Who is copying Zhang Xuefeng?

Recently, topics related to the college entrance examination are very common on the hot search list. In this atmosphere, teachers who provide guidance for the application for the exam have also received much attention. For example, the internet celebrity application guidance teacher Zhang Xuefeng has become popular. Even on social networks, a large amount of content with the label "Zhang Xuefeng" has been widely circulated. For a while, the act of "copying Zhang Xuefeng" has become a traffic code. How to understand this phenomenon specifically? Let's take a look at the author's interpretation.

The college entrance examination results are out, and Zhang Xuefeng, who was in charge of guiding the applicants, "collapsed from exhaustion", but various "Zhang Xuefengs" on the short video platform have not stopped their mad rush.

The hottest topic recently is the college entrance examination scores and scores released in various places. Some people are very happy with 710, while others can't help crying for not passing the score line. At the "turning point of fate" where some are happy and some are sad, the protagonists of attention are not only the students, but also the teachers who are engaged in application guidance.

On June 24, Zhang Xuefeng, the internet celebrity application instructor, posted on the social platform that he was sent to the hospital for treatment due to overwork, and at the same time closed the comments.

Image source: Zhang Xuefeng's Weibo account

For a time, some people were discussing "Zhang Xuefeng's residence in Bengbu collapsed", some were discussing Zhang Xuefeng's "views on studying journalism", and some were digging deep into the topic "Zhang Xuefeng can earn millions of dollars a year just by giving lectures".

In June 2016, Zhang Xuefeng became an Internet celebrity with his insightful interpretation of 34 985 universities in seven minutes, and his popularity soared. Currently, Zhang Xuefeng's official account on Douyin has 16.05 million followers, his Weibo account has 6.79 million followers, and his Bilibili account has 2.22 million followers, making him a veritable Internet celebrity.

But becoming popular is not always a good thing for internet celebrities, and the same is true for Zhang Xuefeng. Not only did he frequently appear on hot searches during the college entrance examination season, he also became a "tool" for many people to snatch the "exam application market."

Many people have found that if you search on Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Weibo, Bilibili and other platforms, you will find a large number of accounts, videos, books and courses with the label "Zhang Xuefeng". Pencils are sold at prices as low as a few yuan, and courses are sold at tens of thousands of yuan per session. There are also many enrollment billboards, flyers and recruitment advertisements with "Zhang Xuefeng" as the signboard. Even Zhang Xuefeng himself has repeatedly come out to fight against fraud.

On short video platforms, copying Zhang Xuefeng has become a "traffic password". So, who is copying Zhang Xuefeng? How is it copied? How do these copiers make money?

1. Zhang Xuefeng “collapsed from exhaustion”, and more “Zhang Xuefeng” emerged

The traffic brought by Zhang Xuefeng has naturally become a hot topic in the data age. There are many active accounts under the banner of "Zhang Xuefeng" on major social platforms.

Zhang Xuefeng’s related companies and team members, as formal and professional accounts, have incubated “Zhang Xuefengs” who continue to make money.

Public information shows that the postgraduate entrance examination tutoring institution Yantu Postgraduate Entrance Examination Education is a brand of Suzhou Yantu Education Technology Co., Ltd., focusing on postgraduate entrance examination preparation tutoring services. Zhang Xuefeng is the company's supervisor and holds 10.86% of the shares. In addition, Zhang Xuefeng is also the founder of Fengxue Weilai, a junior and senior high school tutoring institution, and holds 75% of the shares. These two major institutions have become the source of a large number of Zhang Xuefeng's "clones".

After Zhang Xuefeng posted a message saying he was "exhausted", the live broadcasts of "Zhang Xuefengs" did not stop.

Kaibo Finance noticed that on Douyin, an account named "Zhang Xuefeng Teaches You How to Prepare for the Postgraduate Entrance Examination" has been live streaming every day in recent days. According to Chanmama data, the account has broadcast 84 live broadcasts in the past 30 days, with an average of 96,000 views per broadcast, a total of 8.071 million views, and a live broadcast duration of about 4 hours. It is worth noting that the host of the live broadcast is not Zhang Xuefeng himself, but a teacher from his company team.

In Douyin, the account uses Zhang Xuefeng’s picture as its avatar. Information shows that the account belongs to the Yantu Postgraduate Entrance Examination Education MCN and currently has 1.245 million followers.

It is understood that the "Zhang Xuefeng Teaches You the Postgraduate Entrance Examination" account is not only for students taking the postgraduate entrance examination, but also for those filling out their college entrance examination applications and selecting their subjects. The account will be live broadcasted every day to answer questions for students filling out their applications, and the average number of online users is around 3,000.

The live broadcast page of the Douyin account "Zhang Xuefeng teaches you how to take the postgraduate entrance examination"

According to incomplete statistics from Kaibo Finance, there are more than 15 "Zhang Xuefeng" related accounts on Douyin. In addition to the main account "Teacher Zhang Xuefeng", there are other accounts such as "Zhang Xuefeng Talks about Further Study Planning" and "Zhang Xuefeng Talks about Postgraduate Entrance Examination". In addition to postgraduate entrance examinations, the areas involved include college entrance examinations, lectures, and book readings. The number of fans ranges from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions. Most of these accounts belong to the Yantu Postgraduate Entrance Examination Education MCN.

In addition, in educational apps such as Yantu Postgraduate Entrance Examination, Fengxue Weilai and Hujiang Online School, Zhang Xuefeng’s recorded and live courses are placed in prominent places.

The accounts "spun off" from Zhang Xuefeng's Fengxue Weilai are also "all over the Internet."

The background picture is a photo with Zhang Xuefeng, and the account is set to "Fengxue Weilai teacher xxx". More than 30 "members of Zhang Xuefeng's team" are active on Douyin . They broadcast live, sell books and courses, and introduce how to fill out the college entrance examination application and which schools to choose. Although the content is diverse, without exception, in the topic below the video, "Zhang Xuefeng" is an unchanging label.

At the same time, BOSS Zhipin software shows that Fengxue Weilai is also recruiting college entrance examination volunteer planners. Bachelor degree or above, strong learning ability, more than three years of experience, salary of 10k-15k, and its team is still expanding.

2. The real ones are live streaming, and the fake ones are also "harvesting"

His eloquent, to-the-point and humorous style make him an eye-catcher. "If you add his profound knowledge, it's hard not to believe every word he says," said Xiu Xiu, who has listened to Zhang Xuefeng's speech offline.

This trust makes Xiu Xiu stop and take a closer look when he sees his content online. If he feels empathy, he will like, collect and forward it.

It is this natural traffic that makes many "fake Zhang Xuefeng" extremely active.

Some media have found that among the hundreds of accounts with the "Zhang Xuefeng" tag on Bilibili and Zhihu, there are many "high-imitation" accounts . For example, an account with "Zhang Xuefeng" in its name on Bilibili has more than 100,000 views, although it does not have many fans. In its profile, it does not specify any relationship with Zhang Xuefeng.

In addition, short video accounts such as "Zhang Xuefeng Tells Jokes", "Zhang Xuefeng Class Representative", and "Zhang Xuefeng Fine Editing" that post 2-3 minute video content are also very active, and some can even update several videos a day, but they also do not indicate whether they are authorized. Among them, one UP host marked "I like Zhang Xuefeng's humor and wit, and I also practice my editing career by the way", and the 8 Zhang Xuefeng editing videos he posted have been played more than 954,000 times.

In addition, Kaibo Finance noticed that an account on Douyin named "Teacher Zhang Xuefeng Talks about College Entrance Examination" has been banned. The account has published 25 works and has 16,000 followers. In the window linked to the account, books related to Zhang Xuefeng and some other books are sold. The best-selling book is an educational book priced at 9.9 yuan, which has sold 577,000. There are also 99 yuan application guides and 179 yuan school bags.

The reason for being impersonated is largely because Zhang Xuefeng's video content is eye-catching, and the cost of copying is low and the return is high. Xiu Xiu said that many fake accounts took advantage of the audience's trust in Zhang Xuefeng and used it to profit.

A large number of fake accounts have also brought many problems. Previously, Zhang Xuefeng posted a message saying: "People sit at home and the pot comes from the sky! I never said that nearly 80% of people will be unemployed! I hereby declare!!!!" He has also personally intervened many times to crack down on fake accounts that use his name to sell related courses.

Image source: Zhang Xuefeng's Weibo account

3. Ten thousand yuan for a class, how much money do “Zhang Xuefengs” make?

So how much money do “Zhang Xuefengs” make?

Ever since the topic "Zhang Xuefeng once said he could earn millions every year just by giving lectures" became a hot topic, the outside world began to pay attention to Zhang Xuefeng's business empire.

On Tmall and Taobao, Zhang Xuefeng's books on exam application are priced at around 30 to 70 yuan, with sales of more than 1,000. In addition, there is Zhang Xuefeng's team's private customized school selection service for 498 yuan. The Fengxue Weilai APP has also launched the "Fengxue Volunteer Dream Card" priced at 8,999 yuan. In the Yantu Postgraduate Entrance Examination APP, the courses related to Zhang Xuefeng in the Transformation Plan cost more than 30,000 yuan.

Image source: Yantu Postgraduate Entrance Examination APP

If you want to receive one-on-one tutoring from Zhang Xuefeng himself, although the official has not given a specific price, some parents revealed that if you want Zhang Xuefeng to teach you personally, it will cost 100,000 to 200,000 yuan per hour, and during the peak application season, Zhang Xuefeng's appointments are all "full". If you can't make an appointment with him, you will have to find a teacher in his team as the next best option, and the guidance fee is also about 10,000 yuan per person.

"Study guides are in the business of information asymmetry. If you don't have time to understand something, they can help you understand it quickly." Chengzi, who works as a guidance teacher at a postgraduate entrance examination institution, told Kaiboli Finance that Zhang Xuefeng's "sense of reality" gave students a sense of "reality," making it easier for them to form trust.

Chengzi introduced that once this sense of trust was formed, Zhang Xuefeng became the core of the industry chain. Whether it was his live classes, recorded classes, or the books, classes, and teaching materials he recommended, they were relatively easier to sell. Many parents bought classes because of the "Zhang Xuefeng" label.

Although Zhang Xuefeng and others are different, their monetization models are similar: using Zhang Xuefeng's IP to create momentum, generate traffic, and sell books, courses, and other products.

Of course, there are also potential risks in over-pursuing Zhang Xuefeng.

On a certain social platform, some people complained that after they signed up for guidance from other members of Zhang Xuefeng's team, they felt that the results were very poor, they learned nothing, and they felt like they were "ripped off"; others said that Zhang Xuefeng was everywhere on the Internet, and they had been deceived by a fake Zhang Xuefeng account.

It is worth noting that the reason why there are so many Zhang Xuefengs and they are so active is inseparable from the huge money-making potential of the voluntary application market.

Industry insiders believe that due to the fact that some of my country's college entrance examination and postgraduate entrance examination candidates currently lack professional channels to obtain information to fill in, information collection is incomplete, and the ability to integrate information from school institutions is lacking, coupled with the continuous increase in the number of applicants, the demand for payment in the voluntary application industry has increased, and the entire market size will continue to grow.

According to iMedia Research data, 88.1% of college entrance examination candidates will choose college entrance examination volunteer application services, and it is estimated that the paid scale of China's college entrance examination volunteer application market will reach 950 million yuan in 2023. With a market size of nearly one billion, the temptation can be imagined.

In the eyes of many people, "30% exam, 70% application", choosing a suitable school and a good major in more than a week is sometimes more important than studying hard for ten years to get a good score. Especially in this year's comprehensive expansion of enrollment, the competition for admission has become more intense. It has become a gamble to get a low score and get the best score. For more people, Zhang Xuefeng and others have become "guiding lights" compared to the unaffordable professional planners and unreliable AI predictions.

But in Chengzi's opinion, whether it is choosing courses in high school, filling out college entrance examination applications or choosing a school for postgraduate entrance examinations, one's own interests, hobbies and career aspirations are the primary criteria. "Zhang Xuefengs" can refer to them, but not rely on them. No one can predict market changes, and the future is in one's own hands.

*At the request of the interviewees, Xiu Xiu and Cheng Zi are pseudonyms in this article.

Author: Ji Xiaoling; Editor: Jin Yufan

Source public account: Kaiboluo Finance (ID: kaiboluocaijing), focusing on live streaming e-commerce, new consumption, and focusing on in-depth content.