Pan-financial business is growing rapidly, and the contentization of Alipay is not a "false proposition"

As a payment software, Alipay has accelerated its content-based ecological layout this year. As a latecomer, it has targeted four major content categories: general finance, general government affairs, general life, and general knowledge, and has occupied a place in the market.

This year, Alipay has accelerated its pace in developing its content ecosystem.

In July last year, it announced the upgrade of Life Account and launched the content channel Alipay Life at the bottom of the APP. Starting from June this year, Alipay released a number of incentive policies to lay out the creator ecosystem. Last month, it announced the opening of the UGC entrance and officially opened the content publishing rights to individual users.

Alipay Life Account was previously positioned as a tool to serve merchants, and it still lacked a mature creator system and content ecosystem product infrastructure. As a latecomer to the content industry, Alipay has been moving at an exceptionally fast pace in the content industry this year.

According to Crawley's observation, the Alipay platform focuses on supporting four major content categories that are consistent with the platform's mentality, namely pan-financial literacy, pan-government affairs, pan-life, and pan-knowledge. Currently, pan-financial literacy, which is the traditional financial, business, real estate, investment and financial management, wealth thinking and other content categories, is showing a rapid growth trend, whether in terms of the size of creators, the proportion of platform content distribution, or user consumption habits.

It is worth mentioning that, based on the platform’s mentality of “being closer to money”, pan-financial content has become the fastest growing vertical category of Alipay. This conclusion, to some extent, also conforms to the outside world’s expectations of Alipay’s content differentiation since the layout of its content ecosystem.

In this issue, based on long-term observations of Alipay Life Accounts, Cloure took pan-financial content as the entry point to refine and analyze the content development characteristics of Alipay, and released "Alipay Content Ecosystem Observation - Pan-Financial Content", which provides insights into the development trends of Alipay content from the perspective of the content industry and provides valuable references for the industry.

1. Where have latecomers in the content industry reached?

As a latecomer in the content track, Alipay built a creator ecosystem from 0-1 and completed the transformation of content-based products. This year, Alipay tried to make a 100-meter sprint in the content field.

Since July last year, after the launch of the content portal Life Channel on the third tab of the Alipay App, Alipay's content layout has begun to accelerate. The content has gradually been deeply connected with Alipay's homepage, forest, members and other high-frequency user access scenarios, and made a grand appearance during the "Five Blessings" period; in June this year, multiple creation incentive plans were released one after another, and high-quality content creators began to be introduced; in August, the partner conference played the card of live broadcast commercialization, and successively launched the "explosive product plan" and the agent broadcast selection center "Daihuobao", supporting brand self-broadcasting and expert distribution and bringing goods; at the end of September, in conjunction with the Asian Games, the Passionate Asia Zone was launched, and the layout of the hot list of life accounts began...

In November, Alipay announced the full opening of UGC, thus basically completing the 0-1 infrastructure of the content ecosystem, and began to open the door to creation for individual users, officially stepping into the threshold of the content track at the speed of a 100-meter sprint.

As the "big brother" in the field of mobile payments, Alipay's comprehensive development of content ecology may seem a bit "unprofessional", but from the perspective of platform attributes, user size, usage habits, etc., everything seems reasonable.

According to official data released by Alipay, the number of users on the Alipay platform exceeded 1 billion in 2022, a number that is close to the "ceiling" of the number of users of Internet products. In addition to payment, in recent years, Alipay has also played a role in life services that are closely related to each user, such as travel, medical care, and government affairs. On the one hand, Alipay has a certain platform user base for content; on the other hand, the average usage time of 7.8 minutes per person is also a major pain point that Alipay cannot avoid in the content track.

Based on the long-term accumulation of payment + financial mentality, users on Alipay have a natural sense of trust in the platform, which has been verified in the Alipay merchant live broadcast room. In August, at the Alipay Partner Conference, it was revealed that gold, 3C digital, food, wine, beverages, home furnishings and other categories have outstanding sales effects.

Since Alipay started to develop its content, the direction of the content and the differentiated approach have always attracted much attention. Clour observed that based on Alipay's strong platform mentality, pan-financial content is becoming the fastest growing vertical category of Alipay.

On mature content platforms that are known for their entertainment knowledge, financial content is not mainstream, and the development and commercialization of creators are somewhat constrained. However, Alipay, which is related to money and highly trusted by users, is exactly the natural soil that financial creators need.

2. Pan-financial content: a lever to drive content growth

According to the data of "Alipay Content Ecosystem Observation - Pan-Financial Business", the monthly average number of posts in the pan-financial business area of ​​Alipay Life Account has increased by more than 10 times in the past six months, and the number of content broadcasts has increased by 18 times. Financial hot spot interpretations, business behavior observations, business stories, and business tips that are closer to ordinary people making money are widely recognized and consumed by users.

From the interpretation of business principles to the observation of business behavior, from the analysis of financial hot spots to the entrepreneurial experiences of ordinary people, the content of Alipay Life Account can be truly implemented in the business behavior of users, and develop towards diversification and practicality on the basis of specialization.

"Making money" entrepreneurial content is particularly popular among young users. According to the report data, the users of pan-financial content are highly diverse, and users of different age groups consume different pan-financial content on Alipay. Those born after 2000 are more concerned about business skills, like to read "making money" stories, and are not bound by the form of entrepreneurship; those born after 1980, 1990 and 1995 are most concerned about business stories.

This kind of practical content attribute really makes users gain something from reading, and the content has been recognized by users. According to the report, one out of every five life account users likes to browse financial content, the total amount of interaction with financial content has increased by 4 times, and the consumption of financial content has increased by more than 7 times.

Overall, Alipay's inherent financial attributes have magnified the content advantages of pan-financial business accounts. For users, Alipay already provides payment and financial management services, which are more suitable for the scenarios of pan-financial business content. At the same time, the sense of trust and diversity have gradually made users develop the habit of browsing content on Alipay.

In fact, not only general financial content, but any life-related content requires practicality and trust, which brings a lot of room for imagination to the content boundaries of Alipay Life Account.

At the same time, as the content industry enters a stable period, on mature content platforms, expensive traffic, algorithm scalability, and head advantages have already formed...a series of factors are standing in the way of creators, and the entry threshold and commercialization are facing huge challenges.

For creators, Alipay Life Account not only focuses on the growth and development of creators, but also provides effective support policies from a commercial perspective. At a time when the content ecosystem of Alipay Life Account is not yet saturated, it may be the best time for creators to get in first.

3. The fundamental of long-term development is to make creators earn money

The motivation for continuously producing good content is for creators to get real benefits. With the continuous improvement of the incentive policy of Alipay Life Account, many pan-financial business accounts have achieved revenue by publishing content on Alipay.

With the launch of the profit-sharing plan, the number of pan-financial quotient creators on Life Accounts has been growing explosively since then. More and more creators have chosen to settle down on Life Accounts and have achieved good development. The report data shows that the number of accounts opened in the pan-financial quotient category of Life Accounts has increased by 6 times, and the number of creators with more than 10,000 fans has increased by 53%. 60% of active authors have enjoyed profit-sharing incentives, and the monthly profit sharing income of high-quality authors on the platform exceeds 100,000 yuan.

Many excellent creators have earned their first pot of gold on Alipay Life Account. For example, @败家财经 has published hundreds of pieces of content since joining in June, and received a relatively high share reward through the share-sharing plan within a month. Ya Jin, the operator of @败家财经, also said: "Although Alipay Life Account is still in its growth stage, the ecosystem is not crowded for creators. We are optimistic about the user potential of Alipay and are willing to grow with the platform."

According to Clour’s observation, the profit-sharing plan of Alipay Life Accounts requires the satisfaction of four conditions: number of active fans, monthly effective posts, monthly average playback volume, and content standards, and these conditions are not high. This means that even mid- and low-end creators have the opportunity to meet commercial needs through content.

This makes it easier for profit-sharing plans to intersect with creators, and it is easier for creators themselves to perceive the results, thereby motivating their own content creation.

Creators are the backbone of the development of the content ecosystem. In the life cycle of each creator, the support and encouragement of the platform is crucial. Only when there is a two-way relationship between the platform and the creators can content become a boost to business development, allowing creators to continue to release their vitality on the platform.

Based on Alipay's strong mindset and digital life positioning, in addition to platform subsidies, there is still greater room for commercial development for general financial creators.

4. Final Thoughts

From life services to content layout, Alipay's development has always been moving forward steadily based on the platform's advantages, and users are gradually forming the habit of browsing content on Alipay Life accounts.

Alipay's long-term accumulation of payment + financial knowledge has brought huge development space for pan-financial business content, and has also made phased progress. We believe that Alipay's content layout will also move towards a broader space based on the strong anchor of pan-financial business.

Author: Klout, WeChat public account: TopKlout