Gimmick or trend? It’s hard for CEOs to become internet celebrities

Recently, CEOs have begun to become internet celebrities. Why is this happening? Is it sustainable for entrepreneurs to run their own media?

Yesterday, 360 Group founder Zhou Hongyi originally planned to live broadcast a test drive of the Xiaopeng Huitian flying car, but because Xiaopeng Huitian failed to complete the test flight procedures, the flying car could not take off.

Although the two sides reached an agreement later, the topic #周洪祎's outburst on the live broadcast still became the number one hot search on Douyin that day.

Just two days ago, after a few days of controversy over the final payment of the Maybach auction, Zhou Hongyi released a 1 minute and 56 second short video titled "True youth is to keep your passion going." In the video, he is wearing his signature red polo shirt and a white baseball cap, with the light of his phone reflected on the transparent lens, and the background changes between the car and the high-speed train.

As one of the most popular entrepreneurs in recent years, Zhou Hongyi is indeed worthy of the title of "never stopping". Fourteen years ago, he was one of the protagonists of the 3Q war. Fourteen years later, he shook hands with Ma Huateng and reconciled, was praised as a "car model" at the auto show, and auctioned Maybach at a high price... Now, he has become a "new Internet celebrity" in the automotive industry, and his every move is bringing traffic to different car companies and industry practitioners.

Opportunity and cost are always considerations in business. Driven by interests, former rivals can meet and laugh it off, and it is not uncommon for someone to step out from behind the scenes and become a celebrity.

However, the pace of CEOs becoming Internet celebrities seems to have accelerated recently.

1. A two-way journey between entrepreneurs and influencers

As a representative of the first generation of the Internet, Zhou Hongyi called for "If possible, I think all entrepreneurs should become Internet celebrities" at the beginning of this year. According to the data from Relang, Zhou Hongyi has been on the Douyin hot search twice in the past week, and the number of people watching live broadcasts on his account has increased significantly. All these phenomena confirm his call at the beginning of the year.

In an era where everyone has a microphone, this microphone passed from the hands of entrepreneurs to the public, and finally back to the entrepreneurs.

Douyin hot search list on the evening of May 7 (Photo source: Douyin)

Why is there such a change?

To a certain extent, this is related to the changes in user habits brought about by current short videos and live broadcasts. Take cars as an example. In the past, cars were sold at 4S stores, where consumers learned about car models, placed orders, and performed post-maintenance.

With the popularization of live streaming and short videos on the Internet, car companies can directly reach more to c target consumers, and consumers can deepen their interest in the released models through videos and evaluation content co-created by car company CEOs and celebrities.

Nowadays, the time for a car to be sold may be at the launch event. Consumers see the latest model at the launch event and then place an order. As for the specific data of this model, they may know it more than the sales data.

Lei Jun, Li Bin and other heads of new energy vehicle companies are keenly aware of this and have transformed the traditional to b car company thinking into to c. They attract traffic through live broadcasts, short videos and other means, and thus become the brand's best "ambassadors."

Specifically, Lei Jun, who is known as the "male protagonist of a cool article", promoted the Xiaomi SU7 through his personal accounts on various platforms. This way of promotion by entrepreneurs not only builds momentum for product marketing, but also enhances consumers' trust in the brand and products. Within 24 hours of the launch of the Xiaomi SU7, the number of pre-orders for the SU7 exceeded 88,898.

At the same time, Lei Jun's past was once again dug up by the public, and he was also dubbed "the best result of ordinary people's efforts", which to some extent shaped Lei Jun's down-to-earth and reliable personal IP image. Entrepreneurs become Internet celebrities, saving marketing costs while also contributing to the creation of their personal IP.

From "Lei Jun" to "Are you OK?" to "The Male Lead in a Cool Story", Lei Jun seems to be favored by the Internet every time. The benefits of CEO celebrity are also being seen by more entrepreneurs, who are trying to emulate them.

Image source: Station B

Times change. Against the backdrop of the current economic pressure, from Luo Yonghao and Yu Minhong who made a comeback by relying on live streaming, to the "male protagonist of cool articles" Lei Jun, to the "red-dressed leader" Zhou Hongyi, entrepreneurs who once hid behind the scenes have personally stepped forward and actively exerted their influence.

While entrepreneurs are developing into influencers, top influencers with huge traffic are turning into entrepreneurs in order to monetize their IP sustainably. Brother Yang, who took in apprentices and became a boss, Simba, who built his own supply chain, and Luo Yonghao, who wanders between the identities of influencer and entrepreneur...

What influencers lack is products and brands, while what entrepreneurs lack is traffic and public influence. Only the combination of the two can maximize profits. Entrepreneurs and influencers are running in both directions, but the ultimate goal of each other is not the other.

2. Entrepreneurs are back in the spotlight, but the landscape has changed

Entrepreneurs being active on social media is nothing new.

As early as 2012, Jumei launched its CEO Chen Ou's "I Am My Own Spokesperson" advertisement. After the advertisement was launched, Jumei's sales increased more than ten times, and the number of Weibo fans of founder Chen Ou skyrocketed in a short period of time.

Image source network

With the development of social media, almost every entrepreneur has their own personal Weibo and short video accounts on Weibo and short video platforms, where they promote and output their ideas...

However, as the Internet gradually gets rid of the wild era, the influence of each opinion leader is expanding synchronously, and ultimately the output content of most entrepreneur accounts tends to be more serious and serious, rather than the "personal accounts" that the audience wants to see . This is not only a need for the entrepreneur's personal image building, but also a need to maintain the image of the company. Every move of the entrepreneur will have a huge impact on the company, and the high exposure of celebrities is undoubtedly a factor that is too difficult to control.

Affected by this, the so-called "personal accounts" of most entrepreneurs are more like marketing outlets for their companies. Take the recently popular Lei Jun as an example. He joined Bilibili in 2020. Although there are some ghost animal content in cooperation with netizens, the main content is to cooperate with Xiaomi's product promotion. Before the release of the video related to Xiaomi SU7, his Bilibili account had been inactive for half a year.

Lei Jun is not often in the world, but his marketing legend is often circulated in the world.

Image source: Station B

However, where there are "safety seekers", there are also "experiencers". In addition to Zhou Hongyi mentioned above, there are also many entrepreneurs who are deeply involved in self-media. Take Yang Tianzhen as an example. On Xiaohongshu, her output content is divided into multiple columns such as Tianzhen Office, Tianzhen Travel Season, Tianzhen Outfits, and Tianzhen Daily. Relying on the output of experience, money-making logic, interview skills and other content, the number of fans of @杨天真 Xiaohongshu account has reached 3.136 million.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

At present, as entrepreneurs increase their investment in Internet operations, their understanding is also developing in-depth. However, it is not easy for entrepreneurs to keep abreast of young people's trends in the ever-changing Internet.

Therefore, many middle-aged entrepreneurs choose to push their children to the front of the stage to promote them with a younger and more online image. In the previous article "From short videos to short dramas, brand "heirs" play the Internet "game"", it is mentioned that from short videos to short dramas, from @Towel Young Master to Holiland @Boss Luo Cheng, the second and third generations of brands have become more and more active on content platforms in recent years. They are obviously more mature and comfortable with Internet platforms.

In addition, for consumer brands, the younger operation of brand official accounts is also a viable option. @噜咪啦官方 is a brand of Yunnan-Guizhou potato chips on Bilibili. With the help of post-00s cat meme videos, the account has 230,000 followers since it released its first Bilibili video in January 2024, which is a case of a fast increase in followers for an official account.

Image source: Station B

In short, most of the entrepreneurs who have become popular on the Internet today are not those who speak in a "meeting-style" manner while sitting upright, but those who are "down-to-earth" and broadcast anytime and anywhere, those who are approachable and still make fun of themselves despite having a net worth of hundreds of millions, and those who have personality charm by outputting practical content. To a certain extent, "famous scenes + secondary creation + entrepreneurs playing with memes" constitute the "shortcut" for entrepreneurs to become popular today.

3. Is it sustainable for entrepreneurs to run their own media?

Entrepreneurs can save a lot of marketing costs by becoming influencers, while also shaping their personal image. It sounds like a sure-win business, but this does not apply to all industries.

First of all, entrepreneurs have limited time and energy, and limited ability to continuously update. Looking back at entrepreneurs in the past, perhaps the hot spots are still there, but the update frequency is limited. Limited by their status, entrepreneurs rarely update regularly like self-media. On Bilibili, there are very few entrepreneurs who can update regularly, and most of them are regular outputs to cooperate with corporate publicity.

Secondly, after the novelty wears off, it is worth discussing how much interest the audience has in entrepreneurs. Influencers need entrepreneurs to show online sense, understanding of the situations of most people, and empathy. After all, no one wants to hold meetings every day on short videos, and these are not the criteria for an entrepreneur.

Finally, at present, most of these entrepreneurs who have become popular on the Internet are in urgent need of market expansion or old brands are in urgent need of renewal, or they are cooperating with the node marketing of products. This is not very friendly to some entrepreneurs who have traffic but not yet produced products. Lei Jun got traffic and laid the foundation for Xiaomi product sales. Zhang Lan got traffic and laid the foundation for her own brand monetization.

At present, Zhou Hongyi has traffic but no products to monetize. Perhaps this first-generation Chinese Internet tycoon has a longer-term vision, aiming at the personal IP building of entrepreneurs rather than the current gains and losses.

However, Internet celebrities are so numerous and the times and traffic are constantly changing that it is difficult for anyone to stay for a long time.

Author: TopKlout

Source: WeChat public account "TopKlout (ID: TopKlout)"