The three top streamers were put on ice, and the paid knowledge circle was shaken

This article deeply analyzes the commercial IP phenomenon in the field of knowledge payment and explores the risks and challenges it faces. It is recommended to readers who are interested in content entrepreneurship and social media marketing. I hope it will inspire you to understand industry dynamics and avoid business risks.

The knowledge payment circle has suffered another Waterloo.

According to Sanyan Pro, the Douyin accounts of Dada, Cangge, and Li Yizhou could no longer be searched on March 14. Cangge responded on his Matrix account that he was not blocked or banned, but was only "banned from searching for 90 days" by the platform.

As for the reason for the ban on searches, Can said he did not ask and did not know. As of press time, other top IPs in the knowledge payment circle, such as Zhang Qi, Da Lan, and He Lao Shi, are still operating normally.

It has only been three months since the last time a celebrity in the knowledge payment circle was banned. In mid-December 2023, @曲曲大女人's Douyin and Weibo accounts were banned by the platform. Among them, the reason for the ban announced on Weibo was " repeatedly promoting bad love views to gain popularity, and using this to sell courses for personal gain, conveying wrong value orientation."

Blocking or banning accounts is not new for any industry, but the intensive punishment of the top accounts in a certain industry segment in a short period of time has to arouse the vigilance of peers. Has the paid knowledge industry become a "high-risk" industry? How can we effectively avoid risks when doing commercial IP?

1. Top streamers who are “banned from searching”

Before being banned from searching, Li Yizhou, Dada and Can Ge were all top paid IPs on the Douyin platform.

Public information shows that Li Yizhou studied for his undergraduate and master's degrees at the School of Design and Art of Hunan University, and is also a doctoral student in industrial design and design innovation methods and in the Institute of Design Strategy and Prototype Innovation at the Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts.

Li Yizhou's first wave of popularity on the Internet came from the job-hunting variety show "If You Are the One". At that time, he was a doctoral student at Tsinghua University. He was not at all nervous in the face of Internet entrepreneurs such as Zhou Hongyi and Wang Xiaochuan, and was sought after by many bosses for his well-reasoned business analysis.

In 2021, Li Yizhou turned from an entrepreneur to a self-media person. He adopted a "high-potential" personality route on Douyin, wrote that he was a doctoral student at Tsinghua University in the account profile, and relied on knowledge payment to monetize.

In the early stage, he sold short video courses and entrepreneurship awareness courses. After ChatGPT caused heated discussions in the media, he started to promote "Everyone's Artificial Intelligence Course" since 2023. The course is divided into two versions, priced at 199 yuan and 1,980 yuan. The 199 yuan course is the main one promoted in the live broadcast room and short videos, which includes 39 recorded courses. According to third-party data, about 250,000 sets of artificial intelligence courses worth 199 yuan were sold in one year, with sales of about 50 million yuan.

In February this year, OpenAI's video generation model Sora once again sparked public opinion. At this time, Li Yizhou was still vigorously placing short video advertisements on Douyin with the image of "AI Godfather", with slogans such as "Only one spot left" and "If you don't learn AI, you will be unemployed". The model of awakening anxiety and guiding payment was obvious.

Therefore, netizens put together the portraits of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Li Yizhou, jokingly calling them "the two AI giants of China and the United States." In the "stalk picture", Li Yizhou has become a symbol of China's AI industry - "short-sighted, cutting leeks, and riding on the popularity", which has also caused more people to complain and be dissatisfied with Li Yizhou and similar paid knowledge courses.

Image source: Internet

To make matters worse, on February 21, many creators discovered that the open source models they had exclusively licensed to LiblibAI had been moved to a website called "Yizhou Intelligence" without permission. According to statistics, at least 97 models had been moved.

On February 22, LiblibAI issued a statement on behalf of the author: As a community advocating open source sharing, LiblibAI
Users are allowed to directly use models or even download them. However, if they move the models without the creator's permission or even use them for commercial purposes without authorization, the platform will consider it "infringement."

Some netizens questioned that "Yizhou Intelligence" is just a large model collection website suspected of being a shell, which can call some mainstream AI model tools.

On the same day, Li Yizhou’s AI course was removed from the shelves and his video account @李一舟 was banned from following.

On February 23, screenshots circulated online showed that someone received a notification from Douyin's massive advertising platform, stating that the commercial promotion of all AIGC/AI courses would be restricted.

On March 14, after becoming the target of public criticism, Li Yizhou was hit hard by the platform again, and his Douyin account could no longer be searched.

If Li Yizhou is the first top blogger to fall due to AI in 2024, then the reason why dada was punished may be suspected of pyramid selling.

On Douyin, Dada claims to drive a Rolls-Royce at the age of 25 and earn a million dollars when she was in college. She is one of the hottest commercial IPs in 2023. On major short video platforms, there are hundreds of slice accounts telling stories about how Dada succeeded, her business insights, her outlook on life, and more.

According to media reports, Dada's monetization channels include recruiting management trainees, private board meetings, offline classes, etc. Among them, Dada's management trainee system is that students pay different fees such as 30,000 and 50,000 yuan, and they can learn how to attract traffic and make money.

A student revealed that after paying to join, the dada team will provide some basic video editing methods, let students create a dada slice account, and publish their videos to help dada expand its influence. Although dada advertises that students can learn a lot of traffic-generating skills to make money, the student who broke the news said that most of the time, if you want to make money, you can only rely on "recruiting people": that is, you can get a 3,000 yuan reward for every management trainee you recruit at the 30,000 yuan level; you can get a 5,000 yuan reward for every management trainee you recruit at the 50,000 yuan level.

However, the relevant person in charge of the dada team said that the management trainee program has suspended recruitment, and currently only the dada offline classes are still in operation.

Compared with the first two business knowledge IPs, Brother Can became famous earlier and has a stronger ability to incubate accounts.

Brother Shen, whose real name is Shen Wenjun, was born in 1987. He has a junior high school education and started a Taobao store in 2003. He made his fortune by selling sea cucumbers and has run a factory. He has 18 years of business experience and has gone through the complete e-commerce cycle including eBay, Taobao, Tmall, WeChat business, Zhihu, Douyin, etc. He claims to have hit every trend.

In Can Ge’s videos, “coming from a poor family, relying on himself to change his destiny”, “over 10 million commercial fans on the entire network”, “over 1 billion broadcasts on the entire network”, “the ceiling in the field of commercial monetization”, and “the behind-the-scenes operator of the network’s phenomenal IP” are labels that are repeatedly emphasized.

The video content of Can Ge focuses on the anxiety of entrepreneurial bosses and the traffic trend, such as "How to accurately grasp the short video trend", "The core of success of high-cognitive bosses", "How to break through the bottleneck of entrepreneurship", "What are the consequences of talking about feelings when doing business", etc.; he is quite arrogant during the live broadcast, showing the rough and tumble atmosphere of a domineering president who started from scratch. By confidently expressing his opinions and sharing cases of students who earn millions or even hundreds of millions a year, he has established a personality with extensive connections and profound knowledge.

On Douyin, Cangge's income mainly comes from paid courses, private meetings, full cases, and cooperation sharing. Some practitioners have analyzed his monetization model, which is "using Douyin courses with a price of 5,980 yuan to promote private meetings with a price of 80,000 yuan, and then selecting full cases with a price of 2 million yuan from private meetings. The successful cases of full cases can be used as recruitment materials with a price of 5,980 yuan, thus forming a monetization cycle."

Taking courses as an example, the "Short Video Traffic Operation Awareness Course" contains 56 recorded courses and is priced at 5,980 yuan; the "Short Video Full-Case Operator" course is priced at 9,980 yuan. These are high-customer-unit products in the knowledge payment industry.

Some of the courses that Brother Can posted on Douyin

According to "Bian Niu Shi", a boss who joined a private board meeting said that after paying 80,000 yuan to join the private board meeting group, he abided by the group rules and sent a red envelope of 3,000 yuan. Brother Can did not say much in the group. Most people joined the group to link resources. He would shoot a video with the members of the private board meeting to introduce the members' projects, so as to achieve the purpose of attracting traffic.

However, Can Ge’s courses and private meetings are not useful for everyone, and fans who pay for his courses may feel disappointed if they cannot meet Can Ge in person.

Because of his outspokenness, he is often banned and banned. From 2020 to 2023, his account was banned for a short period of time. In August 2023, Haishangge responded to the ban on his account @参哥本参, saying, "The company has the ability to create accounts. As an MCN, the company has many IPs."

According to Kass's observation, Cangge's personal Douyin matrix accounts include @纯然商業, @参哥识圈, @参哥思考圈, @参院长不说屎话, @参哥带你走天下, @私域参院长, @参哥亿万圈, etc. Cangge was recently punished by the Douyin platform, and users cannot search for his main account, but his matrix account is still updating normally, and the number of likes is also around hundreds to 10,000.

@纯然商業TikTok video screenshot

On March 20, Cang Ge revealed on his account @参哥 (Daily Account·Record Growth) that there will be a major business adjustment this year, and he will create more amateur IPs.
"Many friends comforted me, saying that I still don't care about the hundreds of millions. You may not understand our strength... We have nine IPs with revenue exceeding nine figures. Let's see if we can reach 30 or 40 this year."

Currently, among the accounts incubated by Cangge Company, @毛毛姐 (founder of Mu Wanqing), @大熊饭局, @星哥 (founder of星会会), and @服務者·老纪 are relatively well-known commercial IPs. These representative cases also help Cangge to further attract fans and obtain traffic.

Commercial IPs incubated by Cangge

II. Benefits and Risks of Commercial Knowledge IP

Creating commercial IP on new traffic platforms is a business model that can generate short-term profits and compound interest. Therefore, many entrepreneurs are flocking to it. Even business tycoon Zhou Hongyi is operating his own social media accounts such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu.

Based on past experience, the three main ways to monetize commercial IP are selling courses, private board meetings, and franchising, and the top IPs have made similar choices.

For example, the hot business interview IP @Chengqian’s circle of friends in 2023 has three ways of monetization. The first is content advertising fees, that is, the interviewee needs to pay Chengqian to interview and communicate with him. According to the Red Star Capital Bureau, the price of a video interview is currently about hundreds of thousands; in addition, the community (private domain membership) charges 2,198 yuan/year, and the private board meeting charges 59,800 yuan/year. This type of product is essentially selling "circles", which can attract a group of members with strong paying ability, and then fission brings new high-net-worth users.

Many bloggers are also trying their hand at business talk shows, with IPs such as @秦文与朋友, @陈翔创业圈工作室, and @参哥识圈 appearing one after another.

Some commercial interview IPs on the Douyin platform

While making profits, we also see the fragility and high risks of commercial knowledge IP.

Take Douyin, the platform with the most commercial IPs, for example. According to knowledge bloggers, making money with short videos has become a new trend. They will repeatedly share how to increase followers, how to make popular videos to bring goods, and the opportunities of the times that ordinary people should seize. "Short videos to bring goods", "building personal IP", and "traffic monetization" are words that are on their lips every day.

However, many bloggers do not have practical experience. Especially when the rules and gameplay of new traffic platforms are updated at any time, bloggers who only talk about it on paper often lose touch with reality and fail to convince the public.

In addition, "making Douyin is an open-book exam", many bloggers often borrow and imitate others' copywriting and rhythm to produce content, which makes the content repetition rate of such accounts too high. In the past two years, users have become smarter and more likely to see through routines and become disgusted.

As for courses, the so-called short video operators and financial literacy courses usually aim to teach people how to make money on short video platforms. The fees range from a few dozen yuan to tens of thousands of yuan. The quality varies and the reviews are mixed.

Kas observed that the more influential a commercial IP is on social media, the higher the risk of a reputational setback.

First, they may be labeled as "selling anxiety" or "eating in an ugly way", which may lead to platform bans or traffic restrictions, such as Li Yizhou, Can Ge, Dada and others.

Second, “Can it be verified in practice, can it be implemented, and is it forward-looking?” is a soul-searching question for many business courses and private board meeting products. Once users lose trust in them, the entire business model built around IP will also collapse.

There are countless examples of commercial IPs that have fallen into decline. For example, Zhou Wenqiang, Zheng Xiangzhou, Nie Xiao and others who claimed to be “success gurus” were reported by consumers under their real names for “suspected fraud.”

In March 2022, fans of the well-known e-commerce training instructor @透透糖 took action online, saying that they had spent 5,980 yuan on buying a live short video course from 透透糖. The actual experience revealed that the course was divided into recorded courses and live interactive Q&A courses. "The recorded courses were 透透糖, but the live courses were not hers." The user made more than 20 videos but did not get the expected results. He wanted to get his money back but was blocked, leaving him with no way to defend his rights.

On the complaint platform, many users pointed out problems such as "false advertising under the banner of national-level lecturers", "difficulty in refunding", and "inducing loans to buy courses". The number of complaints against its cooperative online vocational education platform Kaikeba reached tens of thousands.

In September of the same year, People's Daily published a report naming "Internet celebrity Tou Tou Tang cutting leeks", and @Tou Tou Tang was blocked. But it was unblocked more than a month later, and the account is currently updating normally.

After establishing a commercial IP and accumulating core fans, how can we reasonably avoid risks and maintain the long-term operation of the company?

Kas believes that de-IPization is a process that all IPs must go through, and turning personal brands into corporate brands is a common choice for top IPs in the knowledge payment industry.

We see that Wu Xiaobo founded 890 Business School, Luo Zhenyu founded Get, and Fan Deng Reading Club changed its name to "Fanshu". They are all building corporate brands to reduce their operating risks.

@Fanshu video account screenshot

Second, establishing a matrix account is also the only way for IP to grow and develop. In addition to increasing traffic and expanding influence, the matrix account also has a certain degree of risk resistance.

Finally, in addition to public domain traffic, establish a stable private domain, that is, a private domain that is highly active, reachable, and capable of being converted.

Any business model that relies on a single traffic platform is unhealthy, and personal IP is a high-risk thing. Maintaining private domain may be the last insurance for commercial IP.

Author: Bi Shisan

Source: WeChat public account "CaasData (ID: caasdata6)"