Alipay makes short videos, attracting a wave of freeloaders

Recently, Alipay announced the launch of a creative profit-sharing plan to attract original content producers. But in addition, the creative profit-sharing plan has also attracted a group of people who want to "take advantage of the situation". How to understand this phenomenon specifically? What kind of business considerations can we get from Alipay's launch of the creative profit-sharing plan?

"I originally wanted to use Alipay to water a tree, but now I've been watching videos for 20 minutes."

In Alipay Life, such comments can often be seen in the comment section of short videos.

Following the Douyin video plan, Alipay also launched a creative profit-sharing plan, and the video revenue is higher. According to the screenshots posted by netizens, 10,000 views can bring in 500-600 yuan in revenue.

The talent incentive policy of the "Alipay Creation and Sharing Plan" shows that the policy is valid from June 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024. The actual income of the talent is calculated based on the playback time of the released video, content quality, fan activity, etc.

Last year, Chen Xianda, General Manager of Alipay Ecosystem Products, announced the upgrade of Life Account at the Alipay Partner Conference. Life Account has been upgraded from the original single text and picture information to short videos, live broadcasts, pictures and texts and other content forms, and displayed in the form of information flow. Merchants can attach cards, coupons and mini-programs to various content forms, opening up the link from public domain to private domain.

Alipay's creation profit-sharing plan is designed to quickly attract high-quality original content producers. However, the considerable revenue from playback volume has also attracted a group of "wool parties" to come, and has also spawned businesses such as increasing followers and selling courses.

1. Can you take advantage of Alipay?

If you want to take advantage of Alipay, you must first meet the participation threshold of the program.

In order to get rich quickly, a group of "wool-gathering parties" began to spend money to buy fans. In the gray market, 100 fans can be bought for about 50 yuan.

On the other hand, there are also many people on social platforms who ask for mutual following.

On the Alipay Life account, the comment section of a recent work by a blogger with 18,000 fans was dominated by news of the "profit-sharing plan for mutual following", and mutual following groups came into being.

But just buying zombie fans to make up the numbers is not enough. The activity requires the number of fans to be active in the past 30 days, and the number of views of each video released in the past 30 days must be above 100.

However, merchants in the gray market who increase followers promise that in addition to the number of fans, what you purchase can also be the amount of interaction.

Searching for "Alipay profit sharing plan" on e-commerce platforms, you can see a store named "Profit sharing plan opening". In addition to selling "Alipay profit sharing plan 100 views and attention" at a price of 9.9 yuan, the store also sells related tutorials on video plans on other platforms. However, the products in this store have not yet sold.

The three links of another store all sell "profit sharing plan 100 views and followers", and two of them have monthly sales of over a thousand. The product link shows that the price of one follower is 0.68 yuan. The store's automatic reply says, "How many times you take a photo, you get that many followers, including likes, comments, and followers."

There are quite a few positive reviews in the product review section. One buyer said: “It’s efficient, but the review rate is not enough, only 60% of them review.” However, one seller followed up with a positive review, saying: “This is a liar. His fans are all zombies and there is no activity, yet he still requires positive reviews.” The comments in the comment section are all dated within the past week.

In addition, there are shops selling courses related to moving videos, the product name is "Alipay short video project, only need simple moving", priced at 1 yuan. Its product details page says automatic delivery, just take a picture.

After buying followers and removing the watermarks from popular videos on other platforms, can you really make money without doing anything? No. Many people reported that their personal account videos are not popular, and only those certified big Vs can get more traffic. If the account is not established, it is difficult to make money. If you are not careful, you will be deceived.

Xiao Qin wanted to make some money by taking advantage of this opportunity, so he took the first step: buying fans. After joining a mutual follower group, someone posted a message that fans could be bought. Xiao Qin was skeptical at first, but the seller said that if he was fake, he would not be able to stay in the group. Xiao Qin believed him, but he was deleted as a friend after two transfers. Although the money was not much, it was still very frustrating.

The screenshots of profits posted by some course sellers on social platforms have been distorted and it is difficult to tell whether they are real or fake.

It is clear that it is not easy to be a "wool party". It is still difficult to make money with this activity. Only accounts that have accumulated a large number of fans can participate better. Alipay can spend money, but it is difficult to make money. On the contrary, those who sell courses and fans pick up leaks and make money from it.

2. Everything can be video account

After Meituan launched short videos, Alipay also began to make efforts in the field of short videos, and these apps that were not mainly engaged in short videos also began to "deviate from their main business."

Whether it is placing the video account in the C position of the life account in the bottom navigation bar, or investing a lot of money in the creative profit-sharing plan, it all shows that Alipay attaches great importance to short videos.

The market believes that Alipay is actually scrambling for the last wave of dividends from short videos. In this regard, Internet expert Yang Jian told Lujiu Business Review that the short video industry still has great potential in terms of both application scenarios and product experience, so there is no such thing as the so-called "last wave".

In his opinion, Alipay itself is a product demand derived from Taobao transactions. It has been able to grow to its current scale because it has accumulated three core advantages: user scale, technology and company background, and user trust.

“Maybe we can’t see a strong fit between short videos and payment functions now, but it doesn’t mean there will be no opportunities after technologies like AI and virtual reality have made major breakthroughs,” Yang Jian said. “For large companies, the launch of a simple product function cannot be understood only from the function itself. It must be combined with strategic layout, user orientation and other aspects for comprehensive consideration.”

However, Alipay itself has certain financial attributes, and financial news, automotive knowledge, and travel have become the main popular video types. However, some common video types are restricted, such as film and television clips and serialized novels. These videos belong to the banned industries and the platform will not give them traffic. Netizen Kaka said, "I posted (film and television clips) but they were not approved directly. I need film and television editing qualifications."

However, the social functions of Alipay Life accounts are relatively weak and the short video style makes it difficult to attract young users.

Xie Yu, born in 1995, is a short video enthusiast. He said: "I didn't know Alipay also had short videos before. I won't watch videos on Alipay in the future because the social attribute is too weak." After learning that Alipay has short videos, Xie Yu also watched it for a while, but he said "I feel that the style of the video is a bit vulgar."

In addition, payment apps have also started to use short videos, which has caused some concerns among users. Alipay user Zhou Wei said, "I used to think Alipay was a financial platform, but why has it become a short video community? I don't feel safe anymore."

From the June version of the "Alipay Creation and Profit Plan" talent incentive policy, we can see that the platform requires high-quality original content. However, the platform is not strict in the management and review of video originality, which has also caused some people to directly copy popular videos from other platforms. Some people also sell courses under the slogan of "direct copying can also be on the front page."

At the same time, the policy shows that if influencers violate regulations by brushing data, obtaining fake fans and playback volume, etc., the platform has the right to remove the account from the incentive policy and hold them accountable. However, the practice of brushing fans still exists, which inevitably affects the platform ecology.

How to acquire users is a problem facing Alipay short videos. Many netizens said that they would not watch short videos on the payment software, and adding the short video function would make the software experience worse. Sometimes it is very troublesome to accidentally touch the video account, so many people choose to close the life channel.

3. Can short videos still produce results?

Why are Alipay and Meituan increasing their investments in live streaming and short videos?

"Live streaming and short videos have become standard content forms. Any product needs to be content-based because the Internet solves the problem of information transmission. A tool product can become an operation platform. After solving user pain points, it must extend upstream to content and information to guide users' consumption decisions. This is something that no company can give up." said a former Alibaba employee.

But whether it is Alipay, Meituan's short videos, Taobao's "Guangguang", or Pinduoduo's "Duoduo Video", the audience of their short videos is also limited. Few people go there specifically to watch short videos, and many people who accidentally discovered the short video function did not feel "surprised" but "shocked".

On the one hand, these platforms lack high-quality original content producers.

KOC Ranyu said: "I haven't visited Taobao's homepage for a long time. Now it's full of short videos with ambiguous titles. I don't know what's being sold at first glance, and the things I click on may not even be related. There are also many videos that plagiarize and infringe on copyright, which really affects the user experience."

Many people in the comment section have the same troubles, and some experienced people have come up with suggestions, such as "turn off personalized recommendations" and "change the region to global in the general settings to turn it off."

On the other hand, it is difficult for them to implement the push mechanism of Douyin and Kuaishou to accurately "guess what you like".

Zhang Ran is a big fan of short videos, and she often spends four to five hours a day watching them. However, she said that she would not go to Alipay to watch short videos because "I'm already used to the push mechanism of Douyin, which only pushes the types of videos I like to watch." Obviously, it is difficult for Alipay's short videos to capture the hearts of users.

In order to solve the problem of the scarcity of high-quality original content producers, Alipay launched a creative profit-sharing plan. Although the incentives are strong, the publicity is still insufficient and it is difficult to achieve results. Many people are not aware of it, but instead learned about it from some people who posted to attract traffic and sell courses. Some users even don’t know that Alipay has a short video function.

In addition, the standards for participating in the creation profit-sharing plan are difficult to grasp, which inevitably dampens the enthusiasm of participants. In addition to the rigid data requirements, an assessment must be conducted based on the last 10 videos to determine whether they meet the platform's style requirements. Many people have met the first few indicators, but their progress is stuck on the last item, "meeting the platform's style requirements." When asking customer service how to meet the standards, no effective response was given.

"Alipay has been seeking the possibility of contentization and building a content ecosystem. Although a pure payment tool is frequently used, its shortcomings are user duration and stickiness. Compared with the social scene of WeChat Pay, Alipay needs to establish its own scene that is close to the user's life and consumption. This has been a long-term driving force." The aforementioned former Alibaba employee believes that "the contentization of tool-type products is an unavoidable choice. Alipay's competitiveness lies in the fact that it is indeed a high-frequency application with hundreds of millions of users and has the ability to distribute content."

At present, the short video sections of Alipay and Taobao are not connected. Few people choose to shop directly on payment software, and Alipay tends to be an "isolated island" in content creation. Will it be connected with Taobao's live broadcast and short video in the future?

The above-mentioned person said, "I personally think that the possibility of connecting is not high. First, Life Account is more like a benchmark for WeChat service account, which is the official operation position of manufacturers and institutions, and is different from the Taobao live broadcast anchor model. Second, Taobao and Alipay are two companies, and the model of reverse content is not feasible. Third, Alipay's idea in the past was to aggregate mini-programs and provide users with richness from the short-link service, and the keyword was efficiency. E-commerce is a comprehensive consumption scenario, and the keyword is cost-effectiveness. The positioning of the two venues is completely different."

Yang Jian gave a different view. In his opinion, the purpose behind Alibaba's 1+6+n strategy is to allow each independent business to have sufficient room for development and maintain vitality. "From this perspective, not connecting them in the early stage is a comprehensive consideration. As for whether they will be connected later, I personally think they will definitely be connected, but it requires a suitable time node."

Alipay itself has a huge user base, and its life channel is constantly improving, opening up short videos and live broadcast channels, and achieving a certain conversion.

If you can use short videos to increase user usage time and get more traffic, you can find more monetization opportunities. However, if short videos affect user experience, it will be counterproductive.

Author: Zhao Bei; Producer: Daman

Source public account: Lujiu Business Review (ID: liujiucaijing69), the truth cannot be revealed, it can only be approached.