Exchanging specialties has become popular, is Tik Tok social networking alive?

Exchanging specialties has sparked a new wave of popularity, and Douyin has become a new favorite for social activities. In the Internet age, the exchange of specialties is no longer limited to travel backpacks and local snacks, but has spread rapidly through the Internet. With the rapid rise of the social media platform Douyin, it has become a new stage for people to share and explore specialties and interact socially. Let's uncover the exciting changes brought about by this new trend.

Recently, the game of "exchanging specialties" has been very popular on Douyin.

The so-called "exchange of specialties" means that netizens who are willing to exchange find like-minded partners on the Internet, agree on a suitable amount, and buy local specialties of comparable price and send them to each other. In this way, even if you stay at home, you can experience the local customs and customs from all over the country, and you can also experience the pleasure of opening a blind box.

In essence, this is actually an online social activity for strangers. Because of the full sense of surprise contained in it, it is easy to arouse the curiosity and expectation of Douyin users, so more and more "audiences" choose to join in. As of now, #SwapSpecials has received 1.5 billion views on Douyin, and #SwapSpecials has also received 620 million views in one day.

In recent years, we have frequently seen Douyin reaching out to the social networking sector, but the results seem to be "much ado about nothing". So, can the popularity of the "specialty exchange" game open up new prospects for Douyin's social networking?

1. The game of "heart for heart" - some people get surprises, some people get shocks

"I received 35 kilograms of Shandong products when exchanging specialties."

According to blogger @guoguo, she agreed with a man from Shandong to exchange local specialties worth 200 yuan, but received a message from SF Express at work, indicating that the package weighed 35 kilograms, which made her both surprised and frightened.

As the video was shot, we could see that the contents of the box were quite rich: Shandong pancakes, sesame cakes, quail eggs, honey three-knife, chrysanthemum tea, Xueji roasted nuts, sesame paste, pineapple beans, fruit jellyfish, jellyfish heads, and all kinds of fish fillets...

The video is nearly 7 minutes long. Netizens watch the blogger "digging and digging" in the big box, but it seems that he can't empty it.

Image source: @guoguo Screenshot from TikTok

"People from Shandong will tell you that this box must be worth 2,000."

"Brother, the shipping fee is more than 200."

"Brother, is it equipped according to the standard of 200 dollars?"

From the sighs of netizens, it is not difficult to see the sincerity of the elder brother's exchange. Later, the blogger updated the video of himself sending local specialties to his elder brother, which also included a wide variety of items: tea, crab paste, ginkgo nuts, fermented pork, beef tendon, osmanthus cake, Shaoxing rice wine... and a large bag of dried plums from his own home, which shows the sincerity of the return gift.

@guoguo's successful exchange experience has also aroused the desire of more netizens to exchange specialties. Many people actively recommended themselves in the blogger's comment area, hoping to find such a "Shandong big brother" to have a "specialty exchange".

It is worth noting that although the netizens brought out the specialties from their hometowns, due to the great differences in eating habits and customs between different provinces, everyone's preference for specialties naturally varies. The specialties of some provinces have become the most sought-after objects in this exchange activity because of their large portions, uncommonness and good taste .

The provinces at the top of the "specialty product chain" this time are Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet. The reason is easy to understand. After all, compared with other provinces, it takes more time and money to go to these three places. Relatively few people have traveled there, and even fewer people have eaten local specialties, so everyone is more curious about them. Kas observed that once netizens from these provinces and cities leave messages in the comment area wanting to exchange, the number of posts responding to them always piles up very high.

Image source: Screenshot of #SwapSpecialtyProducts on Douyin

However, the voices about "exchanging specialties" are not all positive, and many people said that they suffered losses in this exchange activity.

Firstly, in areas like Inner Mongolia mentioned above, animal husbandry is well developed, and most of their specialties are meat and dairy products, which are expensive. When exchanging specialties with those from other regions, even if the other party has prepared them carefully, there will inevitably be a difference in price.

Secondly, this is, after all, an activity of "bartering goods" between strangers, and it is difficult to guarantee that everyone's sincerity will be exchanged for sincerity. Some netizens posted that they prepared several hundred yuan worth of specialties, but only received two packs of tissues and some worthless spicy strips; others said that after they sent the package, the other party never responded again, and in the end they did not receive anything.

Image source: @掌上明朱TikTok screenshot

Even well-known Internet celebrities have been “unable to escape” being cheated. @铁兜女主角胡老师, who previously became famous for buying things indiscriminately, has also recently become addicted to the “exchange game” with netizens, but what she exchanges is not food, but intangible cultural heritage.

Kesi ornaments, celadon trays, plum vase incense burners, Mr. Hu’s things are not cheap, but the couple said in the video that they do not insist on price equality when exchanging intangible cultural heritage with everyone. They just like intangible cultural heritage from all over the country and they also want to "clean up" the stock and make some room in their home. If netizens are happy to receive the gifts, they will be happy too.

However, when a netizen sent a piece of rice paper to exchange for Mr. Hu's incense burner worth more than 1,000 yuan, both the blogger and his fans were speechless. Many people were so angry that they suggested that Mr. Hu stop the "intangible cultural heritage exchange" and not exchange it again in the future.

Image source: @铁兜TikTok screenshot

2. WeChat “does not read”, TikTok “reply immediately”

It is worth noting that, despite the risks, "exchanging specialties" has become the first step for many people to start "online stranger socializing". Many netizens who have sincerely exchanged specialties have become good friends afterwards.

After the first exchange with a netizen from Heilongjiang, a Chongqing netizen felt that she had not had enough, so she quickly prepared a new batch of specialties and wanted to exchange with the other party for the second time. "This exchange was mainly casual, and we had a very good chat. We basically contacted each other every day. I decided to exchange with her for a long time and we can still be friends." She said in her video.

@guoguo mentioned above also mentioned in his packing video that Torreya grandis is not in season yet, and he will definitely send some more to his brother when they become delicious in a while.

Image source: @guoguo Screenshot from TikTok

In addition to online connections, some people have extended their friendship offline. Inner Mongolian netizen Ai Li said in an interview that she was lucky to meet a sincere Qingdao girl during the exchange. Although she has never been to Qingdao, she is full of love for the city and wants to visit it with her family if she has the chance. In addition, she will hold her wedding in a few days, and has already sent an invitation to the Qingdao girl to attend the ceremony.

What’s even more interesting is that Kass observed that not only are people socializing with strangers, but more and more people are also turning their social battlefield with acquaintances to Douyin.

"My friends often don't reply to my WeChat messages for an entire afternoon, but send me a bunch of videos and messages on Douyin." This is Kas' personal experience. In the past six months, the editor has clearly felt that the probability of "catching" friends on Douyin is far greater than that on WeChat.

In addition, in the comment section of each video, we can always see netizens who like to watch the show @ friends.

Image source: Screenshot of Douyin comment area

Such a transformation is not difficult to understand. On the one hand, short videos are increasingly integrated into people's daily lives and have become the main form of information and communication. QuestMobile data shows that as of June 2023, Douyin has 723 million monthly active users, with an average daily usage time of 1.89 hours per person.

Netizens are spending more and more time on short videos, and the topics they chat with friends are often related to short videos. Moving the social battlefield to Douyin will undoubtedly make their social entertainment more convenient.

Image source: QuestMobileTRUTH China Mobile Internet Database

On the other hand, traditional social platforms represented by WeChat, in addition to daily social interaction, are also closely related to work-related social interaction. The pressure this brings to people is increasing day by day, causing many people, especially young people, to have a certain resistance to these platforms. "WeChat refugees" urgently need a new platform for life and entertainment.

3. Tik Tok’s social dream remains intact

Douyin social networking is not only the spontaneous choice of groups of netizens, but also one of Douyin’s long-standing dreams.

On the one hand, Douyin has actively upgraded its in-site facilities to enable it to have various hardware functions of traditional social platforms. Now, the chat function that can be realized in the Douyin APP is not much different from that of WeChat.

Taking the relevant functions of the chat box as an example, Douyin's "reply" is equivalent to WeChat's "quote", and "share" is equivalent to WeChat's "forward"; in addition to supporting multiple selection, deletion and other functions, it also has a unique "like" function with a strong short video feature.

In addition to chatting, other commonly used social tools such as location, photo album, video call, red envelope, etc. are also equipped. It is worth noting that Douyin has also combined its own short video genes to launch interactive functions in the form of short videos such as "Watch Together", "Shoot This Moment", and "Image Exchange".

Even some features that are missing from WeChat but are highly demanded by the public can also be realized in Douyin: for example, the voice progress bar in the dialog box can be dragged at will; the sent message can show whether the other party has read it, and in the group chat you can also see how many people have read it; there are beautification effects such as beautification, props, and special effects during video calls.

It is worth mentioning that WeChat’s “message withdrawal within two minutes” function has been extended to 72 hours on Douyin, which is very attractive to many netizens.

On the other hand, Douyin also started its own attempts at becoming an independent social APP as early as 2019.

In January 2019, Douyin, which boasts of "short video + social networking", was launched. As the first generation social product of Douyin Group, it retained more short video elements and added a new gameplay of "burn after reading", attracting many users to "try it out".

In addition, Douyin also invested heavily in this new product, spending 100 million yuan on recruiting new users for Duoshan during the Lantern Festival that year, which resulted in its daily active users exceeding 10 million within one month of its launch, and it became extremely popular for a while.

But perhaps it is precisely because it has too many additional gameplays that the APP has lost its social convenience. After the users' novelty wore off, Duoshan quickly fell into silence. Douyin also later launched "Feiliao" which focuses on stranger interest-based social networking, but overall, neither of them has made much of a splash.

After failing in the short video social networking, Douyin has upgraded Duoshan several times, such as connecting its social ecosystem with Douyin and exploring close friend social networking, but none of them have been able to reverse the decline. According to Tech Planet, after the latest update, Duoshan has returned to the instant social status with short video attributes.

After trying it, Kas found that compared with Douyin, the current Duoshan is more like a "sub-APP" without a short video square and focusing on the "message" function. Douyin can realize all the functions on it, but the operation in Duoshan is much more convenient.

Specifically, Duoshan has five primary navigation bars. The "shooting" function occupies the center of the bottom navigation. The other four are "chat", "friends", "address book" and "me", which correspond to Douyin's "message", "friends" (short video information flow posted by friends, similar to the video version of Moments), "new friends" and "me". Among them, the "me" section of Duoshan does not have the "Douyin Mall", "viewing history", "frequently visited people" and other non-social related functions in Douyin's "me".

Image source: Internet

Simply put, the style design of the entire product still tends towards Douyin, but the functional layout is already similar to WeChat.

The short video track is becoming increasingly saturated, and extending to social networking is undoubtedly the solution for the continued growth of the Douyin Group. However, in the face of strong competitors, Kas will continue to pay attention to what results can be achieved in the future.

Author: Jiang Bei, WeChat public account: Kas Data