What did the small websites miss during the 618 chaos?

During the 618 e-commerce promotion, the advertising strategy of content community platforms has become a hot topic. This article deeply analyzes how platforms such as Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, and Zhihu find a balance between profit pressure and user experience, explores the inevitable choice of content platform commercialization and the challenges it faces, and provides unique insights for understanding the commercialization path of content communities.

As long as you open Bilibili, you can see advertisements for the 618 e-commerce promotion flying everywhere.

In fact, advertisements are everywhere in various content communities.

Reading a free online article, here comes the 618 advertisement.

When downloading a document, watching ads can speed it up...

In addition, various advertisements have begun to come alive.

During Tmall’s 618 event this year, Tmall Health and Harbin Pharmaceutical used a set of magical advertisements to trigger consumers’ collective “memories”.

Others insert benefits into the live broadcast room, but Harbin Pharmaceutical insists on inserting advertisements into the live broadcast room.

Not to mention, this "unique trick" achieved unexpected results.

A series of "classic advertisements" that carry the memories of a generation were remade into various short videos. Not only did they not lose fans, they also triggered a collective "memory killing" among many netizens.

Many netizens said: It feels like returning to childhood, love watching it, take more photos.

These ads are like a mirror, reflecting the anxieties of content communities.

As the investment boom in the entire Internet industry gradually cools down, 2024 will become a critical year for content community platforms.

Chen Rui, chairman of Bilibili, must fulfill his promise of making a profit by the end of 2024.

Xiaohongshu needs to prove to the capital market that it can support its high valuation.

Zhihu also needs to consider how far it is from making a profit.

Content platforms know that crude advertisements are the most harmful to users, but they can only use poison to quench their thirst.

Is there a way to crack it?

In this regard, Zhang Lin and Shu Le had a discussion. I think:

Advertising itself is a major source of revenue for various websites, especially for content platforms with relatively single consumption scenarios, advertising contributes greatly to revenue.

In fact, from WeChat to Weibo, to graphic, text and video platforms, advertising is the norm.

Even though there are many revenue-generating scenarios, advertising, as the most primitive revenue-generating scenario, will still exist and may be concentrated at certain times.

618 is obviously such a special period.

At the same time, advertising can also indirectly reflect the strength of the content platform.

The number of advertisements is directly proportional to the commercial value of the platform, and the advertising algorithm distribution of the buying volume model will also cause some users to be exposed to some low-end advertising content due to their previous content selection.

It has to be said that the relatively few profit-making scenarios for content platforms is the fundamental reason why advertising is still one of the main sources of revenue.

In essence, taking advertisements is a rigid commercial necessity.

The commercialization of content platforms is inevitable, otherwise their continued existence and content output cannot be supported. This is a love-hate situation.

Choosing advertising to achieve commercialization is an option when there are fewer profit scenarios.

In addition, there is membership system or live streaming. Xiaohongshu's efforts in buyer e-commerce are an option to break through the existing profit scenario.

In addition, if content platforms want to advance, they often need more stories to brainwash the capital market, and it is difficult to succeed relying solely on advertising.

After all, the purpose of pleasing the capital market is to seek transfusions in order to expand one's own industrial chain and achieve further strategic goals. This is a common choice for content platforms and there is nothing wrong with it, especially when there are larger strategic ideas that cannot be achieved relying solely on venture capital and self-financing.

In this regard, Chen Rui, chairman and CEO of Bilibili, once said, "Small and beautiful cannot coexist with development and growth. If Bilibili does not move forward, it will surely decline more and more until it perishes. It will not stay in that state of being neither big nor small and very good."

This is also very realistic, that is, any platform may be based on sentiment at the beginning, but after it grows, it will inevitably be commercialized, unless it is impossible to achieve.

From Douban to Bilibili, all have made various commercial attempts from advertising to knowledge payment, content payment, etc., and Zhihu's commercial exploration has never stopped.

It can only be said that when it comes to advertising problems, most content communities are walking a tightrope between user experience and commercialization. Currently, they are all on the balancing beam, but are only exploring for the sake of revenue, so it is inevitable that their movements are distorted and they do not score high.