How does the “Three Rural Issues” content help the branding of agricultural products?

In 2023, new agriculture emerged, and "Three Rural Issues" videos began to spread on the Internet on a large scale. This article takes the new business model of "Three Rural Issues" as the core and points out a development direction for agricultural video creators. Friends who are engaged in the operation of "Three Rural Issues" accounts may wish to read this article.

In the winter of 2023, Harbin donated cranberries to Guangxi, which triggered a nationwide "agricultural survey". Netizens searched for the "new local specialties" of their hometowns and found that their hometowns were so hidden, including caviar from Ya'an, Sichuan, hairy crabs from Shaanxi, cranberries from Heilongjiang...

Tie Ding, director of the Agricultural Research Center of Yuanyi Think Tank and editor-in-chief of Agricultural Information, pointed out that the essence of the "Agricultural Survey" is that the industry is strong but the brand is weak, which is a common problem faced by my country's agricultural industry. However, exploring the industry culture and telling good brand stories are precisely the strengths of short video platforms.

In fact, in recent years, short video platforms have been flooded with content related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and even become important content promoted by the platforms. Paying attention to these contents is also a way to pay attention to how the Internet can better integrate with agriculture. At this moment, when we recognize and understand the content related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers, we should not only observe it as a kind of content, but also focus on its commercialization and examine its business model.

01 Traffic is coming, are merchants ready?

Cranberry, the star product of this "Agricultural Survey", is native to North America and was introduced to Fuyuan City, Jiamusi City, Heilongjiang Province in 2014. The fresh cranberries sent by Heilongjiang this time come from Fuyuan.

With the advancement of agricultural technology, new varieties are constantly being introduced from all over the country. Some unique varieties originally grown abroad can also find suitable planting areas in China, giving rise to a wave of "new local specialties."

However, in the past, due to limitations in brand promotion, the small number of companies, and difficulty in forming scale, few people knew about the new local specialties from various places, so that after the hot spots emerged, many locals were amazed that they did not know the local specialties of their hometown.

After the "Agriculture Survey" became a hot topic, Heilongjiang merchants selling cranberries were the first to receive a wave of traffic. According to the data from Relang, on Douyin, the number of fans and the number of people watching the live broadcast of multiple agricultural product sales accounts located in Heilongjiang increased significantly during this period, and the live broadcast rooms of Heilongjiang cranberry merchants ushered in unprecedented bustle. One merchant said in the live broadcast room that he had sold out his one-year storage, "the quantity is fixed, what should I sell in the future?"

@高二姐山 product's recent fan count changes (Source: Heatwave Data)

This means that some agricultural products that were once less popular can be sold more efficiently through hot topics and short video platforms. At the same time, a series of hot topics have spread a large number of "less popular agricultural products" and attracted netizens to the live broadcast room.

However, the hot topic and controversy came at the same time. Since fresh cranberries are sour, most of them are used for deep processing instead of being eaten directly. Therefore, many netizens said on social media after eating them: "There is a reason why this fruit is not popular" and "It's too sour"...

Image source: TikTok

However, some netizens expressed their love for fresh cranberries, saying, "It's good for making fruit tea, fruit milkshakes, and sour food." "I used it to cook pork ribs, and it was delicious!" It can be seen that there are certain potential consumers for fresh cranberries that have not been reached before.

In general, the reason why "new local specialties" have been buried for a long time is, on the one hand, the lack of ability to build brands and "tell stories", so the dissemination is weak and the brand effect has not yet formed. On the other hand, the current "new local specialties" industry is scattered, resulting in inconsistent quality and limited brand development.

For unpopular "local specialties" such as cranberries, the spread of short videos and live broadcasts has increased their voice, allowing unpopular local specialties to be exposed to more people and opening up sales channels for new local specialties. However, in the long run, to increase the purchase rate, merchants still need to work hard on the products, trace the origin, and provide consumers with higher quality products, so as to retain the hot spots.

02 Three Rural Issues and New Farmers

Behind this "agricultural survey" is the fact that social media is gradually becoming a "new agricultural tool" for creation and dissemination.

In 2023, "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" videos became popular. According to the "2023 Douyin Agriculture, Rural Areas and Farmers Ecological Data Report", the total number of agricultural technology videos on Douyin in 2023 was 27.783 million, a year-on-year increase of 153%, and the total number of views reached 120.62 billion times, a year-on-year increase of 48%. Coincidentally, in the first half of 2023, the number of video account "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" creators increased by 281% year-on-year, and the number of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" creators with more than 1 million fans increased by 300% year-on-year.

According to observations, the content of "Sannong" accounts can be roughly divided into two categories: agricultural technology and life recording. The Sannong data report released by Douyin for the first time last year showed that the top five most popular Sannong video content were rural life, rural food, Sannong e-commerce, breeding technology and sea fishing. According to public information from Kuaishou, there were more than 240 million users interested in Sannong last year, more than 29% of whom were from first- and second-tier cities. The most popular ones were rural life and fisherman's life, and the most popular ones were flower gardening.

It is worth noting that agricultural technology content focuses on science and practice, and supports the professional production of agriculture, rural areas and farmers through expert guidance and sharing of practical experience by senior farmers. The audience is highly targeted and has high professional requirements for content creators. For example, @郭老师说农牧业 on the Kuaishou platform is committed to knowledge output and experience sharing, which has helped farmers to breed more scientifically to a certain extent and has also opened up more non-entertainment functions for the platform.

From the perspective of creator types, some creators of rural content are new farmers who have moved from cities to rural areas. They return to their hometowns from cities to start businesses and are often more adept at using short videos and live broadcasts, which are the "new agricultural tools."

On March 1, 2023, the video account @Young People in the Village released their first content, which exploded with 950,000 views without promotion. The WeChat video account public account shows that in the following three months, this account has released a total of 9 contents, gained more than 20,000 fans and more than 2 million views, and attracted netizens from all over the world to join. Under their videos, there are often "I want to go home" and "I feel that this is meaningful"... Netizens explore their future development path in their videos of returning home.

In today's China, both urban and rural people are inextricably linked to the countryside. The 51st "Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet" shows that as of December 2022, the number of Internet users in my country is 1.067 billion, of which 308 million are in rural areas.

Whether they are from the countryside or have their hearts set on the countryside, the Chinese people's rural sentiment has led to the continuous development of the "three rural" content. People in the countryside learn agricultural techniques and assist in production through short videos; people far away from the countryside recall their hometown accents and express their homesickness through short videos; all kinds of consumers are interested in agricultural products through live broadcasts and short videos. It can be said that from @李子柒 to @在村里青年, new farmers continue to use social media, a "new agricultural tool", to start businesses, and consumers continue to use social media to express their homesickness.

03 From live streaming to offline industries

An important issue that experts in the rural areas will face is whether to bring their own goods or other people’s goods.

It has been observed that for KOLs in the rural areas with a large number of fans, the practice of selling single agricultural products has gradually been eliminated, and awareness of short-term traffic, mid-term supply chain, and long-term brand management has begun to emerge.

Take @水稻朵er on Kuaishou as an example. She started to do agricultural technology training live broadcasts on Kuaishou in 2017. She said that she found that farmers had two major pain points: one was the lack of professional agricultural technology popularization, and the other was the inability to buy cost-effective agricultural materials.

So, while broadcasting science popularization live, @水稻朵er began to sell fertilizers and pesticides in the live broadcast room. She connected B-end dealers and C-end farmers through the live broadcast room, allowing dealers and farmers to achieve a win-win situation. The first live broadcast sold more than 1.8 million. In 2017, she established her own fertilizer company. From online promotion to offline industry, she gradually expanded her business territory, better grasped quality control, and shaped the brand.

Image source: Kuaishou

"The rise of the short video economy has accelerated the restructuring of the agricultural product circulation pattern." Zhou Zhenya, an associate researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Agricultural Zoning of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, mentioned in an article for Nong Can: "The point-to-point agricultural product sales achieved by short videos have effectively shortened the intermediate links, increased farmers' income, and reduced agricultural product prices, benefiting both ends."

As a result, products can be promoted faster and farmers can benefit more.

Although some small and medium-sized businesses still have problems with agricultural product quality control and transportation conditions on short video platforms, in general, the "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" content on short videos has entered the 2.0 stage. As a new starting point for the agricultural industry, its vigorous development is not only related to the commercialization of its own accounts, but also to whether new farmers can find a path for dissemination and growth.

According to the "Insights into the Development Trends of Rural Content on Social Media" released by Clue, currently 80% of rural accounts are concentrated at the tail end, and there is still a lot of room for development for rural creators, which can accommodate more possibilities.

References:

1. The cranberries given back by Erbin are slightly smaller than a history of agricultural structural adjustment in Northeast China | Narrow sowing

2. "Agricultural Survey", how far is the distance between "hidden models" and "explosive models"? | Agricultural Species

3. The post-90s "idiot" returned to the village, and the first video account content was close to one million views | WeChat video account creation camp

4. The Three Rural Issues 2.0 of Video Account Creators | Baizhun

Author: Guang Ye

WeChat public account: TopKlout (ID: KOL-TOPKLOUT)