact of this change on creators, users and the platform itself.

Can you tell at a glance whether this is Xiaohongshu or Douyin?

The answer may surprise many people. This is the recent Tik Tok.

Douyin's efforts in graphic and text content have been further put on the table. Now the Douyin APP not only directly adds graphic and text switching options to the homepage recommendation column, but also directly makes the first-level entrance "Experience" column on the left into a graphic and text section.

In these two sections, the presentation of pictures and texts has become exactly the same as Xiaohongshu.

In the previous Douyin feed, graphic and text content still appeared in the form of "BGM+title+multiple pictures", which were essentially short videos. However, now the graphics and text in these two sections are directly presented in the form of a double-column waterfall flow. Users can swipe up and down, select content and click to watch.

Graphics and texts found in the Tik Tok feed

Image source: Douyin blogger "Fengsheng"

Friends who follow the trend of Douyin know that there will be new developments in the "Douyin attack on pictures and texts" every once in a while. But this time the intensity is obviously different. Douyin no longer uses independent grass-growing apps to test the willingness of users and bloggers to use it, but once again attacks pictures and texts in the core area such as the homepage of the site.

There are two opinions in the market regarding this revision.

One group believes that Douyin has not only been able to use traffic subsidies to support graphic bloggers who are starting from scratch, but has also built the infrastructure of e-commerce and local life within the platform, helping graphic bloggers improve their commercial monetization efficiency. This is an opportunity for bloggers.

Another group believes that the monetization efficiency and platform loyalty of photo and text bloggers remain to be verified, and this cannot be achieved by subsidies.

However, what is certain is that after years of attempts, Douyin has become increasingly determined to make up for its shortcomings in pictures and texts. Douyin's goal is not to resist Xiaohongshu, but to tap into the users, content and commercial value behind the pictures and texts to improve its own moat.

1. Douyin is becoming more and more like Xiaohongshu

Recently, many people thought they opened Xiaohongshu when they opened Douyin.

Click the "Recommendation" column on Douyin, and the homepage will jump to the picture and text section. After clicking in, I found that the page is very similar to Xiaohongshu - both are double-column information flows, both are mainly picture and text content, interspersed with live broadcast links.

At present, Douyin has set up three scenarios for distributing pictures and texts. In addition to the "Recommendation" column on the homepage, Douyin also puts pictures and texts in the "Experience" column on the homepage. When users search for keywords on the site, the "Experience" column of the search results also adds the option of "showing pictures and texts only".

Distribution scenarios of Tik Tok graphic content

In fact, in October 2021, Douyin launched the picture and text function. At this time, the picture and text content is presented in the form of video, which is equivalent to BGM + title + a collection of pictures that can be slid left and right.

This time, Douyin increased the weight of the picture and text section on the site, which is a big step forward compared to before.

Earlier, ByteDance had been independently incubating picture and text promotion apps as internal horse racing products, and this attempt has never stopped.

As early as 2018, ByteDance incubated the picture and text planting APP Xincao, but it died in less than 10 months; in July 2022, the planting APP Croissant was launched. Croissant supports one-click login of Douyin accounts, and content and fan data are interoperable. The original intention was to further activate the picture and text function launched by Douyin in 2021, but the APP was taken off the shelves shortly afterwards.

In 2023, the original Toutiao search app was renamed Youshi APP, focusing on sharing experiences in food, life, etc. in the form of pictures and texts, and positioning itself as a community product for life experience. Youshi also uses a double-column waterfall flow to present, but the product has not been popular.

So what does the picture and text section of TikTok look like now?

Let’s talk about the creators first. The creators of the Douyin graphic and text section are mainly concentrated in the categories of home improvement, fitness, cute pets, mother and baby, and travel. Many of them are bloggers operating on two or even multiple platforms, and they will point out the way in the introduction column, “🍠Same name as account number”.

The difference is that many of the graphic and text bloggers on Douyin are merchants, and when you click on their homepages, they are almost always filled with "a few pictures + short text + BGM + product showcases"; there is another type of blogger who is an expert in local life group buying, and you can directly place an order for the group buying link by clicking on their homepage.

Judging from the overall atmosphere, the picture and text section of Douyin has a stronger sense of business, but lacks a sense of community and authenticity.

Douyin group buying influencers’ pictures and texts

From the perspective of account operation, in the double-column waterfall flow format, users' direct perception of the graphic content comes from the cover and title.

However, some of the titles set by Douyin graphic bloggers are too long to be read completely, some are more advertising-oriented, and some have no themes, making them less attractive and aesthetically pleasing.

In addition, the text and picture content in Douyin supports adding topics, just like Xiaohongshu. However, some bloggers simply do not add topics, and some topics can be clicked to jump to related topic pages, which are mostly video content, and the number of text and picture content needs to be further supplemented.

Among the topics added by bloggers, there are often activity tags such as "TikTok pictures and texts are coming" and "Picture and text partner program" - the purpose behind this is to get the platform's traffic support.

Douyin is continuously providing traffic incentives to creators. Wenwen, a Douyin pet graphic blogger, told Dingjiao that she would add in-site activity topics related to the graphic in the copy. After completing the corresponding goals, she can get official traffic incentives. The cumulative number of views of these activities has exceeded 100 billion, and she can also see thousands of view rewards in the background.

Several Douyin graphic and text bloggers mentioned that after the Douyin homepage was changed to the graphic and text section, the traffic of their graphic and text content had changed.

Firstly, the homepage is the place that users can see most easily. The appearance of the picture and text section will make it easier for users to discover and pay attention to the picture and text content, which is a good opportunity for picture and text creators.

Secondly, some bloggers feel that the average number of views of their graphic works has increased four or five times recently. In addition, the long-tail effect of the works has also changed significantly. Before, the number of views of the works would stop increasing after two or three days at most after the content was published, but now the number of views may increase by more than 10,000 in a week.

According to AIGC graphic blogger "My Own World", this may be related to the increase in channels through which users access its homepage.

2. Tik Tok’s pictures and texts are not just for planting seeds

When Xiaohongshu began to increase the proportion of short videos and live broadcasts in its picture and text community, why did Douyin, in turn, increase the weight of the picture and text section and focus on picture and text content?

An industry insider told Dingjiao that Xiaohongshu is unique in that it has been able to develop a picture and text community when the short video category is already so mature and occupies such a high user time. As the user time and daily activity growth of Douyin gradually stabilize, Xiaohongshu's active picture and text users naturally become one of the sources of growth that need to be competed for.

Wenwen, from the user's perspective, believes that graphic and text content is more in line with the common viewing scenarios of some young people, such as on public transportation, during lunch breaks at the company, or when queuing outside. It is more convenient to read graphic and text content, and graphic and text content is also easier to spread across social platforms.

One of the things that Douyin was criticized for before was that its content was not as searchable as Xiaohongshu’s because it was difficult to draw conclusions from the video content. Douyin’s addition of graphic and text content can make up for this type of content with high information density, high long-tail value, and greater ease of search.

The content label of Xiaohongshu is "useful". Whether it is a post or a comment area, the atmosphere is more inclined towards "recommendations and suggestions", with more consulting, tutorial/strategy content. "This kind of content that is connected to real-life experience has a higher active search value and can also generate transactions. It is an incremental increase for Douyin," said Wenwen.

The interactive feed of Douyin has destined it to be an immersive time-killing app. Users go to Douyin to relax and have fun, or to make impulse purchases in the live broadcast room, rather than looking for "useful" suggestions. Therefore, the atmosphere in the comment section of Douyin is more inclined to play with memes. Wenwen gave an example, "Some things are great in other places, but you still have to practice them in the comment section of Douyin."

By further increasing the weight of the picture and text section, Douyin may also want to attract a group of picture and text bloggers to switch to Douyin and supplement the types of bloggers on the platform.

Contrary to many people’s impression that “the threshold for graphic and text creation is low”, Cheng Le, head of operations at the MCN agency, believes that the threshold for graphic and text creation is no lower than that for video. One of the foundations of Xiaohongshu’s success is the graphic and text creation and expression capabilities of creators on the platform.

"Many people don't have the ability to express themselves in pictures and texts. Although the threshold for posting pictures and texts is low, the ability to express is related to life experience, emotional resonance, smooth output and other abilities. This is the only way to allow everyone to find like-minded people in the community to share and discuss, rather than focusing on a certain person. The reason why Kuaishou and Douyin became popular earlier than Xiaohongshu is because everyone found that if they wanted to make short videos and live broadcasts, everyone only needed to turn on the camera to record. Therefore, Douyin's traffic is more biased towards the top, because only the top people watch it." Cheng Le said. Each community has its own atmosphere. Xiaohongshu has spent more than 10 years to develop its current unique community atmosphere and user habits.

Cheng Le pointed out that this is something that Douyin cannot learn, but it is also the growth that Douyin really needs, so Douyin cannot be impatient.

One thing is certain: Douyin’s efforts in text and pictures are not only to defend against Xiaohongshu, but also to consider its own content pool and commercialization.

In 2021, when Douyin officially started to focus on graphic and text content on the site, news came out that ByteDance's advertising revenue growth had slowed down.

Wenwen observed that Douyin has laid a solid foundation for e-commerce and local life in recent years. Now that it is focusing on graphic and text content, it is easier to form a closed transaction loop and reduce advertising pressure.

However, ideals are good, but in practice there are gains and losses.

Some merchants have tried to run the path of "pictures and texts + local life + selling goods" on Douyin, but finally found that it is difficult to select products. Although they can achieve a turnover of more than 500,000 yuan a month, after taking into account the verification cycle and refunds, the monthly income cannot even exceed 10,000 yuan.

Many creators mentioned that whether the graphic and text content can continue to be optimized and improve the efficiency of commercial monetization will determine Douyin’s determination to continue investing in the graphic and text section.

3. What are the financial prospects of Douyin pictures and texts?

The blogger "My Own World" studied interactive design abroad and is exposed to AI-related design content on a daily basis. At the beginning of this year, he created a Douyin account and began to publish his practice works - pictures generated by AI that are more imaginative and can provide emotional value.

His creative habit is to set a scene first, such as "Returning to my home in the dense forests of Hokkaido in the severe winter of 1992" or "Returning to Earth after the end of the world, which scene would you most like to see?" and then give a picture based on the set scene.

In the comment section, many fans would use their imagination to talk about everything from movie scenes to literary scenes and even share their own AI pictures taken or created. These exchanges also provided more inspiration for the topic selection of "Own World". At the same time, many fans asked for the original pictures, so he adjusted his early pictures to high definition for fans to take pictures, which attracted a wave of attention.

A set of pictures of small buildings built against trees by the water, posted by "My Own World", received 108,000 likes, becoming his most popular work so far.

This far exceeded his expectations. "When I posted this piece, my number of followers was less than 30,000. I didn't expect that the number of followers would increase by 12,000 overnight."

Based on his personal experience, for the same track and works of the same quality, Douyin's traffic support and fan growth rate are faster than Xiaohongshu.

He told Dingjiao that it took him two months to get from 0 to 10,000 followers, more than a month to get from 10,000 to 20,000, and less than half a month to get from 20,000 to 40,000. The account of the same name "My Own World" on Xiaohongshu started to be updated at the same time, and currently has less than 7,000 followers.

"Douyin has nearly 800 million daily active users, and Xiaohongshu has over 100 million daily active users. Douyin's follower growth and pageview data are better than Xiaohongshu's, and its interactivity (number of comments and frequency of private messages) is also stronger." said the blogger.

Tik Tok background image and text traffic reward

Photo provided by the interviewee According to official data from Douyin, the number of graphic and text creators on the platform is increasing rapidly, but a crucial question is: will the monetization channels and conversion efficiency of graphic and text bloggers be higher than those of video bloggers and live broadcasters?

Many novice graphic and text bloggers mentioned that when operating pure graphic and text content on Douyin, it is relatively easy to accumulate fans in the initial stage, but after opening the window display, they encounter great difficulties in product selection and transaction conversion.

A clothing merchant told Dingjiao that at the beginning of this year, he took a fancy to Douyin's text and picture traffic subsidies and began to vigorously operate text and picture sales, but after half a year of trial, the amount of pure text and picture content released decreased.

The reason is that, on the one hand, there is fierce competition in the fashion short video market, and the traffic of pictures and texts is relatively average. After gaining a wave of short-term traffic dividends, the data gradually declined. On the other hand, pictures and texts may be able to intuitively introduce the characteristics and advantages of clothing, but video content is more suitable for showing the usage scenarios and effects of clothing. At present, he prefers to publish video content.

"My Own World" has also opened a Douyin showcase, but it sells more daily necessities and books. "I can only make more than 100 yuan a week. I feel that the account has not found a more targeted audience for monetization, and AI-related content is still a bit far from bringing goods." At the same time, the blogger pointed out that Douyin's display interface is still mainly pictures, with less text, so if advertising content is inserted after a few pictures, it will be more obvious, thus hurting fans and account tone. In addition, there are relatively few brand pictures and texts on Douyin. Brands are more willing to let bloggers do oral broadcasts, and the platform's traffic tools are more targeted at video delivery." On Xiaohongshu, he has already received a picture and text promotion for a skin care product.

For the platform, as long as the platform continues to provide subsidies, there will still be graphic and text bloggers who want to join Douyin to share a piece of the traffic.

However, these bloggers tend to "distribute on multiple platforms" and go wherever there is traffic. This also makes it almost impossible for platforms to form a competitive advantage of "bloggers monopoly" by spending money to poach people.

However, industry insiders pointed out that the user value and content value of pictures and texts are valued by many large companies. Even if it is difficult for Douyin to monetize directly from them, it cannot just give up.

At the request of the interviewees, Wenwen and Chengle are pseudonyms in this article.