Why is the moat built by good content so solid?

When we look back at every step of B Station's operation over the past 14 years, the core is only one: to create good content. Good content, dedicated up-masters, and a community of like-minded people have always been the three things that B Station has focused on. This article analyzes how B Station creates content, so that other website companies can learn from its experience. Students who are interested can read on.

Recently, I watched the anniversary celebration of Bilibili. Suddenly I realized that Bilibili, which has been established for 14 years, can be regarded as an old man in the Internet industry, having experienced all kinds of ups and downs from PC to mobile phones, from long videos to short video live broadcasts.

Chen Rui said that there are three things that Bilibili has always focused on: good content, dedicated UP hosts, and a community of like-minded people. He mentioned UP hosts and content every three sentences in his speech, which made him seem particularly sincere.

Throughout the whole talk, Chen Rui talked more about providing support for UP hosts to continue creating good content, helping UP hosts to make more money, and providing users with better content.

The uncle’s speech was even a bit "sigh-worthy". There are not many platforms that care so much about users and creators.

1. How does Bilibili express “care”?

Speaking of "caring about users", this time Bilibili has come up with a big move. Chen Rui said that in the next few weeks, the platform will stop displaying the number of times video clips are played and will use the length of play instead.

The literal meaning is that Bilibili directly "killed" the apparent one million views, and the number of views in the lower left corner may be changed from a triangle to a clock.

It is understood that the specific calculation method of the new data dimension is the actual time users spend playing videos, in minutes.

Whether it is multiple playback, loop playback, double speed playback, or dragging the progress bar, it is calculated based on the actual time users spend playing the video. For long videos, if the content of short videos is good and users watch them many times, the duration will also be very long. The main point is to "squeeze out the water in the playback volume and show the real playback situation."

Why did Bilibili make such changes?

First of all, such a change will have a great impact on content of different qualities. In the future, black-market videos with gloomy soundtracks, clickbait titles, and gossip will definitely be suppressed, and the content of the entire community will be healthier.

For example, not long ago I saw a UP host in the film and television area on Bilibili, explaining every shot language of "Lust, Caution" directed by Ang Lee. Although the movie was released more than ten years ago, it still shocked me. There are also people begging under the video, such a treasure UP must not run away. Isn't this more rewarding than the tailor video "Look carefully, this woman is called Xiaomei"?

Faced with the low-quality content of handsome and beautiful girls flooding the Internet, I think that B station's reduction in the number of views is in line with what Chen Rui said. We can't go back to the era with less content. The solution should be to use product or technical solutions to make it easier for users to choose well-made videos.

Therefore, "the actual time users spend watching videos" is an industry first and a more valuable reference data. It can focus traffic on more valuable content and give users a sense of gain.

Some people have also discovered that Weibo has begun to copy Bilibili's homework. If a Weibo post stays on for a long time, it means it is worth reading. If it is swiped away in less than a second, it means it is not good to read. There are also different data for those who click on long Weibo posts and those who do not.

Secondly, looking at the entire Chinese Internet field, Bilibili is the only one that dares to "kill" millions of views and dares to use content to gain a foothold and form a moat, because the users are also very honest - they cannot do without Bilibili.

In terms of viewing quality, Bilibili is also at the forefront of the entire Internet field. Public data shows that in the first quarter of this year, the average daily usage time of Bilibili users reached 96 minutes, and the average daily video playback volume of Bilibili reached 4.1 billion times, a year-on-year increase of 37%.

In addition, last year, 310 million users studied on Bilibili, the number of traditional culture enthusiasts on Bilibili exceeded 270 million, and 180 million users watched fitness content on Bilibili...

After it is made clear that "number of views ≠ video quality" and the concept of "million views" has been downplayed, instead of competing with the quantity of short videos, Bilibili as a whole will "compete" for quality with more high-quality and durable content. Content practitioners actually have this expectation.

The hosts of medium and long videos also generally gave positive feedback on this change. For example, my friend, Shining Girl Sisi, also said that the serious things are how to serve the users on their platform well, how to make the rules fairer, how to encourage more people to create high-quality content, and how to show users the externalization of better content.

2. Creators also bid farewell to the "Matthew Effect"

After watching the video platform for so long, I have discovered that Bilibili is the platform with the least Matthew effect, especially this time it converts the dimension of playback volume into playback time, which is also beneficial to high-quality new UP hosts who make videos with heart.

Every year, when you look at the new top 100 on Bilibili, you can feel the feeling that “every generation has its own talented people, each of whom leads the trend for hundreds of years”, because the UP hosts on Bilibili are really constantly moving and innovating themselves. Under this mechanism of survival of the fittest, it is difficult for videos to become popular, and it is useless to rely on the fan base. New creators have the opportunity to surpass old creators with content, and old creators can also use content barriers to maintain their positions.

Because Bilibili understands one thing - high-quality content comes from UP hosts, and it is important to pay attention to the hosts' feelings.

Chen Rui also emphasized that "only when UP hosts who create high-quality content can earn continuous income can they create with peace of mind" and "we have always hoped to make UP hosts a profession."

Say goodbye to the strong getting stronger, there must be new people joining and old people continuing to innovate, so that UP masters and content producers can be regarded as a profession. And if we want to make content production a profession, we also need to look at income from the perspective of professionals.

In fact, Bilibili’s support for small and medium-sized UP hosts is very strong. For example, the often-discussed creative incentives are already very high compared to other platforms. Since the launch of Bilibili’s creative incentive plan in 2018, a total of 2.243 billion in incentives have been distributed, covering a total of 1.1 million UP hosts. However, creative incentives should not be regarded as all of UP hosts’ income.

Chen Rui said that the creative incentive program is more like a scholarship, which can prevent college students from giving up their studies because they cannot earn living expenses. Business orders are the sustainable way of income that college students should pursue after entering the society.

In addition to advertising orders, Bilibili also has other monetization methods such as live streaming, business orders, knowledge monetization, and upgraded charging plans. You can choose different commercialization models based on the content.

A while ago, I found that my colleagues in the office would take a posture correction course with this year's top 100 Fan Liyuan after lunch. Later I learned that this course is paid and that 30,000 to 40,000 orders have been sold.

You have to know that this is not a hard course that requires a certification, and it is generally recognized that it is difficult to monetize. So it seems that the knowledge that everyone says is difficult to monetize is now a "natural outcome" on Bilibili.

Looking at the data, the total income of UP hosts on Bilibili last year increased by 28% over the previous year. In the first quarter of this year, 1.5 million UP hosts earned income, a year-on-year increase of 50%. This growth rate shows that UP hosts are still far from reaching the ceiling of income.

There is another piece of data that I find even more interesting. Public information from Bilibili shows that the company has more than 3,500 employees dedicated to serving UP hosts. Bilibili has a total of over 10,000 people, so this number is probably between 35-40%.

I have learned before that the number of merchants served by the top two e-commerce platforms is roughly in this ratio. This shows that the emphasis that Bilibili places on content and creators is not just empty talk, and they are actually working hard to spend money to serve the content production end.

Only when the platform's services to the supply side are improved and the supply side is vibrant can it bring more possibilities to the platform's ecology. This is a long slope and thick snow for creators.

3. Look for brand-effect integration on Bilibili

Finally, let’s talk about the “business model” that content communities cannot avoid. There is controversy in the market about the monetization of content communities. Some people think that the community conversion is not strong enough; others think that content communities take on the “aftereffect” of consumer conversion.

From my observations over the past decade, I can see that the monetization of content communities has a cycle. When TV media was popular at the beginning, brands thought about showing more and using the 7-times mnemonic to leave a lasting impression in people’s minds.

When short videos were very popular in the past few years, the consideration of brands was that they wanted consumers to make decisions directly in less than a minute; but later consumers became smarter. They not only compared prices, but also became ingredient-oriented and wait-and-see parties. At this time, the cycle fluctuated to the medium and long video content communities.

Now, the creation and viewing ecology of Bilibili is a kind of "trust relationship".

For example, the decision-making path for consumer goods is different. A 30-second video can allow you to make a decision to buy a bag of garbage bags or a windshield wiper.

But there are UP hosts on Bilibili who can spend 20 to 30 minutes disassembling the motor of an expensive hair dryer or the frame of a functional furniture, presenting the pros and cons of the product in detail to users to help them make decisions.

Mr. Mi Deng in the home decoration area once said that latex paint is the most basic category in home decoration, but if I want to explain the knowledge and my point of view clearly in 2 minutes, the arguments and evidence will definitely not be sufficient, so I came to Bilibili.

Mr. Mideng also found that the user attributes of Bilibili determine that they not only want to know how to choose between A and B, but also want to further ask why. If you can explain it clearly, they will recognize and trust you. This is also the core key for many high-priced brands and big brands to operate Bilibili in the long term.

There is no shortage of users on Bilibili who have been following UP hosts for 5 or 10 years, and there are also users who trust the UP hosts as friends. Under this kind of trust relationship, the upper limit of the UP hosts' commercial value will be higher.

It is particularly noteworthy that the data dimension of "watching time" can also effectively explore and display the value of UP hosts to the outside world.

Some brands I have come into contact with before will mindlessly rush to increase the number of views when placing ads. I once advised a big brother to look at some small bloggers, experts and UPs with high completion rates when placing ads, which might have a better effect, but he responded by saying that the KPI is the number of views and asked me to stop talking about it.

Therefore, the brand's investment thinking also needs to be educated. When they accept the inclusion of user playback time as a dimension, it will give some inspiration to many sponsors. We invest money based on the quality of the creators. For example, will this video be watched and checked in repeatedly by fans? Has your product placement been exposed? Is there a lot of water this time?

Just a few days ago, Yang Shushao, a member of Dao Yue She whom I like very much, received a business order from vivo. Someone commented below and said, isn’t this the level of a top-level business order?

When watching the video, the camera language has already hinted that the mobile phone is the protagonist of the business order, which is gradual and natural, and does not make people feel disgusted at all. Instead of advocating parameters, it is better to tell a good story in the business order.

Although I won’t change to a vivo phone immediately after watching the video, but on a future Father’s Day, when I’m struggling to decide what phone to buy my dad, I may not remember the running points, charging power, or lens pixels, but I will think of the vivo brand and the story of Lao Yang and Xiao Yang.

For the cooperating brands, Bilibili's investment is a foreshadowing of long-term growth. The brand exposure will not end, but after the video is released, multiple conversion opportunities will still emerge, achieving long-term synergy between brand and effect.

Moreover, Bilibili has been around for 14 years, and it is no exaggeration to say that many of its UP hosts are "senior advertisers." They are able to convert content into sales and have a better understanding of users' high points. They can then help brands calculate investment and conversion, thus achieving product and effect integration.

Everyone has a tight budget these days, so isn’t this what brands are looking for the most after careful calculation?

4. Final Thoughts

At the end of his speech, Chen Rui mentioned that the path that Bilibili has taken in the past 14 years is also the only path it will take in the future - to make you willing to loudly recommend Bilibili to your friends and make you feel that the time spent on Bilibili is well worthwhile.

When we look back at every step that Bilibili has taken over the past 14 years, the core is only one: to create great content.

For Bilibili, and for medium and long videos, the time of flooding has passed, but the opportunity for growth has never disappeared, it is just hidden in the iteration and change of content thinking. Bilibili's various operations make us sure that good content is a kind of "science", not the "metaphysics" brought by clickbait and borderline parties.

Jim Collins, author of "Built to Last," also said that companies that ultimately achieve huge success do not pursue absolute high growth in a certain period of time, but instead maintain a high degree of discipline in achieving steady growth.

For the development of content communities, only by maintaining a high degree of discipline in "caring for creators and users" can we have the courage and confidence for commercialization.

Author: Zhibei Xiaofu

Source: WeChat public account "Internet Guide"