Two ads received over 1 million likes. He is the hit-making machine of 2023

How to get traffic, produce popular videos, create content and advertisements? What can content creators learn? This article tells the story of A Yuan's escape plan, a dark horse travel blogger who rose at the end of 2022. I hope it will be helpful to you.

A single video received over 2 million likes, and amateur transformation is still the secret to traffic. A piece of news punctured the information cocoon, and we got to know two top middle-aged and elderly idols, which aroused our curiosity and interest. We then began to understand their video style and the group of fans who are always attracted to them.

In 2023, with the end of the epidemic and the recovery of the tourism market, travel bloggers will be able to shake off the gloom and even reap the dividends of development.

Among them, @阿园的逃计划 is a dark horse travel blogger who emerged at the end of 2022. In the video, he will take people trapped in the city to adventure, go camping with friends with social anxiety, and explore the real version of "Angry Xiangxi" in the cave...

The interesting natural adventures make the account full of interest, and thus it has gained the love of more and more users. In early January this year, A Yuan topped the Xiaohongshu fan growth list with a single-week increase of 188,400 fans. At that time, his total number of fans was 1.07 million. Six months later, A Yuan's number of fans has grown to 2.249 million, more than doubling.

At the same time, Ayuan's commercialization ability is also extremely rare on the Xiaohongshu platform. According to incomplete statistics from Kas, in the first half of 2023, among the business notes published by Ayuan on Xiaohongshu, at least 7 of them received more than 100,000 likes.

How does Ayuan create content and advertising? What can content creators learn? Kas will explain them one by one below.

1. Don’t be a special forces soldier, travel bloggers endorse the “sense of relaxation”

Official data show that in May this year, the unemployment rate of young people aged 16 to 24 rose to 20.8%, hitting a new high for two consecutive months since statistics were collected in 2018. The difficulty for young people to find jobs has become a mainstream social topic this year.

In a depressing social environment, people begin to seek some external comfort, and travel is one of them.

In the first half of this year, a special form of travel, "special forces tourism", has quietly emerged among young people, mainly college students. In order to maximize the use of time, they usually choose to set out on Friday night or Saturday morning, check in at the destination attractions intensively, and then rush back to the classroom on Monday morning for classes.

Unlike the special forces tour, A Yuan's videos focus on "relaxation". Netizens call his works healing, and he does many things that young people want to do but don't have time to do. It not only heals himself, but also makes the audience outside the screen feel a kind of free vitality.

For example, A Yuan once traveled to Mount Emei alone, completely ignoring the opening hours of the scenic area. He was so happy playing with monkeys and watching the sunset on the mountain, until he missed the time to go down the mountain and was trapped on the top of the mountain for a night. On the homepage of his Xiaohongshu, the most popular non-commercial notes are "What is it like when you suddenly find out that your friend is super rich?" "I would like to call this immersion the strongest!" "A 6,400-meter slide! Tibet's secret place, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau".

A Yuan's videos are usually about 1-2 minutes long. He is very good at using precise words to bring the audience into the scene he is in, and the first-person perspective adds a sense of intimacy and reality. His strong copywriting skills and ability to select materials in a concise manner are two key factors that make him stand out among travel bloggers .

For example, at the end of the travel vlog in Medog, Tibet, A Yuan said: "There is only one way in and out here. I call it the slide when I go down, and they call it the 'Sky Road' when they go up." This sentence succinctly expresses a certain social reality and is thought-provoking. Even if the words are not so straightforward, some people will "understand". A user commented, "The blogger was born in a good place, so after going down, it is called the slide, and he can go up again. But those children were born in remote places, and they want to go to big cities like the Sky Road.

"In addition to gaining fans on platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu, Ayuan has also gained 1.71 million fans on Bilibili, and has been on the monthly fan growth list. On Bilibili, Ayuan's more popular videos are often in line with social sentiments and show deep humanistic care.

For example, in the video titled "Sorry, you have to watch this video twice to understand what I want to say...", A Yuan compared the COVID-19 pandemic to a rain. The sudden rain got people wet, some people didn't have time to open umbrellas, and some people were angry and sad. These scenes fit the circumstances of ordinary people in this great era and resonated deeply with the audience.

In addition, the protagonists of videos such as "That Day, I Saw the Most Handsome Look at 54" and "What Is It Like to Have a Friend with Social Phobia!" are all from the lower classes of society who are not noticed, which is a clear difference from other creators in terms of subject selection. Considering the popularity of "Second Uncle" last year, it can be seen that users of Bilibili are more receptive to this type of content. Therefore, Ayuan has also gained longer-term fan stickiness on Bilibili with this kind of warm content.

2. Advertisements are content-based, so that users no longer dislike commercial placement

Not only is the content produced brilliantly, it has received high praise and numerous interactions, but Ayuan's commercialization capabilities are even more worthy of attention and research from content practitioners. According to incomplete statistics from Kas, in the first half of 2023, among the business notes published by Ayuan on Xiaohongshu, at least 7 of them received more than 100,000 likes.

Among them, the video with the highest number of likes was released on January 13, titled "These are the many friends I met this year~", which received 1.58 million likes, 230,000 favorites and 8,440 comments on Xiaohongshu. In this video, A Yuan reviewed the kind and enthusiastic strangers he met during his journey in 2022, and at the end of the video, he sent a PROYA gift box to his friend. The commercial placement was smooth. The entire video is only 78 seconds, but it seems to encompass the scenery from all over the world. The text and the picture are connected very smoothly, which effectively improves the completion rate.

The reason why users of Xiaohongshu video do not dislike this commercial video is that Ayuan presents the resonance between his "sincere" self and friendly strangers.

A Xiaohongshu user commented, "His copywriting and videos always make people feel the warmth of the world. Maybe everyone has their own unspeakable hardships, but under these hardships, they cannot hide their warm hearts and the warmth that makes people cry. Every time I watch his videos, my nose is sore."

The second most liked business note of Ayuan was released on April 16. It was a collaboration between the pet brand "pidan" and Ayuan, and the title was "What is it like to have 500 cats and dogs!". Currently, this video has received 1.39 million likes and is estimated to have been read more than 10 million times.

In this video, A Yuan shared the daily life of Aunt Qian and the 500 stray cats and dogs she adopted. Due to the high cost of feeding, Aunt Qian was short of money, so A Yuan contacted "pidan" for her, and the brand paid for one year's cat food for the cat named "Pidan".

As you can see, this is a heartwarming business note that not only improved user favorability for the brand, but also helped Ayuan gain nearly 80,000 followers .

In addition to beauty and pet brands, brands in the food and beverage, home appliances, apparel and underwear industries are also happy to cooperate with Ayuan.

For example, Ayuan released a brand advertising video for Rancha on May 27, which truly showed the income and life changes brought by jasmine planting to the people of Hengzhou, Guangxi, and also portrayed the image of every laboring person with body fragrance in the minds of the audience. One user commented, "That is the smell of their hard work, the fragrance of their own flowers, and the jasmine flowers also bloomed with the fruits of their hard work. At that moment, all the hard work was worth it."

In Kas's opinion, there are two core reasons why Ayuan is so popular and makes users willing to support him:

First, do not treat commercial cooperation videos as Party A's tasks, and do not make pleasing the brand the top priority. Instead, treat them as daily content updates, and find the entry points that people want to watch more from the user's perspective ;

Second, the content and personality are unified. Whether it is daily creation or business notes, Ayuan has always adhered to a style - "relaxation" or "healing", allowing viewers to gain a light and relaxing experience by following the video. This kind of experience is still very rare in the field of short videos.

3. Healing - the content trend in 2023

A Yuan's popularity shows that the power of words and language is still strong. When users read a certain sentence, their hearts are stirred and they will sigh "I found it, so that's it". For users, the important prerequisite for following a blogger is "being on the same wavelength" . A Yuan's content can resonate with many young people in first- and second-tier cities, which is the essence of his continued success in attracting fans and steadily monetizing.

After watching a large number of popular travel videos, Kas discovered that it was not just Ayuan. In fact, the content direction of the travel track had quietly changed.

In the early days, the tourism track mainly showed the scenery of different countries and regions. Making guides and popular science were the secrets for bloggers to increase their followers. However, starting from 2022, in terms of evaluation dimensions, users no longer seem to put the practical sense brought by "guides" first, and emotions, thoughts and cultural connotations have become the elements that the audience is more likely to see. Kas also noticed that in the past two years, the travel bloggers who have really become popular have all exerted their skills in the dimension of "emotion".

Take @房琪Kiki as an example. The most unique thing about the travel content she posted is that it not only shows users the beautiful scenery from all over the country, but also gives meaning to the scenery through her own thoughtful copywriting, making the video content have the power to move people.

In addition, last year Fang Qi's opinions expressed in variety shows helped her increase her fans beyond "travel", and her popularity and influence also soared. Now Fang Qi has 23.38 million fans on Douyin and 3.107 million fans on Xiaohongshu, making him a top star on both platforms.

Another travel blogger like Fang Qi who takes the "literary" and "romantic" route is @幻想家姜时一. Although his Douyin followers are only over 2 million, the number of likes for a single video of his often exceeds 100,000, or even reaches millions. His fans' comments on him are mostly "healing" and "innocent and ready to go".

Not only are they loved by users for their content, but bloggers like Ayuan who move people with their emotions and carefully shoot videos for commercial placements are gaining recognition from more brands.

For example, Kas recently paid attention to a travel blogger @春雨梦游记, who mainly posts life record videos of encounters and warmth between her and strangers, and currently has 210,000 followers on Bilibili.

On June 29, Chunyu released a video titled "What is it like for a post-95s generation to join a senior travel group?", which received 844,000 views, 74,000 likes, and 12,000 collections.

This video shared the heartwarming story of Chunyu and an elderly couple in the tour group from strangers to familiar friends from the first person perspective. An advertisement for Honor mobile phones was inserted in the middle of the video, but due to the clever integration of the scenes, it did not arouse the audience's rebellious psychology, but was highly praised. A user of Bilibili wrote in the comment area, "It does not force sublimation, but simply and plainly expresses the life of the aunt and grandfather who support each other. Such a positive and optimistic attitude towards life is really inspiring!"

Kas believes that travel accounts that can provide guides are still valuable, but this tool value attribute makes it easy for the audience to tool up the influencers. What travel bloggers need to stay at the forefront and occupy the minds of users for a long time is a "personality" .

This kind of personality can be "full of culture and elegance", "pure in heart and yearning for freedom", or "spokesperson for young people", but no matter what kind of personality and positioning it is, it requires a certain culture and thinking as the foundation.

Video shooting tools do not need to be so high-tech, but the copy must be touching. A complete video copy often outputs the blogger's own values ​​rather than ordinary travel notes. "Healing" is a keyword that conforms to the mentality of current Internet users and is also one of the important content trends in 2023.

This is not only reflected in the tourism industry, but also in many other fields such as film, television, and games. Talented creators who can catch this trend will be seen by a wider user group.

Author: Chu Cheng

Source: WeChat public account "CaasData (ID: caasdata6)"