Many millions of food accounts have stopped updating

The core of the difficulty in monetizing food accounts lies in the user's learning needs and continued attention. Although food cooking has a wide audience, recipe accounts often face the dilemma that users no longer pay attention to them after learning once. This is because users have limited learning needs for specific dishes. Once they have learned, they are unlikely to watch the same tutorial repeatedly. Take a look at this article to learn more.

On TikTok, many cooking and food accounts with millions of followers have stopped updating.

The main reason they stopped updating is that they are not making money.

Today we will talk with you about cooking delicious food and recipes at home.

1. People always watch you cook.

Why are there so many cooking accounts popping up on TikTok?

Even if someone has taught you how to stir-fry shredded potatoes or make scrambled eggs with tomatoes a long time ago, if you shoot it again in 2023 or 2024, millions of people will watch it.

The reason is simple, because gourmet cooking has such a wide audience.

1. From the audience’s perspective, from middle school students aged 12 or 13 to seniors in their 50s and 60s, they all have the need to learn and understand.

When we talk about fried shredded potatoes, scrambled eggs with leeks, spicy tofu, etc., there is no age limit for these.

Many people need to learn how to do things in various scenarios, such as when they graduate, fall in love, etc.

2. From the perspective of content, there is also curiosity.

Some people are in their thirties or forties and have never eaten lobster, hairy crab, donkey meat, roasted lamb legs or other seafood.

China is a vast country with abundant resources and delicious food from all over the country, so it is worth seeing. In some places, there are dozens or even hundreds of kinds of pasta.

2. Differences in content and form

So when it comes to cooking, if you want to have traffic, you have to work hard on the content format.

Otherwise, if you are exactly the same as others and just set up a pan to stir-fry shredded potatoes, no one will watch you.

So how to make a breakthrough in form? I will provide you with three directions.

1. Character Differences

Some are chefs, some are office workers, some are migrant workers, and some are rural wives.

Some people do it alone, some are couples, and some are a group of brothers.

In addition, among the same women, some are thin and some have proud figures. For example, on Douyin, there are many women wearing short skirts and tight pants cooking in rural areas.

2. Scenario Differences

Some people choose to cook by the stream or in the mountains, while others choose to cook on the grassland or in a yurt.

Some people cook outdoors in the countryside, while others build a small yard to cook.

Some cook in luxurious villas, while others cook in their own shabby rental houses.

Different scenes attract different people and convey different emotions.

3. Differences in reasons

Some people cook to recreate the delicacies that are popular on the Internet or in historical books, while others cook to challenge themselves to make a sumptuous dinner for 10 or 20 yuan.

Some people want to record the working life of a family of three, how to spend only 600 yuan a month to feed a family of three.

Others want to show everyone how to spend 200, 300 or even 1,000 yuan on food every day.

Some people cook for left-behind children, rural elderly people, strangers, etc., and then listen to their stories.

Everyone has different reasons for cooking, which naturally gives users a reason to watch.

You must always remember that shooting videos is not the purpose; giving users a reason to watch them is the purpose.

3. Recipes and cooking are two different things

There is a basic understanding about cooking that many people don't understand.

This results in completely different final monetization results, with revenue differences ranging from several times to even dozens of times.

1. Recipe Account

A recipe account is essentially a teaching tool. When users want to learn how to cook a certain dish, they will search, compare, and then make it themselves.

Users have very clear demands for recipe accounts. They either want to learn something recently and take a look because they think it’s useful, or they want to search for it right now.

Otherwise, if users have no demand at the moment and just swipe away when they see a video, they are not very willing to follow an account.

2. Cooking account

When users watch cooking accounts, they are not essentially going to learn how the dishes are actually cooked.

What users see is the content, such as why the blogger wants to make this dish, how much the blogger spent on these things, what tools he used, and what kind of visual effect is presented.

Just like many rural cooking accounts, making roasted pork and roasted lamb in the countryside, do you think users really go there to learn how to make it?

Of course not. Users just go to watch the fun. They just want to see the cool feeling of roasting a whole lamb and satisfy their inner desires.

This includes many rural content such as making snails, stewing bamboo shoots, and making tofu. Users are not watching how to cook tofu, but how to make tofu and how to dig bamboo shoots.

Therefore, after comparing the two, the content appeal and attention of a cooking account are much stronger than that of a recipe account.

4. Difficulty in monetizing food accounts

Why have many accounts that provide food tutorials stopped updating? I have seen at least a dozen accounts with 350 to 500 followers.

Some stopped updating two or three years ago, and some stopped updating in the past year.

1. One-time learning

Because users will not read accounts that make recipes after reading them, even if they have followed them.

Because a tutorial account shares 200 dishes, users may only need 20 of them.

Among the 20 dishes, users only need to learn three or five recipes.

Once the user has completed the learning, they no longer need it and there is no need to read it again.

Just think about it yourself, and you will understand your behavior and psychological state when searching for recipes online.

2. The focus of the content is not on the product

A recipe account where users focus on the dishes.

Because you have to consider what vegetables to buy, how much salt to put, how to cut them, how to control the heat, etc.

Users' focus is not on pots, spatulas, seasoning bottles, aprons, or tables.

So from beginning to end, what we build is not the user's consumption mindset, but the learning mindset.

In addition, when users learn how to cook, what they lack is not salt, soy sauce, pots, shovels, or gas.

All these users exist, and they just want to learn how to make cold cucumber salad.

But for a food account about cooking, users go to read the content, broaden their horizons, and communicate with the blogger.

Users follow bloggers and look forward to what interesting things the blogger will bring in the next video. They have a trusting relationship with bloggers.

Therefore, bloggers have a high degree of scalability in content.

The blogger made dumplings with his wife at home today, and tomorrow he can take his wife outdoors to catch fish and shrimp for some river food.

Its scene richness is much higher than that of a pure recipe account, so merchants are willing to advertise because there is an opportunity for embedded advertising.

If you are currently working on this track, I hope you can reflect on it and see how to adjust.

Otherwise, even the gourmet uncles who used to have tens of millions of fans can’t do it just by cooking.

Author: Shili Village

Source: WeChat public account: "Shili Village (ID: shilipxl)"