One live broadcast sold over one million items. Is the secretive and highly profitable matrix model back?

Live streaming slicing is a new model that uploads clips of live streaming content to short video platforms for dissemination and sales. This article analyzes the formation and development of the live streaming slicing model from four aspects: the leaders, participants, platform attitudes, and future development of live streaming slicing. It is recommended for readers who are interested in live streaming e-commerce and the short video industry.

Live streaming, a secretive and niche business with huge profits, finally reached a small climax this year after a year of brewing. Amid the noise and commotion, it not only exudes a fascinating atmosphere of wealth, but also gives birth to a new operating logic.

Yibang Power has exclusively learned that in 2022, Three Sheep Network's live streaming slicing sales revenue will reach 170 million yuan. In 2023, both authorized accounts and per capita income will double, and sales revenue may reach 680 million yuan; and Chanxuan's live streaming slicing business plans to achieve approximately 1 billion yuan in 2023.

Now, tens of thousands of people are pouring into this field. With authorization, they edit and process the live broadcast content of top influencers and super anchors, and upload them to short video platforms in the form of short videos + product links, and profit from dissemination and sales. Open any short video platform, and you will see more and more wonderful clips of top anchors selling goods on live broadcasts, and even some training courses on slicing and editing and operation.

This is very similar to the store group routine that was popular in the e-commerce circle before. In 2017, many Taobao merchants turned to the newly emerging Pinduoduo, opening hundreds of stores by themselves. Each store can receive 7-10 orders per day through natural traffic, making a profit of 3-5 yuan difference for each order, easily earning thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan.

However, live streaming slicing is different from store groups. First, it is the secondary creation and operation of content. Secondly, major platforms have successively introduced corresponding policies and systems for management and control.

For example, not long ago, Yibang Power exclusively learned that the official Video Account is developing and testing functions related to the authorization of Video Account live broadcast slices. The new function is expected to be officially launched in July this year. At that time, the number of authorized lists will be restricted, and unauthorized accounts and content will be removed.

AIGC technology is being used for live streaming slicing. Some brands are also planning to invest in live streaming slicing, and some live streaming slicing studios are also preparing to get a piece of the pie. The question now is, will live streaming slicing disappear from short video platforms like store groups, or will it give rise to new operating logic? And what new gameplay is currently available in this field?

01 Who is leading the live streaming segmentation? Will Dongfangxuan open up authorization?

Last summer, a large number of live streaming slice accounts and content appeared on Douyin and Kuaishou. Douyin's top influencer "Crazy Little Yang" took the initiative to provide authorization for live streaming slices. Sliced ​​accounts can put the links of the influencer's live streaming products on their own product showcases, and the commissions generated by sales are divided between the influencer and the sliced ​​account.

Top anchors sell goods by slicing live broadcasts, and can earn commissions through IP authorization without increasing the number of live broadcasts. For top influencers, the GMV of the sliced ​​portion after the live broadcast is almost the same as that of the live broadcast room.

The slice accounts of secondary creation can also share part of the income, and some even earn hundreds of thousands to millions of yuan a year. The Three Sheep Network where "Crazy Xiao Yangge" works earns 16 million yuan a month just from live streaming slices.

At present, live broadcast slicing is mainly dominated by MCN agencies and third-party service providers. For example, Zhong Xiaoer and Chanxuan can connect with multiple anchors, while MCN agencies such as Wuyou Media and Vision Entertainment mainly target their artists.

Zhongxiaoer is a live streaming slicing authorization platform under Three Sheep Network, with an operation team of nearly 20 people. The upper limit of authorized accounts for a single anchor is 5,000. In addition to "Crazy Xiao Yang Ge", the team is also responsible for the slicing authorization of Douyin's top anchors/live streaming rooms such as Jiao Ge Pengyou, Hao Shaowen, Zhu Zixiao, and Xin Jifei.

Zhu Tiantian, an influencer under Wuyou Media, has 5 million followers on Douyin and is active in the field of beauty and skin care. Several authorized accounts of Zhu Tiantian are posting videos of live streaming slices, and product windows are also hung with "Tianzong Exclusive" product links.

However, not all influencers are suitable for the live streaming slicing business. The prosperity of live streaming slicing and its business is based on the influence of super internet celebrities. Currently, most of the influencers authorized to do live streaming on Douyin have more than tens of millions of fans.

Hou Zongming, the project leader of Chanxuan, told Yibang Power that the continuous output of good content is the key to making money from live streaming. Since June 2022, many MCN agencies and anchors have approached Chanxuan, but some of them were abandoned due to insufficient content interest and inability to continuously update. A typical example is that celebrity actors have fewer live broadcasts and cannot provide stable and continuous editing materials; another example is the tense and exciting hawking live broadcast, which is actually not suitable.

The anchors who are really suitable for slicing are usually experts with obvious personal content styles. In addition to selling goods, their live broadcasts also have many attractive contents. For example, Crazy Xiao Yangge, his live broadcast is very expressive and infectious, which can make the audience feel relaxed and happy. Another example is Hao Shaowen, who explains the products in a detailed and gentle manner during the live broadcast, which makes people have the patience to listen.

This content attribute coincides with the traffic characteristics of the Douyin platform, that is, the traffic mechanism that wins by content.

In June 2022, "Oriental Selection" shifted from the education and training industry to live streaming e-commerce. The entire live streaming team had a very distinctive content style and quickly became popular.

Since then, many live-streaming quotes from anchors such as Dong Yuhui and Dun Dun have appeared on major video platforms. Some accounts use the banner of Dongfang Zhenxuan to promote products with short videos, and even sell fakes. These accounts are in the gray area between the management of the influencers and the platform, which is a potential risk to the entire Douyin platform and the influencers.

Ebrun learned that many organizations approached Dongfang Zhenxuan, hoping to cooperate in live streaming slicing, but the deal has not been reached. "Dongfang Zhenxuan believes that live streaming slicing will interrupt their plans and affect the traffic of their main account." Hou Zongming, the project leader of Chanxuan, told Ebrun, "There are many accounts in the market that edit Dongfang Zhenxuan, and it is difficult to manage them. But in fact, the correct strategy should be to open up authorization to professional organizations. Since it is difficult to manage, it is better to use it for our own benefit."

Yibang Power learned that Chanxuan has recently cooperated with Fan Deng to read books. Hou Zongming said: "I think if Fan Deng has the possibility to return to the peak, he can surpass Xiao Yangge."

02 A small studio earns hundreds of thousands of yuan a month by live streaming slices to recreate the store group model?

The profitability of live streaming slices is inseparable from the personal creation of the editor.

At present, most of the people who have joined the live streaming slicing are low-income groups with free time, such as mothers, students and some unemployed people. Starting from 2023, more and more students will join the live streaming slicing, many of whom come from the inland hinterland.

The investment in live streaming is very small. You don’t need a computer, you can edit it with a mobile phone, and the requirements for the mobile phone are not very high; it does not require high content operation capabilities and skills, and the creator only needs to insist on editing every day. "As long as his account keeps playing, this thing is worth doing for a long time, and sooner or later his video will go viral." Hou Zongming said.

Generally speaking, a creator will run several accounts at the same time. After a period of time, the accounts with poor performance will be abandoned. After a short video becomes popular, the creator will usually slightly change the content of the video and continue to release it until there is no traffic. Generally speaking, the sales cycle of a short video on Douyin is about one week.

Yibang Power learned that the transaction amount of a single video of Crazy Xiao Yangge's live streaming was as high as more than one million yuan. If the proportion of profit is calculated, the creator can usually get hundreds of thousands.

Meiyang MEIYANG is a Douyin anchor who sells women's clothing. She has 16 million Douyin fans and has opened live streaming slice authorization on Chanxuan. It is said that a live streaming slice account with only more than 1,000 fans edited Meiyang MEIYANG's live streaming materials and the sales of one video reached hundreds of thousands of yuan.

These popular slice accounts are sometimes also called "high-authority" accounts, and anything they post will become popular. These accounts belong to slice creators, and there are usually two development paths in the future: one is to be selected by authorized influencers and the two parties cooperate to realize the value, and the other is for the creator to delete the previous slice content and then try to use the high authority to create a new account and build his own IP.

Through slice authorization, the value of the influencer's materials and portraits can be amplified, thereby screening out "high-power" accounts. This is also a major reason why many influencers and creators are willing to participate in live streaming slices. Especially for ordinary creators who are new to the game, slice authorization is undoubtedly a good strategy for starting an account.

At present, for the slice authorization of Three Sheep Network and Chanxuan, one slice account can only get the authorization of one expert, and the upper limit for a single expert to authorize 5,000 accounts. As the number of authorized accounts increases, the sales of a single account may be at risk of dilution. However, "high-power" accounts can obtain longer-term and stable income with content after the market value of live slices decreases.

Despite their absolute advantage in numbers, low-income groups with free time have not created influential popular accounts and content. Most of these popular content and accounts are created by small studios. Since this year, many studios specializing in live streaming have appeared in the market.

"We can roughly tell from the background whether it is an individual or a studio. If it is a studio, all its income will generally be tied to a corporate entity. If it is an individual, the income is tied to the individual's account." Hou Zongming told Yibang Power that these studios have dozens of people as many as dozens, and as few as three or five. A boss who understands operations leads a small team, and everyone edits content according to his ideas, and can earn hundreds of thousands of yuan a month.

At present, simply editing and publishing live broadcast materials will not get traffic. Those accounts that are doing well have added their own understanding to the creation, and output videos with higher originality and more prominent content, and may also add different music and other materials.

Several practitioners told Yibang Power that the large-scale distribution of live streaming slices is similar to the logic of the "store group model", but the two also have differences. Store groups are destructive to the e-commerce ecosystem, while live streaming slices, as a new model for short video sales, have activated the content and traffic value of the short video ecosystem, which can not only improve the quality of platform content, but also is a more efficient solution for content monetization.

03 The attitude of the platform is quietly changing. Brands and AIGC are the decisive forces in the future

Over the past year, live streaming has grown wildly and has demonstrated very strong vitality; whether it can continue to grow and develop in the future will largely depend on the attitude and policies of the platform.

Yibang Power learned that since this year, the attitudes of major platforms towards live streaming slicing have quietly changed, from the past official and restrictive to rule-based constraints and supervision. In addition, from the growing transaction volume, the platform may also see its business value.

According to feedback from merchants, Douyin’s current attitude is “We won’t encourage you to do it, but we don’t oppose you to do it either” and “Just don’t overdevelop it.” In addition, Douyin has opened up a revenue sharing system for live streaming slices. MCNs can set the sharing ratio, and the backend will automatically divide the commission. Sliced ​​accounts can withdraw cash every month in the Douyin backend.

Now, the slice account will earn a profit for each order it sells, and settlement and withdrawal will be made 15 days after the order is paid. "This kind of timely feedback is very stimulating." A service provider told Yibang Power, "After the official backend opened up this link, at least some interest disputes such as arrears in commission distribution were completely avoided, which is also an important reason why the scale of live streaming slices can be rapidly expanded."

In early June, Kuaishou e-commerce updated the "Short Video Store" function, saying that the updated function is applicable to "Live Slice Hot Return", and experts can earn commissions by listing other people's stores. This means that Kuaishou has opened up the system of live slicing business from the product level.

Ebrun exclusively learned that Video Account is developing and testing functions related to the authorization of live streaming slices, and the new function is expected to be officially launched in July this year. In order to prevent a large amount of homogeneous content from destroying the platform ecology, Video Account will also limit the number of authorized lists; it said that starting from July 1, the platform will control unauthorized accounts and content, including live streaming slices and secondary creation content.

There are many live broadcast slice accounts and content of celebrities under Three Sheep Network on the video account. Many of them are shown to be officially authorized, and the sales of many accounts are very considerable. It is not clear whether these contents are really authorized by Three Sheep Network.

The authorization of slices of video account live broadcasts is indeed necessary to regulate the content ecology of the platform. As for the development potential of bringing goods, it still needs further observation. Video accounts have not yet produced super anchors, which may restrict the development of slices of goods. However, the control of content from other platforms may speed up the pace of other anchors willing to authorize entering the video account live broadcast. After all, "one source of water for the whole country" is not difficult. In addition, the current proportion of short videos in video accounts is generally low, and most transactions are completed through live broadcast rooms. If you want to bring goods through short videos, you may need more products and functions to be improved.

Hou Zongming said that Chanxuan and Three Sheep Network are currently mainly engaged in live streaming slicing business on Douyin. Chanxuan has made some attempts and layouts on Video Account, but due to differences in algorithms and recommendation mechanisms, the progress is not very smooth at present.

The new growth of live streaming slices may come from the participation of brand merchants. In theory, brand merchants have great motivation to do matrix distribution, so as to spread the brand's voice and IP, and achieve GMV growth at the same time.

Since 2023, organizations such as Chanxuan have begun to explore brand live streaming slicing, and brands such as Anta are also looking for service providers in this field in the market. Especially after the outbreak of new technologies such as AIGC, the threshold and cost of brands to distribute live streaming slicing have been greatly reduced, and the prospects of this field look even better.

At the end of March this year, Jinhui Men's Wear, a men's clothing merchant on Kuaishou, used the AIGC live streaming slicing technology provided by Jirui Technology to produce 540 slices, increasing the average daily number of short videos released by 4 times, and many slices were selected as selected videos by the account. It is said that this time it was mainly distributed through two accounts of Jinhui Men's Wear, and no authorization was given for matrix distribution, nor was the impact of live streaming slicing on sales announced.

Brand merchants are still exploring and trying to enter the live streaming segment. "Once this model is established, it will be of great value to the entire ecosystem. I personally look forward to this direction." said Hou Zongming.

Author: Du Hancongyanfei

Source: Yibang Power (ID: iebrun)