Entering commercialization 2.0, is Video Account still the last traffic pool?

This article deeply analyzes the nature of video account commercialization and summarizes the huge development potential and entry methods of video accounts entering commercialization. It is recommended for students who want to make video accounts to read.

More and more people who create video accounts are starting to make money.

"Loss in the previous year, break-even last year, profit this year" is how Zero One Digital Technology, a leading service provider that entered the video account market in 2021, described the company's operating conditions. Discussions on how to play the video account in the knife friends group also increased visibly in the second half of this year.

These point-like changes are also directly reflected in the performance. According to Tencent’s third-quarter financial report released last week, the total number of video playbacks increased by more than 50% year-on-year , and advertising revenue increased significantly.

More important than the results are the signals that guide change. Daofa has noticed that since the beginning of this year, Video Account has adjusted its merchant policies at a frequency of almost weekly, continuously strengthening business tools and standardizing the business environment; opening creative guidance courses, issuing traffic support policies, and frequently increasing incentives and guidance for creators.

It can be said that Video Account has begun to oppose the "Buddhist" personality and has seriously engaged in commercialization by focusing on both businesses and content. As more and more businesses and content creators enter after receiving the platform's "proactive and enterprising" signal, the commercialization of Video Account has also entered a new stage.

In particular, the new regulations issued in August that "live broadcast rooms, homepages, and top links of short videos cannot have corporate WeChat accounts" have relatively tightened the public-private domain linkage channels in order to create a fairer and more transparent consumption and business environment, and have innovated the private-domain-based business model of video accounts.

The industry also sees this node as a sign that Video Account has entered the commercialization 2.0 stage . However, Video Account, which was born on WeChat, has always had a "restrained" gene and has been slow in the commercialization process, which is significantly different from other e-commerce companies.

So how should we understand the video accounts in the current commercialization 2.0 stage? Will the video accounts become more popular after strengthening the public domain? Are there still opportunities and dividends hidden in them?

In order to answer these questions, DaoFa had a discussion with Jian Feng, CEO of Zero One Digital Technology, a leading service provider of video accounts, Run Yu, a lecturer of the video account creation camp and a double-million anchor, and Zhou Shuo, managing director of Jingrun Pearl Group, the top pearl category of video accounts . Combining interviews and industry cases, DaoFa will analyze the video accounts in the commercialization 2.0 era from three aspects: opportunity track, traffic gameplay, and content creation.

1. Opportunity track: Product categories are broadened and mature brands have opportunities

“Private domain” was once the first label that most people attached to video accounts. The logic is also very direct: WeChat is a social software. If you want to rely on this ecosystem to go on the road of commercialization, the fastest way to cultivate it must be to start from the existing relationship chain.

At the same time, as a "pioneer in the social world and a latecomer in the sales world", WeChat's private domain is also its unique strength. The high stickiness and long-term relationship chain that private domain can bring are also irreplaceable for merchants.

But the private domain cannot cover everything. The most obvious thing is that the relatively closed business environment in the private domain leads to limited business scale. In the video account with 1.3 billion WeChat users, doing business only in the private domain will inevitably not meet the business goals of merchants and influencers, and entering the public domain is inevitable.

The new regulations in August strengthen the public domain. First, by separating the public and private domains to a certain extent, everyone is brought to the same starting line, which facilitates platform management; second, all traffic is circulated on a single surface, and the scale of the entire platform is also increased; third, the coverage and inclusiveness of the public domain are higher, allowing more brands to join.

Since then, the commercialization of video accounts has also entered the 2.0 era of "public domain transactions + paid amplification" from the 1.0 era dominated by private domains. In the video accounts of the commercialization 2.0 era, merchants and influencers are more diverse and segmented. The performance of Double Eleven is the most intuitive reflection of this.

First of all, from the perspective of the number of players, the number of brands participating in the "Super Brand Live Broadcast" increased by 183% compared with last year's Double 11. The category coverage has also been expanded . On the basis of last year's five categories of trendy clothing, fashion and beauty, food and fresh produce, jewelry and collectibles, and education and training, 3C daily necessities and pet green plants have been added.

At the same time, the top players are gradually getting closer to big brands. Judging from the "Brand Cargo List", the brands on the list this year are obviously larger. Looking at the TOP10 alone, big brands of shoes, women's clothing and jewelry are the absolute main force. If we zoom in to the TOP50, daily necessities and food categories are all involved. For example, the official flagship stores of Zhang Xiaoquan, a national old brand of knives, Wugumofang, a food brand, and Vinda, a paper product, are all on the list.

Although it has made great progress compared to its past self, the business ecosystem of video accounts still has great potential for development. "The current video accounts have just taken off," Jianfeng said. In terms of categories, shoes and clothing, jewelry, and agricultural products are relatively mature, but most other tracks are still in the start-up stage.

As for the timing of entry, Jianfeng feels that the currently mature footwear, clothing and food sectors are 100% viable; for beauty and 3C products, it is recommended to start with influencer distribution, and then do self-broadcasting in the second half of 2024.

Along with the changes in merchants, the influencer ecosystem has also changed significantly. Last year on Double 11, the top 10 influencers in the sales rankings were basically dominated by body and fashion influencers. This year, there has been a significant increase in lifestyle influencers , such as Xiaomi, a organizer of daily necessities, and A-Lu, a rural expert in agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and Baicai GG, all of whom made the list.

It is not difficult to find that under the guidance of private to public transformation, more and more tracks are ushering in opportunities, and category players will enter the market one after another to occupy the market; and the expanded market will also attract more brands and experts to enter, and the ecological supply will gradually become fuller.

2. Traffic gameplay: Seize the category start-up bonus and scale up content investment

Profit-seeking is always the first priority of business. Whether or not a business can get bonuses in the video account is the first factor that determines whether or not to enter the market. Regarding the timing of entering the market to get bonuses, Jianfeng described it as, " The best relationship is the one that has been played with since childhood. If I can get bonuses, it must be because I need you and you are willing to accompany me ."

Jingrun Pearl, which was willing to accompany, successfully got the dividend. Before entering the video account in March 2022, Jingrun Pearl had already become the leader in the jewelry category of Douyin and Kuaishou, while the jewelry track on the video account was still in the stage of having categories but no brands.

Seeing the opportunity, Jingrun Pearl decided to enter the video account. Zhou Shuo told us that he didn't have high expectations for the video account at the beginning, but he didn't expect that the GMV in the first month of entering the video account would exceed 10 million. The GMV of a celebrity promotion event that month exceeded 5 million . Not only the GMV was surprising, but also the average order value. Jingrun Pearl's average order value on the video account can reach 1,000 yuan , which is much higher than other platforms.

If we say that in the past, when the private domain was the main focus, there was a natural adaptability to categories such as pearls that have high awareness and high customer orders. Now, with the opening of the commercial 2.0 era, more big players who "don't want to accompany" can directly use real money to quickly find business growth in the video account.

Jianfeng and Runyu both revealed that currently, video accounts can completely achieve the public domain 0 fans account . If the delivery tool is used to accelerate, the shortest account creation cycle is about 2 weeks.

Currently, the main traffic tools for video accounts include WeChat Beans and ADQ . WeChat Beans is the native traffic tool for video accounts. Its core scenario is the live broadcast room, which is more about recalling old fans of video accounts for repurchase. ADQ is Tencent's advertising platform, covering multiple Tencent scenarios such as video accounts, Moments, public accounts, mini programs, Tencent News, Tencent Video, etc., which can better play the strengths of WeChat's one-piece chess game.

Comparing the effectiveness of the two, WeChat Beans have lower costs and are easier to operate, but their coverage is limited and their ability to attract new users is weaker . In contrast, ADQ's traffic tentacles can extend to more diverse scenarios, leverage the entire WeChat public traffic pool to a greater extent, and effectively amplify the traffic.

As more and more user tags are revealed, the problem of "inaccurate and inefficient investment" that has been complained about before has also improved. Meng Yuning, the head of Jingguan, once revealed in an interview that in the recent live broadcast with anchor Yan Junmeixue, the ROI was increased to more than 1:40 through content seeding and investment amplification.

As for why ADQ can bring such a great effect, Runyu explained that unlike the account matrix of Douyin, Video Account plays with the scene matrix . Investing in ADQ is equivalent to spending money to snipe users in multiple scenes of WeChat, with wide coverage and high efficiency. He regards the three major traffic flows of private domain diversion, public domain natural flow, and investment flow as three sweeps in the WeChat ecosystem. The private domain is a bit like a gunfight, emphasizing 1-on-1 sniping; the public domain is like a grenade, which is delivered at a fixed point; investment flow is like a bomber, which can sweep all scenes in WeChat.

However, the premise of any traffic investment is content. Whether it is a live broadcast room or a short video, it is necessary to rely on content to drive natural traffic; and after accumulating user tags through natural traffic, it is possible to use traffic investment to expand the scale.

3. Content creation: only when there is social value can there be dissemination, and strong relationship chains are established by authenticity

If the players and investment methods in the market are constantly changing with the commercialization policies and development stages, then the content is the "unchanged" in the change. As an atomic content component, all the dissemination of video account content relies on WeChat. As a social tool for acquaintances, WeChat's content preferences are fundamentally different from those of pure interest content platforms.

"The forwarding of family groups is a weather vane of video account content." In Jianfeng's view, video account content that can become a hit must have social functions.

Take the promotional short video of nourishing products as an example. It can be made into a stewing tutorial or a caring video for those who need warm soup in winter. However, judging from the team's practical results, the dissemination of caring content with social attributes is significantly higher than that of tutorial content.

In addition, Runyu also mentioned that the main users of the video account are still mainly older women, so the main theme and positive energy content that cater to their preferences will be more popular.

Not only short videos, but also the requirements for live broadcast content in the social environment of acquaintances are significantly different from those for pure sales. "Sincerity and authenticity" are Zhou Shuo's requirements for Jingrun Pearl's live broadcast. The average return rate of pearls on e-commerce platforms can reach 70%, but Jingrun Pearl's is below 50%.

In his opinion, live streaming is a process of building trust with users, especially on a platform with a strong relationship chain like Video Account. Unlike other platforms that emphasize selling points, Video Account should pay more attention to social and emotional interaction. The anchor's speech should pay more attention to user feelings. Show product details as detailed as possible, and make it clear if there are any flaws.

In addition to the expression of product content, Zhou Shuo also mentioned that the overall presentation of the live broadcast room also needs to be consistent with the brand tone. Only when the value levels of the live broadcast room, brand, and users are consistent can the content resonate and extend the fans' stay time. Since the consumption power and quality of video account users are relatively good, they care more about the connotation and value of the product. Therefore, live broadcasting on video accounts pays more attention to knowledge output rather than product promotion.

This is related to brand positioning on the one hand, and the unique talent ecosystem on the other. Currently, many high-quality talents on the video account are knowledge content broadcasters, not professional sellers. They often have a stable and highly sticky fan base, and they care more about fan feelings than performance.

Such strong stickiness means natural trust endorsement, which not only brings higher customer orders and GMV, but also gives merchants more opportunities to connect with fans. Jingrun Pearl's pallets on the video account are also individually customized. Compared with other channels, they focus more on precious metal materials, and the styles tend to be classic light luxury styles rather than novel styles.

It is undeniable that as more businesses enter the market, the content ecology may change. However, as far as the video account is concerned, the plasticity of the private domain is still its unique strength, and it is in line with the trend of increasingly segmented overall consumption.

4. Video accounts are a full-life cycle business for super users

In Zhou Shuo's view, the ultimate goal of a brand is to establish its own channels, which is the so-called private domain. At present, Video Account is the best platform for building a brand's private domain, without a doubt. The reason is that Video Account is based on a dual relationship chain of social relationships and brand trust , which is more reliable than other platforms.

This business model is not only about goods, but also about people. Runyu believes that Video Account is a platform for brands to manage the entire life cycle of super users . In the WeChat ecosystem, brands can allow users to complete the entire path from cognition to recognition and then to subscription, and can even re-promote and develop new users.

If the video accounts in the 1.0 era, which were mainly private domains, were still a game for a few players, then the video accounts that have entered the commercialization 2.0 era have already started the "open beta". As more and more players join the game, the commercialization tools in the video accounts are constantly improving, the business environment is constantly being standardized, and the competition for traffic will also change accordingly. However, the basic foundation of WeChat's underlying social logic will not change.

Strong social interaction will not only bring strong stickiness, strong relationship chain, and strong trust, but also bring high transparency, thus placing higher demands on brands, merchants, and influencers. What the platform can provide is traffic and the opportunity to meet target users. But whether you can go from acquaintance to understanding and staying together is ultimately a test of your own nature.

Author: Li Zi

Source: Knife Skills Research Institute (ID: DigipontClub).