In 2023, who still "believes" in the anchor?

Tietou, a live streamer who became famous for exposing the short weight of seafood in Sanya, was once regarded by some as a hero in fighting against counterfeiting and a messenger of justice. A month after he suddenly became famous, he pointed the finger at the education giant New Oriental and started fighting against counterfeiting. Then, 10 days later, he started his first live broadcast to sell goods. However, his reputation reversed overnight: the live broadcast ended hastily after two hours, and the third party estimated that the transaction volume was only more than 50,000. What was the reason? In this article, we will try to analyze it.

This year, many top anchors have either fallen or lost their voices. What they have in common is that the anchors who originally stood on the side of consumers turned around and stood on the opposite side of consumers after enjoying the trust dividend.

Among these anchors, anti-counterfeiting bloggers are the ones who use the trust bonus to the extreme. They often become famous because of a fight against counterfeiting, and fall from the altar overnight because of a "mistake".

"Tietou Punishes Evil and Promotes Good" (hereinafter referred to as Tietou), who once became famous for exposing the short-weighting of seafood in Sanya market, is a representative blogger in recent times.

In the video, Tietou bought seafood worth 599 yuan at a market in Sanya, but the scale he carried showed that the seafood was short of the required weight. Tietou then shouted, "Are you lawless?" and made a telephone complaint to the market where the merchant was located and the Sanya Market Supervision Bureau, demanding that the result of the incident be dealt with on the spot.

Finally, the law enforcement department of Sanya City ordered the seafood processing plaza to clear out the merchants involved and imposed a fine of 300,000 yuan. As a result, Tietou gained more than 2 million followers in 5 days and was regarded by some as a hero in fighting against counterfeiting and a messenger of justice.

However, just one month after his sudden popularity, Tietou turned his attention to the education giant New Oriental, but his anti-counterfeiting efforts went in the wrong direction, and his reputation reversed overnight. What made the audience feel even more scheming was that 10 days after the anti-counterfeiting campaign against New Oriental, Tietou started his first live broadcast with goods. A large number of viewers who did not want to be treated as "leeks" came to the live broadcast room to "besiege" him, causing the live broadcast to end hastily after only two hours. According to a third-party platform, the estimated transaction volume of the live broadcast was only more than 50,000 yuan.

An MCN agency manager told Dingjiao that the traffic Tietou gained in the early stage due to his "anti-counterfeiting personality" was not stable. Without being well prepared to bring in goods, he rushed to cash in and consumed the trust of fans, which was a taboo. It can be said that the law that Internet celebrities bring goods as soon as they become famous and fail as soon as they bring goods has been fulfilled in him.

No matter whether it is an anti-counterfeiting blogger who "upholds justice" for the audience, or a live-streaming anchor who "brings down prices" for the masses, only by gaining the trust of consumers can they quickly increase and retain fans in the early stages. However, the problems they encounter in the later stages are very similar - the scale of content is difficult to control, their professionalism needs to be strengthened, and user trust can easily backfire. Once a failure occurs, it is difficult to restore their reputation.

1. The anchor obtains the trusted traffic password

With the development of short videos and live broadcasts, bloggers and anchors have become famous because they have gained trust. The reason why anti-counterfeiting bloggers like Tietou can become popular is that they have mastered a set of "formulas" to quickly gain trust.

If we use a formula to summarize the content of Tietou's videos, it is: find the "consumption trap" in the eyes of most people + collect evidence of consumption + call the police on the spot + show the results of the treatment. Each link is aimed at gaining the trust of users.

Tietou focuses on the most common scams in people's lives , such as the five-liang scale, the "gold and jade lottery scam" in supermarkets, and the beauty salons and hair growth shops that lure customers into borrowing high-interest loans.

Under Tietou’s video, some people claimed that they had been cheated before, but had reported the case many times to no avail. It was Tietou who spoke up for them.

Zhang Dadou, founder of Leopard Change IP, said that once consumers' "hostility" is activated, all the injustices suffered by everyone in the past will find an outlet. Bloggers' anti-counterfeiting is to use themselves as a gun in the hands of the public and act from the standpoint of the public, which is very easy to build trust and resonance.

Many of Tietou's videos start with him making a scene or fighting. He also carries accident insurance that he bought at his own expense, saying that he is "not afraid of death." In this way, Tietou has gradually established an image of a strong but righteous "stubborn" and "die-hard" person.

In fact, in the eyes of consumers, many top anchors also play a similar role. During a live broadcast, they often ask merchants to reduce prices and make concessions to seek benefits for consumers.

“The more reluctant the merchants are, the sharper the hosts’ personalities will be, the stronger the sense of conflict will be, and the more relieved the audience will feel when watching them. They will show their support through actions such as likes, comments, and purchases,” said Zhang Dayou.

According to Tietou, after receiving clues from netizens, he would first consult a lawyer friend about relevant terms and cases, and then go to "rectify" the merchant after consuming the goods himself to obtain a complete chain of evidence. In the videos released by Tietou, almost every anti-counterfeiting case gave the final rights protection result , which, in the eyes of the audience, played a role in correcting bad practices to a certain extent.

Recently, Tietou had a dispute with a hair growth store in Liaocheng, Shandong. A consumer found Tietou and said that after receiving treatment at the store, his hair on the top of his head, which had alopecia areata, not only did not grow hair, but all hair fell out. Afterwards, the store was unwilling to compensate. After Tietou defended his rights for 18 days and the local market supervision bureau mediated, the store paid a total of 100,000 yuan to the consumer, and rectified and removed the illegal promotional advertisements.

Mai Zi, a senior short video IP operator, said that this kind of effective anti-counterfeiting has further enriched Tietou's personality and can hit the fans' admiration for "someone to protect him". Similar emotions are reflected in the field of selling goods, such as "compensation for overpriced products" and "refunds if you are not satisfied".

No matter how things change, the essence of the fan economy of the iron heads remains the same.

Among the anti-counterfeiting bloggers, in addition to Tietou, there are also bloggers with tens of millions of fans such as "B Tai". They have all experienced a period of slow fan growth before. For example, Tietou once imitated foreign bloggers to do "street human nature tests", and B Tai was originally a food blogger. In the end, both of them transformed into "avoid pits" and "anti-counterfeiting" bloggers, and transformed their accounts around "user trust" to quickly increase their fans. In the entire short video and live streaming industry, the top anchors have also experienced a stage of increasing fans by gaining user trust.

2. Even if you have fans, it may not be easy to monetize

In the era of incremental traffic, bloggers and live streamers can rely on trust to create hits and quickly increase their followers. But in the era of stock, in addition to increasing followers, they also need IPs that can be monetized and easily monetized. At this stage, professionalism is the key, and this is precisely the weakness of anti-counterfeiting bloggers and scripted live streamers.

The traffic accumulated by this type of blogger in the early stage is relatively general. If there is no professional operation team, it is easy to step on the red points of the audience group and cause failure.

Just one month after becoming popular, Tietou turned his attention to the education and training industry, reporting that a New Oriental teaching center in Hangzhou was providing paid subject training to middle school students. Not long after, the teaching center was closed for rectification. Tietou also said at the time that he would continue to expose the phenomenon of supplementary classes in Hangzhou Xueersi and key high schools, and to rectify the "chaos in Hengshui Middle School."

According to Tietou's previous formula for hit products, he seems to have "gone astray", because in this "anti-counterfeiting" campaign, there was neither "fake" nor "evil" in the true sense, nor was there any real solution given. Instead, the lack of consensus on "whether or not to make up for the lessons" caused controversy and confusion.

“His original intention in exposing New Oriental’s counterfeiting may have been to use the big brand to highlight his own authority, but instead it affected the interests of the general public and deviated from the original motivation, resulting in damaged trust between him and his fans, and he may also offend potential monetization users.” Maizi pointed out that bloggers like Tietou started out as a small team of two or three people. When they develop to a certain stage, they need to introduce a professional operation team that understands operations, content, and risk control in order to develop in the long run.

When it comes to the monetization stage, some bloggers and anchors do not have professional investment promotion and supply chain teams, and they themselves lack professional oral sales capabilities, making it difficult to satisfy partners and consumers.

Just after the "New Oriental incident", Tietou, who had just offended the main consumer force (children's parents), directly started his first live broadcast to help farmers sell goods only 10 days later. Many people suspected that Tietou was taking the opportunity to attract attention and rushed to his live broadcast room to "sing a different tune."

"When facing huge controversy, instead of slowing down and steadying fans, they directly started selling products. Their oral performance during the live sales was not professional enough, which gave everyone a very important focus for resistance and backfired," said Zhang Dayou.

According to the data from New Douyin, Tietou’s live broadcast lasted only two hours, with a total of 9 products on the shelves. Some items only sold 1-25 pieces, with a cumulative GMV of 50,000-75,000 yuan. A large number of users also said that they would “return the goods after purchase.” Several merchants who participated in the live broadcast said they had terminated their cooperation with Tietou.

There is a natural paradox in the rapid rise to fame and monetization. Bloggers and anchors who quickly accumulate fans by establishing a persona tend to say too much in the early stages, which in turn hinders their monetization in the later stages.

On the one hand, it is because "after the initial trust is established, fans, audiences, companies, and brand merchants will demand higher content production standards and commercialization standards from bloggers and anchors," Maizi said.

Xin Jifei is a typical example. He became famous for revealing the secrets of food additives, but when he first started to promote products, he was questioned for "double standards" and "pulling down others". For example, netizens commented, "You say other people's food is bad because of MSG, but the MSG products you promote are healthy", and "You once said that good fruits should not be made into juice, but this year you are pushing a product called wolfberry juice that you claim to be made from fresh fruit".

On the other hand, monetization requires professional ability and appropriate timing. It is difficult for an anchor who becomes popular too quickly to quickly build a professional team and prepare a rich inventory.

Maizi believes that live streaming sales generally requires at least three months of planning in advance. Tietou received the invitation on August 4 and started live streaming on August 14, which was too fast. The company that invited Tietou was attracted by the blogger's traffic but did not conduct a background check in advance. The merchant also said that he did not know that it was Tietou who brought the goods, but just followed the company's arrangements.

The impact of this incident on Tietou continues. Not only is the trust of the audience lost, it takes a long time to restore it; in terms of commercialization, it will also affect the choices of merchants and platforms. An operator of a leading short video platform told "Dingjiao" that the company originally planned to cooperate with Tietou to bring goods, but now because of the instability and uncontrollability of his personality, it has given up cooperation.

In summary, Zhang Dayou said that nowadays all major short video and live broadcast platforms have developed very maturely, and the cost of recovering from bloggers’ mistakes is getting higher and higher . Now, only professional live broadcast teams can enter the market, matched with professional cargo trays and sales capabilities, to realize long-term monetization.

3. To reap the benefits of trust, you need to stay sober

Since the advent of short videos and live streaming e-commerce, there have been many bloggers who have traffic but no sales and who are popular for a while but then fall from grace. If you want to maintain long-term popularity, it is essential to stay sober and plan ahead.

A short video operator analyzed to Dingjiao that the most common mistake made by bloggers is that they cannot stay awake and do not respect the traffic when their followers increase too quickly. The mentality of these bloggers will change with the surge in attention. Individuals in the rising period may think that "the trust of fans" is equal to absolute "voice".

Specifically speaking of anti-counterfeiting bloggers, it is not ruled out that some people in this group may "cross the line" or "demonize" some industries in order to gain traffic, thereby creating the effect of selling anxiety.

But traffic is by no means the first priority. People's Daily Online once mentioned in an article titled "Analysis of the Four Risks Behind the Popularity of "Anti-Counterfeiting Bloggers"" that there are multiple risks behind anti-counterfeiting bloggers that deserve to be evaluated, such as how anti-counterfeiting bloggers abide by the bottom line, whether they are suspected of exaggerating publicity to gain improper traffic, and how to avoid accidentally hurting other law-abiding businesses.

Bloggers still have a lot of work to do in terms of IP creation and commercial monetization.

Maizi pointed out that no matter what track a blogger is in, before operating an account, he must first confirm the monetization path - rewards, advertising, bringing goods or private e-commerce, and use the monetization method to reverse the account operation method. If the monetization route is a paradox, it may be difficult to monetize even if the traffic increases. At the same time, the number of fans and the difficulty of monetization are not completely linked. What directly determines monetization is the verticality, accuracy and trust of fans.

Nowadays, bloggers who have encountered setbacks in monetization have also begun to actively seek development paths for the next stage.

After the "New Oriental" incident, the themes of Tietou's videos were health products for the elderly, hair salons that sold drugs without a license, and the gold-inlaid jade scam at train stations. Like the fair scale, these themes safeguard the interests of the majority.

However, Tietou's followers are increasing at a much slower rate than before. According to the data from Xindou, his followers increased by only 154,700 in the past 30 days. He also said that his team currently has three full-time employees, and the other two are responsible for filming and editing. He is not considering bringing goods in the short term.

Mrs. B is trying her best to get rid of her identity as a mere anti-counterfeiting blogger. On the one hand, she teaches people how to avoid pitfalls when it comes to food, and her topics include ghost scales, food safety, selling inferior goods as good ones, and near-expiry foods. On the other hand, she is working with relevant local departments in many cities across the country to promote urban tourism and cultural cuisine, and to add public welfare attributes to her account.

This strategy helped him screen out a group of relatively vertical fans. The way of cooperating with local official departments and celebrities endorsed him to a certain extent. Through "selling goods + advertising", he embarked on a path of "strict selection of food".

According to data from Xin Dou, in the past 90 days, Mrs. B conducted 10 live broadcasts of "Searching for Xinjiang Food Along the Silk Road", with estimated sales of 2.5 million to 5 million, and 3 "Fans Special" live broadcasts, with estimated sales of 200,000 to 500,000.

Image source/ Xindou

Today's live streaming e-commerce industry is returning to its essence. There are fewer and fewer entertainment and scenario-based live broadcasts, and the audience cares more about the price of goods and the trust in the anchor.

From the perspective of "people, goods and places", the maturity of the goods supply chain is becoming higher and higher, and the exploration of scenarios and channels is becoming more and more fixed. Only the human dimension still has the possibility of producing chemical reactions, which also puts higher demands on practitioners.

To continue to gain user trust, the key is to maintain the authenticity of the persona, produce valuable content, and always be respectful of traffic and discourse power. Zhang Dadou pointed out that whether to look at the current work in terms of long-term value or in terms of traffic is the ongoing game for every anchor and blogger.

*At the request of the interviewee, Maizi is a pseudonym in this article.

Author: Bruce, Editor: Xiang Yuan

Source: Dingjiaoone (ID: dingjiaoone), deeply influencing innovation.