48,000 followers, advertising price of 12,000: Chinese health care "supports" post-95 bloggers

As the pressure on young people increases, sub-health problems are also very common, and the popularity of health content is increasing among young people. This article will analyze the development space of Chinese health bloggers in this environment and recommend it to friends who are interested in health.

2023 is almost over, and major media have begun their year-end summaries.

Through the top ten buzzwords of the year released by "Yiwawenzi", we can roughly get a glimpse of the social life trends of that year - "artificial intelligence big model", "special forces style tourism", "two-way running", "emotional value", "dopamine", "hookup", etc. Many of these keywords have been analyzed by Kas in his articles.

In addition to the above trends, if we ask Kas to count the hot topics of this year, "crispy young people" and "Chinese health care" will definitely be on the list.

Nowadays, the onset of disease is not linked to age, and the health of many young people is also worrying. "26 years old, 62 body" is a very appropriate self-deprecation. "Fragile young people" has also become a hot word, meaning "young people with many problems". For example, the emergency department of a hospital in Zhengzhou received 1,700 patients aged 18-25 in September alone.

Young people’s anxiety and desire for a healthy body have led to a continued increase in the popularity of health content.

On Bilibili, "The Complete Version of Health Qigong Eight-Section Brocade - With Breathing Method Commands" and "The Eight-Section Brocade with Commands from the General Administration of Sport of China - Standard Definition" have 24.539 million and 15.931 million views respectively, and the barrage is filled with daily check-in records of practitioners.

Image source: Station B

Why has Chinese health preservation become a new favorite on social media this year? And how much room is there for Chinese health preservation bloggers to develop? Let's listen to the analysis below.

1. Chinese health care has become a new favorite among young people

The main reason why Chinese health care is so popular among young people is that "sub-health" has become a common phenomenon, and the anxiety surrounding health is only increasing. In daily life, young people have more or less experienced one of the following symptoms: "insufficient kidney qi, cold hands and feet, lack of energy, hair loss, and insufficient sleep."

In terms of major diseases, according to the "2022 Ant Insurance Claims Service Report", in the claims data of critical illness insurance, for young and middle-aged people aged 20-40, thyroid cancer claims ranked first. The top five diseases for critical illness insurance claims for men aged 20-40 are thyroid cancer, acute myocardial infarction, coronary heart disease, cerebral hemorrhage and nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

The top five diseases for which women's critical illness insurance claims are paid are thyroid cancer, breast cancer, cerebral hemorrhage, cervical cancer and lung cancer. In terms of malignant tumor classification, especially in the 20-40 age group, thyroid cancer ranks first for both men and women. Overall, thyroid cancer, myocardial infarction and coronary heart disease have become the most common diseases among young people.

In the limited leisure time outside of work, how to better maintain health and fitness has become a concern for many young people. Compared with popular sports in the past, traditional fitness boxing is more focused on regulating physical fitness and improving sub-health conditions. At the same time, it does not require going to special places such as gyms, so it is easier to stick to it, so it is sought after by young people.

For example, Ba Duan Jin has sparked a craze for performing the technique.

On Bilibili, "The Complete Version of Health Qigong Eight-Section Brocade - with Breathing Method Commands" and "The Standard Definition Version of Eight-Section Brocade with State Sports General Administration Commands" have 19.91 million and 14.98 million views respectively, and the comments are filled with daily check-in records of practitioners. A few years ago, Pamela was still the top sports and fitness star on Bilibili, but now it seems that qigong teachers have the upper hand.

On Xiaohongshu, beauty blogger @大牙Zoom has released 8 Ba Duan Jin-related videos this year, all of which have been quite popular, so she jokingly calls herself a "Ba Duan Jin blogger". For example, the video "Detailed explanation of the movements of the Ba Duan Jin apprentice version! Sorting out the common mistakes" has become a hit, with 66,000 likes and 65,000 collections; "My Ba Duan Jin has evolved after becoming an apprentice! Things to note before practice" has also exceeded 50,000 likes and 27,000 collections. In contrast, most of her beauty notes have around 200-1,000 likes.

@大牙Zoom Xiaohongshu note screenshot

Compared with the middle-aged and elderly, young people pay equal attention to their physical condition, but their views on health preservation are more entertaining and they are very receptive to commercialization. The report "Observation on the Differences in Health Preservation Concepts among Generations" released by iResearch Consulting shows that entertainment-oriented and social-oriented health preservation are the new interpretations of "health" by this generation of young people.

Image source: iResearch

Young people have a good acceptance of health products, which has boosted the brand's layout in this area.

Earlier this year, Nayuki's Tea teamed up with the time-honored brand "Dong'e Ejiao" to launch a series of new health products: Ejiao milk tea, Ejiao black sesame and red date cake, Peach Blossom Ejiao cake... The nourishing and beauty-enhancing Dong'e Ejiao and white fungus and red dates, the heat-clearing and fire-removing Fuding old white tea, plus the "Lo Han Guo 0-calorie sugar" which is said to be the first of its kind by Nayuki, this set of nourishing "combination punches" has captured many consumers.

Kas believes that Nayuki's collaboration has actually hit the mark among young people who want to maintain their health while pursuing entertainment, fun, and aesthetics. Currently, most brands that have been able to take advantage of the "Chinese health" craze are also familiar with the consumer psychology of young people and are innovating in product packaging and concepts.

In China, the penetration rate of health care products for people aged 25-45 is relatively low. As young and middle-aged people enter the market one after another and become the mainstream consumer group of health care products, brands can completely grow into dark horse brands in the track by entering new scenarios and combining new marketing methods.

2. How many bloggers can be supported by Chinese health regimen?

Not only new consumer brands, but content creators can also gain considerable traffic from the high attention paid to Chinese health preservation.

What kind of people are suitable to be health bloggers? Kas boldly asserts that everyone can be a health blogger , whether they are healthy or recovering from illness, whether they are in their 80s or young people born in the 2000s, they can all find their own position and angle of entry in the big topic of health.

Taking Xiaohongshu as an example, according to Kass's observation, there are quite a few bloggers who publish Chinese health-preserving content. From the perspectives of food supplements, exercise, nourishing qi and blood, and music, there is room for extended creation and development.

Punk health care can no longer cure the health anxiety of young people. From "drink boiled water" to "milk tea and coffee with wolfberry", and finally to Chinese herbal medicine plum soup, "drinking" health has become the DNA of the Chinese people.

For example, @是辰不是晨ii, as a top blogger on Xiaohongshu, has gained 1.96 million followers by sharing health tips, and her daily notes often receive over 10,000 likes. For example, posts like "A must-have combination for removing yellowness in the beginning of winter for girls" and "How to become a beauty with qi and blood! Personal tips to make you glow from head to toe" introduce her own health and beauty tips from a dietary perspective. As the blogger herself has a plump and firm face, the persuasiveness of her videos is further enhanced, making it very easy for her to gain the trust of her fans.

The excellent note data performance also attracted brands. In the past month, the blogger received advertisements from many brands including Nivea, Ikemei, Jiananshi, and Yangshengtang.

@是辰不是晨ii screenshot of Xiaohongshu notes

Not only the top bloggers, but also the mid- and low-level bloggers can get a share of the "Chinese health care" track.

By sharing health vlogs, @是玖敲 has accumulated 50,000 followers on Xiaohongshu. When it only had 48,000 followers, the cooperation quotation for a single video note reached 12,000.

Kas believes that he can offer such a high price because the blogger has three core advantages: his persona of "graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University + retired at the age of 25 to live a healthy life" arouses the audience's curiosity and creates a memorable point; the content is exquisite and practical, and each note solves a problem . For example, "Six Misconceptions about Foot Soaking", "Six Uses of Mugwort Hammer", and "How to Regulate the Spleen and Stomach for Weak Girls" are all solving pain points in common topics, and have all become popular notes; he takes a compound route and adds other elements outside the vertical track, namely the "health care + home + vlog" route, which increases the watchability and fun of the account, attracts users to continue watching, and also broadens the scope of business cooperation.

@是九KEY Xiaohongshu notes screenshot

Similar accounts include @贺五姐的偷学中医的贺五姐, which focuses on the health pain points of young people and only produces graphic content without real people appearing on screen. It has output 136 notes and attracted 75,000 fans. @野生小师妹 uses the persona of a lively and funny girl to share Ba Duan Jin exercise videos, which has attracted many users and accumulated 101,000 fans. @杏林小鱼 quickly gained popularity with the route of a post-00s girl doing popular science on traditional Chinese medicine, and her fans increased to 572,000 after publishing only 6 notes.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

In addition to gaining popularity through content and earning money through advertising, health experts can also earn money by promoting related products.

When health anxiety spread rapidly among the post-90s and post-00s, they began to relieve their anxiety by purchasing functional foods. Whether in terms of taste, packaging, marketing, or positioning, functional foods are undergoing iterative upgrades. On this basis, they are penetrated into young people through social media platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu, becoming "Internet celebrity" foods in the hearts of young people.

For example, @宅家吃吃喝汤 is a post-90s girl who loves to make soup. By continuously updating tutorials on how to cook nourishing soups, she has accumulated 28,000 followers and has created many popular notes with over a thousand likes. Recently, she published a commercial note on a certain brand of broken-wall astragalus tablets titled "The Same Six-Flavor Apple Drink as Yi Nengjing", which received over a thousand likes, even higher than her daily notes.

@宅家吃喝汤 Xiaohongshu notes screenshot

Of course, bloggers in the “Chinese health care” track can also sell some non-Chinese herbal medicine products. There is no conflict. As long as the products are of high quality, users with sub-health anxiety can also accept them calmly.

For example, before Chinese health care became popular, young people were more willing to consume vitamins, sleeping gummies, enzyme jellies, heat control tablets, anti-sugar pills, etc. In fact, these products are not strictly health foods, most of them do not have the "blue hat" logo, and are more functional foods, covering light meal replacements, low-fat and low-calorie retail, new beverage supplements and other categories, but in the eyes of young people, they are collectively called health products.

Conclusion

According to Euromonitor data, the market size of China's health care products industry will reach 320 billion yuan in 2025, and the penetration rate of health care products is far from reaching its ceiling. A survey by Roland Berger showed that in terms of market penetration, the US market penetration rate is 50% and sticky users are 60%, while China only has a 20% penetration rate and 10% sticky users.

In terms of health care product spending, China is already the world's second largest market. If it continues to deepen market penetration, the ceiling of this track is still very high. From a per capita perspective, contemporary young people are adding more health-related products to their shopping carts. In 2019, the per capita consumption of health care products in China was only 191 yuan, one-fifth of the per capita consumption in the United States, Australia, and Japan. According to a survey by Rong360, in 2021, more than half of Generation Z will spend more than 500 yuan per month on health care.

In 2021, Kas wrote an article pointing out that the hot sales of health care products are not limited by platform. With the help of short videos and live broadcasts, health care products have become the big winners in the trend.

For example, Notland multivitamin tablets have become a star product on Douyin, triggering countless mid- and low-level KOLs and KOCs to compete to promote the product. Zimeitang enzymes have achieved a breakthrough in brand volume and sales through special and mixed show collaborations with top and mid-level anchors, as well as aggressive bidding advertising.

However, for anchors/experts, selling health products is not a good business with great profits.

Negative reviews of popular health products are common. Perhaps it is because of overly high expectations of product functions; perhaps it is because influencers and anchors wantonly exaggerate the efficacy and hype the concept for sales; or perhaps after receiving the product, users find that the product ingredients are not as good as they imagined. Many users have expressed dissatisfaction with the purchase of the product, and this dissatisfaction will also be projected onto the anchors and influencers who promote the product, which in turn brings the risk of unfollowing them.

However, this cannot hinder the enthusiasm of influencers/anchors, especially those at the mid- and low-level who are in a dilemma about monetization, to sell goods, nor will it affect the determination of capital to advance into this blue ocean.

Along with controversies such as "IQ tax", "money scam", and "false advertising", as well as increasingly sophisticated public opinion and regulatory pressure, entrepreneurs or live-streaming hosts who choose the "Chinese health care" track also need to strengthen their learning of industry knowledge and strict screening of products to avoid failures.

Author: Lou Xingchui, WeChat public account: Kas Data