A million possibilities in the live streaming industry

8. E-commerce live streaming returns to a calm state

E-commerce live streaming has experienced explosive growth, but is finally returning to normal. There are no more battle reports and no more high salaries for live streaming hosts. Live streaming sales are beginning to return to rationality.

2. Live broadcast platform: changes and breakthroughs of live broadcast platform

From audio-visual observation to the live broadcast industry, we have experienced several major nodes. Let’s start with the battle of thousands of live broadcasts. 2016 was once called the first year of live broadcasting. It was in that year that the battle of thousands of live broadcasts began. The fierce competition led to the elimination of a series of platforms, including Quanmin Live, Panda Live, Chushou Live, and Penguin E-sports, and then the live broadcast track entered the era of giants.

The year 2019 was a year of great changes in the live broadcast industry. The rapid entry of Douyin into the live broadcast industry greatly raised the ceiling of the entire industry. Later, with the entry of WeChat Video Account, Tencent began to enter the live broadcast industry with the huge traffic of WeChat.

Subsequently, live broadcast policies represented by Douyin began to test the live broadcast organizations' ability to attract new users, produce video content, plan high-quality content, and monetize task flows. It can be said that this has posed a challenge to the refined operational capabilities of live broadcast organizations and has now become an object of imitation in the industry.

As a result, the live broadcast platform has several obvious characteristics:

1. Giantization

With the entry of giant players, small platforms find it difficult to survive. To enter the live streaming industry now requires a lot of capital and traffic as support, so it seems that live streaming has become a game for giants.

For example, Audiovisual Observer has learned the latest news from industry insiders that Tomato Listening has already started internal testing of live broadcasting, and live broadcasting is not limited to audio, but also guilds and video guilds can participate. Tomato Listening has tens of millions of daily active users and is backed by the Douyin Group. I believe that once its operating team and product functions are fully integrated, another large-traffic platform will soon be coming.

2. Cross-border

E-commerce platforms do live streaming, food delivery platforms do live streaming, and everything can be done through e-commerce live streaming.

Not long ago, shelf e-commerce platforms represented by Taobao and JD.com officially started the road of live streaming content. Obviously, everyone is doing this for traffic and to increase user activity. However, this is good news for live streaming guilds, MCN organizations and anchors. After all, with two more big players, everyone has more choices.

3. Live Streaming Guild: Transformation and Upgrading of Live Streaming Guild

1. Transformation of live broadcast guilds

Because the ceiling of e-commerce live streaming is really high, for some top guilds, they have already become the leaders in the entertainment live streaming track, and if they want to go further, they can only find another way. Obviously, e-commerce live streaming is a good choice. According to audio-visual observations, many top entertainment guilds in the industry have already begun to cross over to do e-commerce live streaming.

In addition, some powerful guilds, in addition to entertainment live broadcasts, also have many other side businesses: modeling companies, cosmetic surgery, food processing, etc.

For many guilds, what matters is no longer the cash flow, but the profit of the guild, and they want to put the money into their own pockets. Therefore, these guilds will choose a platform with appropriate policies based on their actual operating performance.

In addition, with the entry of Douyin/Kuaishou/video into the live broadcast track, live broadcast guilds now basically all shoot videos. The times require that guilds must have the ability to produce content.

Audiovisual Observation also made a simple classification of live broadcast guilds (not necessarily reasonable, for reference only): Southern Guilds (mainly online guilds), light asset operations, winning by probability through open selection of anchors. The advantage of this type of guild is that the risk is relatively small, and the disadvantage is that the management and communication costs are high and the controllability is poor.

The northern guilds (mainly offline guilds) are asset-heavy models. They set up a large number of live broadcast rooms offline and win by cultivating high-quality anchors. The advantages of this type of guild are good management and strong controllability. The disadvantages are large investments, high costs, and difficulty in making profits.

2. Live Streaming Guild Upgrade

The live streaming industry is currently highly competitive and has reached new heights, causing live streaming guilds to begin upgrading in all aspects.

Hardware upgrade : Now a better live broadcast room needs a large LED stage, professional SLR camera, and multi-camera live broadcast, all of which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some outdoor ones even have drones for live broadcast.

Software upgrade : The guild built its own anchor management backend, which greatly improved the efficiency of internal management.

Multi-point expansion: Powerful guilds will set up branches outside their own cities, for example, in many popular cities such as Chengdu and Changsha.

Personnel upgrade: In the past, when the guild recruited anchors, it was enough to be pretty, but now they also need to have talent; in the past, when the guild recruited operations, it was enough to be an individual, but now they also need to be able to shoot and edit, and the educational requirements are at least a college degree, and if possible, they also have to take an "Agent Qualification Certificate". The live broadcast industry has reached a new height!

4. Discovery and training of anchor talents

The current recruitment situation in the live broadcast industry is very chaotic. Many guilds are trying to poach anchors by offering high salaries, but the anchors don't deliver, which gradually destroys the image of normal operations. This makes both operators and anchors feel cheated, so recruiting anchors in the future will encounter various difficulties, resulting in bad money driving out good money.

Some anchors believe in the so-called high minimum guarantee. In fact, the income of entertainment anchors depends on receiving gifts. If you don’t bring income to the company, why should the guild give you a minimum salary? Is the guild a charity organization that gives money for free? So whether there is a minimum guarantee depends on ability, and the most important thing is value for money.

Recruiting anchors is a permanent problem in the live broadcast industry. So where do anchors come from? There are two ways: online and offline, channel scouts and recruitment.

Online: Tieba, Zhihu, forums, Weibo, blogs, QQ/WeChat groups, dating apps, Douban, 58, Xiaohongshu, major browser search engines, recruitment websites

Offline: art schools, dance studios, photo studios, beauty salons, plastic surgery hospitals, outdoor advertising, bars, KTVs, etc.

In addition, the guild is an IP, so build your own brand.

Even the guild itself can become an IP. When the guild is well-known enough and has many successful cases, and its reputation is good, many anchors will come to you. Under the same conditions, anchors will also give priority to your guild after comparison. In short, think from multiple angles such as the guild's popularity, reputation, star-making ability, capital operation, and management ability.

Regarding how to train anchors, it is concluded that teaching students in accordance with their aptitude is important, and character is important. Audiovisual Observation has written many similar articles before, such as " What kind of people are likely to become big anchors? " If you are interested, you can read the previous articles. And how to retain anchors is summarized as: move them with emotion, enlighten them with benefits, punish them with law,

5. Summary: Why is it said that there are a million possibilities in the live streaming industry?

The live streaming industry is currently in a low period, but Audio-Visual Observation has always believed that live streaming has unlimited possibilities in the future, because live streaming is a tool that can allow more ordinary people to enjoy the dividends of the Internet!

1. Job creation

The live streaming industry has directly created tens of millions of jobs and solved the employment problems of a large number of people. This is a very, very important factor.

2. Boosting the economy

E-commerce live streaming has directly promoted economic development, especially some e-commerce companies helping farmers to help people in poor areas get rid of poverty and become rich.

3. Supporting the disabled

Audiovisual Observation once met a disabled person who accidentally fell from a cliff of more than 20 meters, resulting in lower limb paralysis, incontinence, and inability to take care of himself. Now he lives with his 85-year-old parents and has no source of income. But he likes singing very much and hopes to buy the cheapest sound card.

To be honest, we didn't want to sell him anything after what he said, because we wanted to give him a sound card directly. But in order to prove his true situation, we asked him to get a certificate and gave him a sound card directly.

For many people who have difficulties in life, sometimes various accidents will make them lose their ability to survive, and they also have no good channels to let the outside world know about their difficulties. However, through live broadcasting, countless small individuals can survive with the help of the Internet. Many disabled people and even deaf-mute people can survive through live broadcasting.

So we can’t look at live streaming with tinted glasses. Being a host is a normal profession, and it can really change the lives of many people.

4. Improve productivity

Live streaming is a technology that is constantly improving and integrating with all walks of life. Correct use of tools will greatly improve our productivity.

5. Media attributes

Live broadcasting is inherently media-like, so it can be used as a form of communication to deliver information more conveniently.

6. Rising Channel

Before becoming famous as a host, Feng Timo was a teacher; Zhang Daxian was a planner at a game company; Ning Ge of Modern Brothers was a chef; Tu Zi Ya was a print model; Guo Congming was a resident singer; Huizi was a nurse; Hua Jie was a resident singer at a food stall... I believe that if everyone is willing, this list can be made very long.

Summary: Live streaming is the “Internet high-speed rail” for ordinary people.

The live streaming industry is the "high-speed rail" that the Internet era brings to ordinary strivers. As long as you are in the right direction and keep persisting, you will definitely reach your ideal place faster!

The trend of the live broadcast industry from the beginning of this year to now is indeed difficult. We must admit that the development of the live broadcast industry has temporarily fallen into a difficult period. But I believe that both glory and difficulties are short-lived, and development is eternal.

Luo Guanzhong wrote in Romance of the Three Kingdoms: "As for the general trend of the world, after a long period of division, there will be unification, and after a long period of unification, there will be division." We must believe that the same is true for the live broadcast industry. History is always moving forward with twists and turns!

There are a million possibilities in the live streaming industry, and the future is promising!

Author: Liu Bugong; Public account: Audio-visual Observation