I paid for a live broadcast on Douyin: I am a security guard during the day and an emotional judge at night

The monetization method of paid live broadcast in the live broadcast room of short video platforms has gradually become a new outlet in the live broadcast industry. This article analyzes the deep logical reasons behind the popularity of live broadcast and looks forward to the future development trend of the live broadcast industry and paid live broadcast. It is recommended for students who are interested in short video live broadcast.

The "composition" of short video live streaming is quietly changing.

"When I watched short video live broadcasts before, there were salespeople and young ladies dancing everywhere, but recently there are fewer salespeople and dancers, and more and more paid live broadcasts (hereinafter referred to as live broadcasts)."

Kuaishou's live broadcast room has become a blind date corner, investors are watching projects in Douyin's live broadcast room, and "Zhongs meets Wang Dafei" has become a hot search on Xiaohongshu. From emotional live broadcasts to senior teaching, funny live broadcasts, real-time debates... the fancy monetization of paid live broadcasts is being performed continuously in the live broadcast room.

In the live broadcast room of "Angel Investor Mark", Dai Keqiang, CEO of Xingzao Venture Capital, was sitting in a small suit. Fans only needed to swipe a hot air balloon worth 520 Douyin coins to go on the microphone for a conversation and exchange projects.

"Whether you are a lawyer, chef or feng shui master, even if you don't have products or super good looks, you can still use the knowledge in your field to make paid connections," the chief director of the Douyin live broadcast of Fan Deng Reading once called in the video.

Some even say that “during the day, they work as security guards and cooks, but at night, they transform themselves into “experts” on Kuaishou who help others solve their relationship problems.”

It seems that everyone can do paid live broadcast, and it is gradually becoming the third form of live broadcast after rewards and selling goods.

"At first, I wanted to do live streaming to sell goods, but later I found that fans only chatted with me and didn't buy anything, so I just did an emotional connection." Duan Hui (pseudonym), 35, is an ordinary middle-aged woman. She never thought that one day so many people would be willing to pay to chat with her.

When the live broadcast started, Duan Hui didn’t charge any fees. “Later, some people cut in line by sending gifts, and some people couldn’t keep their microphones occupied, so I slowly set the limit to 500 Douyin coins per 10 minutes.” She roughly calculated, “If there are 20 live broadcasts in one session, the total income is about 1,000 yuan.”

Duan Hui's fans are mostly female fans between the ages of 25 and 35. As her number of fans increases, she has set up a window display. Recently, a brand has contacted her to do product placement in her live broadcast room. "Last month, I made 5,000 yuan."

Not only Duan Hui, when the live broadcast e-commerce industry is in a turmoil, the monetization of live broadcasting with microphones is growing rapidly amid laughter and joy.

According to a fan, Lawyer Long Fei earned 1,990 Douyin coins for a live broadcast. "There can be up to 80 people queuing up for a single broadcast. If you can't get a microphone, you have to give gifts to get a front row seat, which costs at least 400 yuan."

"Self-quadrant" is calculated based on the single live broadcast of e-commerce training expert Tou Tou Tang. For every 8 minutes of live broadcast, 5,000 Douyin coins are earned, equivalent to 500 RMB. A live broadcast lasts 6 hours and 45 people can be connected. The income per broadcast is 22,500 RMB. With a withdrawal rate of 50%, the personal income reaches 11,250 RMB. (The above is an approximate number and does not represent the specific amount)

Behind the rise of live broadcasting, there is a bigger plan of the platform. Douyin seems to want to draw everyone into the live broadcast wave, creating a new live broadcast outlet in an era when live broadcast e-commerce has passed its peak and is gradually declining.

1. Douyin live broadcast, various ways to make money

Giving gifts and going on the microphone, chatting, or performing, were originally the "traditional arts" under the Kuaishou's old iron culture. The live broadcast room instantly turned into a tea party for the villagers in the village. In comparison, Douyin's live broadcast is very lively.

According to the observation of "Self-quadrant", Douyin live broadcast has developed new features including but not limited to resource matching, consulting services, expert IP, talent shows, etc.

"I'm really excited. I've become a spiritual shareholder in TikTok."

In addition to Dai Keqiang's "Angel Investor Mark" live broadcast room, internet celebrity investor Wu Shichun of Meihua Venture Capital has also done a live broadcast room connection. The background board is marked as level 15 VIP fans, and fans can have a "face-to-face late-night chat" with Wu Shichun.

The fan level needs to be increased slowly by giving gifts, lighting up light boards, sharing live broadcasts, and accumulating viewing time, or by giving gifts crazily. One netizen once calculated that "if you only charge money to upgrade, you need 9451 Douyin coins to reach level 10, which is equivalent to 945.1 RMB."

Other opportunities to connect to the microphone include giving gifts to join the various voice actor live broadcasts, real-time debates, etc.

However, investors are obviously not making small profits from giving gifts, but are more concerned about the fame effect and capital transactions behind the offline.

"Everyone is welcome to discuss business models. Some bosses found partners quickly after they went live on the mic." Dai Keqiang continued to hold up a board and introduced these successful bosses, such as "Niangzijun Home Service, Nutcracker, Wang Lanmei..."

Going on stage to promote, closing deals privately, closing deals in live broadcast rooms, and finding partners are essentially a form of resource exchange and docking. Projects worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars are launched through online interactions via live broadcasts.

"These days, investors have also moved to live streaming rooms," one netizen lamented. "Networking meetings in the investment field have become an algorithm recommendation system."

Of course, there are not enough cases of investors watching projects online, and the most classic example is monetization through consulting services. Taking paid emotional consulting as an example, according to observations from the quadrant, the general single price ranges from 10 yuan to 300 yuan, and a complete ecological chain has been formed.

Standing at the top of the food chain are lawyer Long Fei , the "spiritual pillar of the sisters," and Wanyan Huide, the "laughing stock of the Internet. "

"My husband cheated on me for the second time, but all the property is in my name. Should I save the relationship?" It's time for lawyer Long Fei to cure her love-brain in the live broadcast room. In her live broadcast room, bitter dramas, heartless love, and family disputes are "more exciting than TV dramas, and they are real."

Lawyer Long Fei's price for a single live broadcast is 1990 Douyin coins, but with tens of thousands of viewers, he often has to bid more than 400 gifts to have a conversation. In addition, with the surge in the number of fans, Lawyer Long Fei can also make money by selling courses, bringing goods, and taking cases.

In her window display, the legal risk course "20 Must-Take Lessons for Women Before Marriage" is regarded as a bible for unmarried women, "which will ensure that unfaithful men will never be able to cheat you out of a penny." It is sold for 199 yuan, with sales of 16,000 units and total revenue of 3.184 million yuan.

She also single-handedly dragged the entire legal profession into internal competition, broadcasting live on Douyin and opening up vertical branches such as criminal case consultation and corporate case consultation, allowing netizens to run around like badgers in a melon field.

Even though Wanyan Huide charges 100 yuan for 3 minutes, it still cannot stop the enthusiasm of netizens to make trouble. According to the operator, Wanyan Huide's expert service price is about 8,900 yuan for a video of 1 to 20 seconds, and about 14,800 yuan for a video of more than 60 seconds.

In addition to the big names, there are more ordinary creators who, based on their personal charm, have formed a close emotional connection with their fans and thus started to monetize through live broadcasts, such as the middle-aged woman Duan Hui and the security guard Long Ge. Compared with lawyers and psychological counselors, they have more down-to-earth identities and perspectives, and are more like the intimate sisters and brothers of the users.

In addition, there are also those who use live broadcasting to attract traffic, form personal IP, and then realize it through other means such as advertising, such as Zhang Dada who signed with Wuyou Media. From being a black fan on the whole network to having a positive opinion, Zhang Dada recently received an advertising campaign from OPPO after being whitewashed, and realized the profit through his personal IP.

In fact, the reason why users like to watch and pay for live broadcasts is essentially the authenticity, drama and interactivity of the live broadcast content.

Take lawyer Long Fei as an example. In her live broadcast room, the tragic dramas, unfaithful love affairs, and family disputes are "more exciting than TV dramas and they are real," said one netizen.

After online revelations have become a gathering place for jokes to attract traffic, netizens listen to real emotional stories of ordinary people in the interaction in the live broadcast room, which not only satisfies their personal desire to pry into other people's privacy and communicate, but also seeks value recognition in an immersive way.

"Lawyer Long Fei's opinions always make me sober. When it comes to relationships, bystanders often see things more clearly." Someone took the opportunity to cure his love-brain in the live broadcast room, "Making money is the top priority; relationships come second."

From the perspective of interactivity, on the one hand, users exchange their identities and status with the anchors in the live broadcast room. For example, Zhang Dada's live broadcast room was repeatedly "teased" by users, and he was often frightened by netizens who spoke without thinking and had no sense of boundaries, and his face was distorted. Wanyan Huide's live broadcast room was filled with drama-loving black fongs (fans) who came with scripts, just to line up to hear the classic saying, "Arch (roll) out, arch round (far)".

On the other hand, interactivity is also reflected in the fact that all users in the live broadcast room formed a united front and gained collective recognition. "Be a good person (be law-abiding)" and "A personification (woman) who loves reading is the most beautiful." "A good one is a best friend, and a bad one is an enemy." The strange and ambiguous accent was transformed into a homophonic pun by netizens without the knowledge of the person concerned. All the viewers in the live broadcast room laughed behind the screen, and only Teacher Wanyan was not notified.

With audiences constantly taking to the microphone and hosts being unprepared, every farce turned into a carnival for users.

2. The end of live streaming may not be selling goods

Live streaming has built two "ladders to heaven".

On the one hand, it has narrowed the distance between people of different classes and professions, allowing ordinary people to communicate directly with top investors. The disappearance of information barriers has brought about huge business potential.

On the other hand, the huge potential of short video live streaming has brought Andy Warhol's words "Everyone can be famous for five minutes" to the extreme. The huge user base allows everyone to find their own audience.

As live broadcasts become more and more profitable, more professions are also emerging, such as the profession of microphone hand.

The so-called "microphone hand" is similar to the supporting role of e-commerce, that is, holding a script and acting on the microphone, performing crosstalk with the anchor, and helping the anchor to increase the popularity of the live broadcast room through various ups and downs, funny and shocking jokes. Previously, in Zhang Dada's live broadcast room, many people suspected that it was the microphone hand script of Wuyou Media.

It is revealed that a task of a microphone hand usually takes about 20 minutes, and the remuneration is between 15 and 60. They are paid per order and the more they work, the more they are paid. It is very cheap but very effective.

From anchors to audiences, from payment to hot topics, Lianmai has been constantly breaking out of the circle with its own strength and has formed a complete business closed loop. Naturally, the platform will not miss this model that allows ordinary people to monetize content. By walking on three legs, it may be able to go further.

Douyin's main monetization model has always been live streaming and advertising. According to data from Great Wall Securities, Douyin's advertising loading rate was close to 15% in 2022 (Kuaishou was about 11%, and Video Account was only 2%).

Since the beginning of this year, many anchors have failed one after another. Behind them is the live broadcast e-commerce, which is trapped in a 28 pattern and has slowed down its growth. Take Xiao Yangge as an example. At the beginning, his live broadcast style was considered down-to-earth and funny, but now it is criticized as vulgar. This is related to his excessive income and influence. "Every month, he has to pay 50 million yuan in salary", which makes netizens feel that he is "unworthy of his position" and thus began to supervise and criticize him.

Too high a live broadcast room or local life loading rate will only make users gradually lose interest and become immune to it. The end of live broadcasting may not be to sell goods.

The timely appearance of paid live broadcasts combines both content and commerciality from the perspective of developing content monetization.

From the user's perspective, paid live broadcast is different from the one-way communication, 1 to N, and advance payment of traditional content payment, such as Zhihu, Get and other knowledge platforms. Paid live broadcast is a 1 to 1, real-time interactive method, which realizes customized content payment and meets the special needs of users. From the perspective of the anchor, there is no need to select products, prepare inventory, or have a large team of field control and operators. One person, one machine, lowers the threshold for anchors.

From the perspective of the platform, whether it is fans giving gifts themselves, or paid live broadcasts, or the monetization of influencer IP, Douyin hopes to leverage the power of content to increase user activity, while continuing to feed transaction monetization and developing content monetization. From this strategy, it can be seen that paid live broadcasts are only one part of the overall strategy, and Douyin has more measures to quietly accelerate the process.

Since the beginning of this year, many users have reported that when browsing information flow recommendations, in addition to live broadcast rooms for selling goods and promoting local life, there are more and more live show live broadcasts. In addition to live broadcasts with live broadcasts, there are also new forms of live broadcast rooms such as giving gifts and performing fixed actions, which have just started broadcasting in the second half of this year.

If we compare it with the previous radio and television industry, we will find that the live broadcast studio is increasingly becoming a TV studio where everyone can participate, and everyone can produce their own program.

When there are "enough directors", the content and format of the programs will naturally become richer.

From a longer timeline, there were paid concerts at the beginning, paid short dramas that have been popular in the past two years, and recently, Douyin announced the internal testing of paid short videos. When users watch some video content on the platform, they need to pay to unlock all the content...

Obviously, after live e-commerce has gradually peaked, platforms are turning to content weapons to try another growth curve and strengthen social vitality. However, it is still unknown whether this path can be successful, whether it is a temporary boom or sustainable.

Author: Xue Li

WeChat public account: Zi Quadrant