Luo Yonghao doesn't make friends with video accounts

This article introduces in detail the current situation of video account sales from five aspects, and takes the "miserable failure" of the "Make Friends" video account live broadcast as an example to introduce the traffic mechanism and future development of the video account. It is recommended for friends who are interested in the operation of the video account to read and learn.

This year on June 18, Luo Yonghao still did not appear in the live broadcast room of the video account of "Jia Ge Peng You". A month ago, the first broadcast of "Jia Ge Peng You" on the video account hit a snag. At 5 pm on April 23, "Jia Ge Peng You" started its first live broadcast on the video account. However, Luo Yonghao did not show up. The live broadcast was broadcast by Luo Yonghao's old partner Zhu Xiaomu and other anchors of "Jia Ge Peng You". After one hour of broadcasting, the audience exceeded 20,000. In the nearly six hours of live broadcast, it only attracted 93,300 people. According to the data of the third-party platform Xinshi, the estimated sales of the first broadcast of the video account of "Jia Ge Peng You" was 1.2467 million yuan.

Jiaogepengyou, which has 23 million fans on Douyin, suffered a "disastrous defeat" when it was launched on Video Account. On Double 11 in 2022, before Luo Yonghao settled in Taobao, the live broadcast was also broadcast by the anchor of Jiaogepengyou. Data showed that one week after the launch, the daily viewership of Jiaogepengyou's live broadcast room had reached nearly 3 million. Before Luo Yonghao started the broadcast, the account had gained nearly 1 million fans. Although Jiaogepengyou's performance on JD.com is not as good as Taobao Live, before Luo Yonghao's live broadcast, the minimum viewership of each live broadcast could be 300,000, and the highest viewership exceeded one million. Luo Yonghao's live broadcast is a double guarantee of sales and public opinion. When he settled in Douyin, Luo Yonghao's first broadcast set a GMV record of 110 million; according to the estimated data of the third-party platform Xinwan, Luo Yonghao's total sales on Taobao's first broadcast were about 210 million yuan; in the first broadcast on JD.com, the GMV of a single broadcast exceeded 150 million yuan.

According to the logic of big anchors entering the platform, they generally choose to enter the new platform during the 618 and Double Eleven promotion nodes, and use the dual gimmicks of "first broadcast" and "big promotion" to boost sales. During 618 last year, Jiao Ge Pengyou entered JD's live broadcast room, and Luo Yonghao created a record of 150 million yuan in sales. One month before the start of 618 this year, Jiao Ge Pengyou entered the video account, but the video account 618 promotion has been open for five days, and Luo Yonghao has not appeared. Moreover, Jiao Ge Pengyou has no plans to promote Luo Yonghao's live broadcast on the video account in the short term.

Jiaogepengyou called the plan to enter the video account "exploration, not formal operation". When asked whether Luo Yonghao would choose to live broadcast on the day of the 618 promotion, Jiaogepengyou also said, "Mr. Luo will not do that."

The 618 promotion of Video Account was launched on May 24, but Jiaogepengyou did not actively participate in the 618 promotion of Video Account. Jiaogepengyou's live broadcast on Video Account is daily, usually starting at 10 am or 5 pm, and the live broadcast time is not long. On May 28, Jiaogepengyou's video account started live broadcasting at 9 am and ended in less than two hours.

Obviously, Jiaogepengyou has not invested too many resources in the video account. And the video account has also not shown extra enthusiasm. Previously, whether it was settled in Douyin, Taobao and JD.com, the platform would have a certain amount of publicity and provide certain traffic support and publicity. However, Jiaogepengyou said that the video account does not have obvious traffic support. This situation is not an isolated case. According to Shijie.com, in 2023, the Oriental Selection Team planned to settle in the video account, but there was no follow-up. According to people familiar with the matter, WeChat’s attitude is that it welcomes people to start broadcasting, but it clearly stated that there is no traffic support and there will be no distinction in daily treatment.

A person close to Video Account said that Video Account provides support for anchors and has recently launched relevant support measures. However, as a "platform where everyone can create", Video Account insists on universal traffic and will not use large-scale traffic to support so-called super-head anchors, nor will it tilt traffic excessively towards super-head anchors.

This operating model determines that Video Account cannot create Internet celebrities and super anchors like Douyin, and it is difficult to produce specific cultural and commercial phenomena, and it naturally lacks the soil for the growth of big anchors.

Video accounts have been around for more than four years, and live streaming has been around for two years. Tencent's latest financial report shows that WeChat has 1.359 billion monthly active users, and the total time spent on video accounts by users in the first quarter increased by more than 80% year-on-year.

Although Video Account has been developing along its own path, and the number of merchants and influencers who live stream and sell goods on Video Account is increasing, it has not yet been able to respond well to the expectations of the outside world. At a time when live streaming e-commerce is fiercely competitive, Video Account has not yet produced an anchor who has made over 100 million yuan in a single broadcast.

During the 618 period, all major content platforms and live broadcast platforms relied on big anchors to lead the charge and support the platform traffic and sales. However, video accounts without big anchors will inevitably have a weak presence in the public opinion field, which is obviously not conducive to releasing platform traffic during the big promotion.

Video account live e-commerce focuses on long-term operation, but obviously, both the top anchors and brands need more explosive sales, respond to the expectations of the outside world, launch a "war" on their own genes, or move forward along the product concept that WeChat has always adhered to. This is a multiple-choice question left for Video Account.

01

It's not that there haven't been big anchors who have live-streamed on video accounts. When Yu Minhong founded Oriental Selection, he opened dual-platform live broadcasts on Douyin and Video Accounts at the same time. According to E-Commerce News Pro, Yu Minhong appeared in the video account live broadcast room in March 2022, with a viewership of 100,000. Oriental Selection received support from Douyin in key links such as "positioning, product selection and traffic operation", and eventually became popular on Douyin. Since then, Oriental Selection has suspended live broadcasts on Video Accounts.

In 2023, facing the depletion of traffic and trying to get rid of the dependence on a single platform, Dongfang Zhenxuan began to seek full-platform operation, and Video Account was also one of the platforms it targeted. According to "Shijie", in 2023, the Dongfang Zhenxuan team sent two vice presidents to visit WeChat to discuss the entry into Video Account. However, according to people familiar with the matter, although WeChat also welcomes the broadcast, it clearly stated that there is no traffic support and there will be no difference in daily treatment. In February 2024, Dongfang Zhenxuan, who is already a top anchor on Douyin and has 30 million fans on Douyin, announced the restart of the video account live broadcast plan. However, what appeared in the live broadcast room was only a replay, not a live broadcast. On February 5 this year, the Dongfang Zhenxuan video account played a replay video of "Yu Minhong and Feng Feng Dialogue with Writer Yu Shicun", and the slogan was "Yu Minhong's first broadcast, and another 20,000 red envelope covers will be issued." However, there were only 22 comments and 60 likes on this live broadcast replay. The live broadcast plan to restart the video account was shelved after only one day.

After Oriental Selection suffered a Waterloo, Jiaogepengyou also stumbled on Video Account. Jiaogepengyou said that it has not yet formed a special team for Video Account, but has just assigned some people from the department to try it out. If the evaluation result is not good, it will be suspended. Regarding the current live broadcast effect, Jiaogepengyou bluntly said, "The audience recommendation of Video Account is very inaccurate, so the conversion efficiency is very low." In fact, since the middle of last year, Video Account has also increased traffic incentives for external anchors to live broadcast on Video Account. In July last year, Video Account launched an incentive plan for live broadcast talents, which provides tiered traffic subsidies based on GMV and fans on external sites such as Douyin and Taobao. In 2024, Video Account will once again release multiple high-quality talent reward incentives to give external anchors a certain amount of traffic subsidies.

But judging from the results of Jiao Ge Pengyou's entry into the video account, this top anchor with 23 million fans on Douyin does not seem to have enjoyed much traffic dividends on the video account.

At present, many big anchors from other platforms have opened accounts on video accounts, such as Crazy Little Yangge, Li Jiaqi, etc. However, most of them just opened accounts and did not start live broadcasts.

Video accounts that lack big anchors are also cultivating their own native anchors. Data shows that in 2022, service providers introduced tens of thousands of anchors to video accounts, contributing more than 30% of sales in total. The proportion of anchors who bring goods in the video account's overall ranking is also increasing. Last year on 618, there were 22 live broadcast rooms of experts in the TOP50 of the overall ranking, accounting for 44%; by Double 11, 32 live broadcast rooms of experts had entered the list, accounting for 64%.

Video accounts have already produced many influencers, such as Guo Yiyi, Qiao Jiaozhu, the couple Bao Ge and Bao Sao, Yan Jun and his wife, Shunzi Talking about Tea, etc. Among them, Guo Yiyi, who has a relatively large voice, has created a GMV of more than 30 million in a single live broadcast on Video Accounts after switching from Douyin to Video Accounts in 2022. During the Double Eleven period last year, the total sales of his live broadcast room exceeded 50 million, and the total number of viewers was 2 million. Some media call him the "No. 1 Sister" of Video Accounts.

However, the overall volume and commercial realization ability of the top anchor of Video Number are still far behind those of the top anchors of Douyin, Kuaishou, and Taobao. Super anchors have strong fans, appeal, and influence. A concrete indicator is that super anchors can set a record of bringing in over 100 million yuan in a single game. Li Jiaqi is needless to say. Douyin's super anchors, whether Dong Yuhui, Xiao Yangge, or Jia Nailiang and Mr. Dong, have repeatedly set records of over 100 million yuan in single-game GMV. So far, there has been no super anchor with a single-game GMV of over 100 million yuan on Video Number.

02

The reason why Douyin, Kuaishou, and Taobao can incubate big anchors is that, on the one hand, the platforms themselves actively create big anchors, and on the other hand, the platforms will dig big anchors from outside. But no matter which level, it is difficult for anchors to become super anchors by their own efforts, and the platform's traffic irrigation is indispensable. Douyin's traffic distribution mechanism and platform operation mechanism can not only make ordinary people such as Yu Wenliang, Wen Shen, and Guo Youcai famous, but also use the ability to set topics to produce specific cultural and commercial phenomena, laying a certain soil foundation for the growth of big anchors, so that super anchors such as Luo Yonghao, Xiao Yangge, Guangdong Couple, Dongfang Selection, and Dong Yuhui can be produced.

On the other hand, the "universal" traffic mechanism that Video Account believes in internally determines that it will not tilt traffic towards a certain anchor. This is fundamentally different from Douyin, Kuaishou, and Taobao, so it is difficult to "cultivate" a big anchor.

At the 2021 WeChat Open Class, Zhang Xiaolong said when talking about video accounts, "I believe that ordinary people have great creativity. On the contrary, purchased content may not necessarily impress people. Throughout the history of WeChat, we have never emphasized strong operations for this reason. Systems and rules are much more efficient than operations."

The above-mentioned person close to Video Account said that the traffic of Video Account is not particularly inclined towards big anchors. The traffic distribution mechanism of Video Account includes a decentralized traffic distribution mechanism, which is jointly driven by platform recommendations and social recommendations. Video Account hopes that merchants and influencers can operate sustainably on Video Account.

Video accounts do not deliberately accumulate traffic, and focus on a "universal mechanism". This makes Video accounts relatively weak in their ability to create hits and celebrities, and it is difficult to produce rich cultural and commercial phenomena. The business ecosystem is not mature, which results in even if Video accounts have traffic incentives for big anchors, it is difficult for them to become top anchors.

During the 618 shopping event last year, the video account bloggers "Brother Bao and Sister Bao" brought in more than 35 million yuan in sales; image stylist Qiao Jiaozhu created a GMV record of more than 50 million yuan; during the Double Eleven shopping event last year, aesthetics blogger Yan Junmeishi achieved a total sales of nearly 50 million yuan... They are all top anchors on the video account, but when put on the entire network, these data are not impressive enough. It is difficult for super anchors to grow from the soil of the video account, and the video account is not active in introducing big anchors.

When introducing a large number of external anchors, the person in charge of Taobao Live said that they had talked to all the big anchors on the market. According to 36Kr, a person close to "Make Friends" said that the negotiation was personally conducted by Dai Shan, the number one anchor of Taobao Tmall at the time. On the day of the Double 11 broadcast, Taobao gave Luo Yonghao 4-5 times the screen traffic on Douyin, which was a treatment that Li Jiaqi had never had, and the signing fee was "not a small amount either."

Regarding the entry into the video account, Jiaogepengyou said, "As far as I know, there is no incentive, it is just exploration. We have contact with the other party, but it is not an invitation. Because the video account is promoting the entry of experts across the entire network."

03

In addition to subjective attitudes, at this stage, Video Account is still incomplete in terms of infrastructure and commercial infrastructure such as advertising systems. For example, Video Account traffic is not accurate, and traffic labels are not subdivided enough, which is also an important reason that restricts big anchors from investing resources in Video Account. Last year, 36Kr reported that many merchants on Video Account encountered such problems. One merchant said that Video Account only has a few rough label options, "There are hundreds of thousands of views, but in fact 70% of the traffic is useless, which is completely different from Douyin." Another merchant also said that if the platform's traffic is not accurate, the conversion efficiency will not be improved, and the merchant's marketing costs will not be reduced.

Jiaogepengyou, who just joined the video account and started broadcasting, also said frankly, "We feel that the audience recommendations of the video account are not accurate, so the conversion efficiency is very low."

According to Zizibang, the traffic system of Video Account is not perfect yet, and there are many factors. On the one hand, Video Account started relatively late, and the data accumulation is insufficient. The data labels or user portraits of Video Account are not fine enough, which affects the scope and effect of traffic. Secondly, Video Account has a lot of traffic, but it will not be diverted in large quantities for live streaming. The platform still focuses on inclusive traffic incentives.

During the Q1 earnings conference call last year, Tencent President Martin Lau also mentioned this issue, "(For video live streaming e-commerce), the most important thing is to ensure that the transaction ecosystem is of high quality." He hopes to "build a good infrastructure step by step and achieve the best balance between user experience and merchant return rate." But he also admitted that "this will take some time."

On the other hand, the user profile of the video account does not match the user profile of the current mainstream live e-commerce platforms. It is both a blue ocean and a "lowland".

The user portrait of the video account released by WeChat Open Class shows that the average customer unit price of goods sold in video account live broadcasts exceeds 200 yuan; female users have become the main consumers in the video account live broadcast room, accounting for 80%; users placing orders from first-, second-, and third-tier cities account for about 60%; and the age distribution is slightly mature.

Currently, many live streaming sales are linked to "low prices", and the ability of big anchors to control the right to speak and appeal also depends on the price advantage of the products. Xiao Gu, the head of Kuaishou e-commerce, once revealed in an interview that the average customer price of JD.com, Taobao Tmall, Douyin and Kuaishou is 200 yuan, 120-150 yuan, 90 yuan and 50-60 yuan respectively. Even for Dong Yuhui, the average customer price in the live broadcast room rarely exceeds 200 yuan, and most of the time it is below 100 yuan. However, judging from the current average customer price of Video Account, the user portrait of Video Account does not match that of mainstream e-commerce platforms, and big anchors entering Video Account may not necessarily achieve good results.

The reason why Video Account does not introduce big anchors is also related to its own development plan. The above-mentioned person familiar with Video Account said that Video Account is still a product-level goal at this stage, including improving infrastructure construction. "Video Account has its own pace and is not in a hurry."

A senior person in the e-commerce industry once told Alphabet List that Tencent has a clear plan and path for Video Account and has high expectations; as for how to make money and how much money to make at the moment, that is not the key.

04

Earlier this year, Tencent Chairman and CEO Ma Huateng commented at the Tencent Annual Meeting that the video account "lived up to expectations", giving Tencent a solid handle again after the failure of short videos in the past. "What we can fully develop this year is the video account live e-commerce, e-commerce and advertising complement each other." It is not difficult to see that Tencent's senior management expects the video account to be live e-commerce, but the video account, which lacks big anchors, has obviously lagged behind in the public opinion field.

The impact of a benchmark anchor on the platform is obviously exponential. The emergence of a big anchor can prove the commercial capabilities of the platform, and it can also attract more merchants, anchors, and more users to participate.

In order to develop live e-commerce, Douyin has supported Luo Yonghao, a benchmark anchor. Douyin has also used Luo Yonghao to attract customers, anchors, and institutions. This is why Taobao has recruited big anchors across the network after losing Wei Ya.

Of course, for video accounts, inviting external anchors also presents many difficulties. At a time when the pattern of live streaming is solidified, super anchors have obvious "platform characteristics", such as Xiao Yangge and Dong Yuhui who only broadcast on Douyin, Simba who broadcasts exclusively on Kuaishou, and Li Jiaqi who broadcasts exclusively on Taobao. Cross-platform anchors also tend to have their own focus.

WeChat obviously has to pay more to invite a host who already has a fixed fan base and business ecosystem to live broadcast on a video account whose business ecosystem is not yet mature. In addition, there are not many big hosts on the market that can be tapped by video accounts, who have both fan appeal and topic popularity, and who also match the video account ecosystem. The attitude of the video account is that if it does not actively introduce big hosts, whether this route can be successful depends on market testing.

Before the video account, another person who believed in inclusive values ​​was Su Hua, the former CEO of Kuaishou.

In 2014, Kuaishou, based on the value of "fairness and inclusiveness", had no content operation team, did not deliberately guide hot topics, did not support top Vs, and treated all users equally. Su Hua said that every user needs to be seen. Of course, unlike Video Account, Kuaishou's inclusive traffic strategy has produced family-style anchors such as Simba.

Video accounts need to take their own path and do e-commerce at their own pace, which is in line with WeChat's consistent development logic. The success of WeChat and WeChat mini-programs is also the product of this product logic, but the difference is that WeChat is at the forefront in both the instant social field and the mini-program field, but in the field of short videos and live streaming, video accounts are latecomers and followers.

At a time when the e-commerce landscape is basically solidified and there are no benchmark anchors, can Video Account’s live streaming sales catch up with Douyin?

References:

"It's time for Zhang Xiaolong to stand up for the video account" Huxiu

"Luo Yonghao rarely showed up, and only 93,000 people came to this important live broadcast after nearly 6 hours" Meijing Headline

"The data of Luo Yonghao, the "number one Douyin player" on Taobao's first show is released. Will the battle for traffic reappear on Double Eleven?" DataEye

"Douyin e-commerce, the hope of the whole village | Deep Krypton" 36Kr

"Zhangzhou mother sells 30 million products in one day" 21st Century Business Review

"You may not watch the video account, but someone is making a lot of money there" 36Kr Future Consumption

"Video Account, You Need to Stand Up and Support Your Family"

Tencent invested in Oriental Selection E-Commerce News Pro

Author: Xue Yaping; Source public account: Zimubang (ID: 686668)