The porter business in Douyin

Can you attract viewers to place orders just by reposting live clips of big anchors? Recently, a large number of accounts with "live streaming slices" as their main content have emerged on Douyin. Can these slices really attract viewers to click and complete traffic conversion? What is the attitude of anchors towards it? Let's take a look at this article to learn about this emerging industry derived from live streaming.

If you search for Luo Yonghao on Douyin, the first thing that pops up is the "Make Friends" live broadcast room, but there will also be a number of synonym accounts, such as "Lao Luo Make Friends Selection" and "Lao Luo An Interesting Soul". You might also search for "Crazy Xiao Yang Ge", a super V with more than 99.99 million fans on Douyin. Similarly, a long list of related accounts such as "Crazy Xiao Yang Di", "Xiao Yang Ge Live Welfare Return", and "Xiao Yang Ge Grocery Store - Three Sheep" follow.

At first glance, these accounts look like imposters who are trying to gain traffic from IPs, but on the homepages of these accounts, they almost all indicate their officially authorized identities.

If you look through their historical releases, you will find two things in common: a large proportion of the video content is clips from live streaming sales by Xiao Yangge or Luo Yonghao, which are not original and are just reposted; there is also a yellow car corresponding to the video content in the lower left corner.

In other words, these videos are not just a content distribution center for live broadcast rooms, but have evolved into a stable business with huge profits.

If we use one name to summarize the description, it is "IP live streaming with goods slicing".

"I made slices of Xiao Yang's live broadcast and sold nearly a hundred orders in seven days. Big anchors have their own traffic. Even if 0.1% of fans click on it, and ten of them place an order, it is much better than if I do it alone." said a slice editor.

As soon as live streaming slicing appeared, "Crazy Xiao Yangge" became the first prey targeted by the editing group. Xiao Yangge even directly or indirectly promoted the development of this emerging industry. Now he simply pulls more top anchors into this game.

In the past, this model was hidden in a gray area because it involved issues such as copyright ownership and reducing the originality of platform content.

Now, top anchors have sensed the business opportunities and are actively opening up authorizations, and are even paying more and more attention to it. During a live broadcast of selling refrigerators, Luo Yonghao took the initiative to provide slicing ideas to the editor.

Douyin has almost acquiesced to the existence of this phenomenon. In fact, slicing has become an important part of the short video ecosystem. In 2022, 50% of Douyin's e-commerce sales will come from short videos, and live slicing is an important contribution.

1. From containment to incorporation

Crazy Xiao Yang has 100 million fans on Douyin. During the live broadcast, the big and small Yang brothers appear together. The account is rich in content and full of highlights. Whether it is the family funny short videos shot before, or the later Douyin live broadcast of goods, it is easy to cut out a film.

At first, Xiao Yang was still worried about being "sliced" and even went to defend his rights, but slicing still occurred in an endless stream and could not be stopped despite repeated bans. Later, he changed his mind and decided that instead of blocking and eliminating it, he would rather use it for his own benefit.

In 2021, Xiao Yangge established an MCN agency "Three Sheep" to manage live streaming. Almost all accounts on Douyin and Kuaishou that do live streaming of Xiao Yangge and Xiao Yangge are regular soldiers certified by Three Sheep.

@疯狂小杨弟直播福利 is one of the slice accounts authorized by Crazy小杨哥, with 613,000 followers. The account was opened in July last year, and it is Xiaoyangge's daily sales in the live broadcast room. Two-thirds of the videos are linked to the sales cart.

"Disney Genuine Aojieer Strawberry Bear" is the most popular live broadcast. Two large and small strawberry bears are sold together for 84 yuan. After Yang and Yang's introduction, it attracted 25,000 likes, more than 4,000 comments and collections, and 11,000 reposts.

Around September last year, some media calculated based on data monitored by a third-party platform that the account could earn nearly 10,000 yuan a month simply by editing and distributing Yang Ge and Yang Ge’s live broadcast content.

The data revealed by Brother Xiao Yang is that in 2022, a total of more than 11,000 people obtained slicing authorization from the Three Sheep Network, with an average income of 17,000 yuan per person, and 316 brands achieved sales of over one million yuan through slicing.

In addition to authorizing the management of his own live broadcast content, Brother Yang also brought major anchors into the camp.

At the end of last month, Three Sheep launched the APP Zhongxiaoer on major app stores. The official claimed that this was to provide a standardized and stable authorization channel for editors who want to do live streaming. It is worth noting that in addition to Xiao Yangge’s own account, the platform also has Douyin’s top anchors/live streaming rooms such as Jiao Ge Pengyou, Hao Shaowen, and Zhu Zixiao.

There are also many similar live-streaming sliced ​​videos on Kuaishou.

Luo Yonghao once sold a type of wet toilet paper in his live broadcast room. According to incomplete statistics from Xinmei Daybreak, this product was used for editing and promotion by no less than 13 accounts, and most of the e-commerce entities behind these 13 accounts pointed to the same store. As of now, the sales volume of this store on Kuaishou is 863 pieces.

According to Three Sheep Network’s external statement, the creators behind these accounts may be mothers with children, unemployed people, or part-time college students.

Although the top anchors have accepted this group of people, the platform's attitude is still somewhat ambiguous.

At the end of June last year, Kuaishou launched the "live clips to send sales videos to promote conversion" function, which allows the sales anchor to release live clips in the Kuaishou seller backend with one click to sell goods. This is equivalent to the official stepping in to personally set the rules of the game.

Although Douyin has acknowledged the existence of this phenomenon, considering that a large number of homogenized slices will reduce the originality of the platform's content, the sliced ​​accounts are still at risk of being banned by the platform.

Business writer Li Xiang once reported that in order to judge the reaction this will cause in the Douyin ecosystem, Three Sheep will open authorization in stages and batches.

2. Benefit Distribution

The live slicing business is actually not complicated.

After a live broadcast by a big anchor ends, a slice editor (or a KOC who promotes products) comes in to edit some of the highlights and put them on the brand's yellow cart. After the video is released, the product is successfully sold and the three parties share the profits.

Obviously, live streamers and brand merchants are at the top of the chain, with the former providing materials and the latter providing goods. A large number of KOCs are second-tier producers, responsible for processing materials and reaping some meager long-tail benefits.

The specific division of labor is also very simple. The anchors and MCN agencies only need to authorize the live broadcast IP to the slice editor. Without spending a penny, they can extract the highlight clips from the massive live broadcast playback content, widely disseminate them on various platforms, expand the influence of the IP, and allow the content to achieve long-tail dissemination.

For brand merchants, the edited sliced ​​content is a very low-cost advertising material with a purchase link attached: first, the sliced ​​content still retains the celebrity effect of the anchor, and second, the product is the focus of the edited live slice, which is more likely to become a hit. Brand merchants only need to ensure product quality and after-sales logistics to achieve long-tail sales.

For the KOCs who promote products in large quantities, although they are at the bottom of the chain, they also have an additional way to make money. However, as the number of participants increases, the difficulty of this job will increase, and the requirements for creative editing skills will also rise.

As for how the profits should be distributed, this business does not have particularly clear profit distribution and settlement standards.

If it is a personal account KOC, then the anchor (or MCN organization) and the KOC will share the profits. At present, the profit sharing ratio between the two may be 30% to 70%, or 50% to 50%.

According to a report by Xinbang, a third-party agency that claimed to have obtained the authorization for live streaming slicing of the "Hao Shaowen" IP stated that only agencies that have their own editing team and can file taxes can get a 50% commission share; individuals who are authorized by a third-party agency to sell goods can only get a 30% share.

3. Internal circulation business

The survival space of sliced ​​accounts also indirectly shows that the vitality and carrying capacity of short videos are stronger than we imagined.

Short videos can be replayed endlessly, and their ability to promote products is not limited by time and space. Live streaming sales fluctuate periodically as the host starts and stops broadcasting.

Live streaming and short videos are just a channel for content e-commerce to realize monetization. The main theme is still the personality and creativity of the anchor: the same video can be edited into completely different styles by different slice accounts, some of which can attract huge traffic, while others are drowned out.

The reason why live streaming content can be edited into short videos is because the content tension of the host itself is strong enough.

With the support of celebrities, ordinary people do not need to think hard about creativity. The time period for account incubation is shortened, the success rate is increased, the overall investment of energy and cost is relatively small, and the profit model is not cumbersome and complicated.

What is important is that after the anchor's authorization, the supply channel will be more stable, and compared with ordinary small anchors, low-price competition will be more advantageous, and the commission ratio will also increase. With the anchor's endorsement, consumers' trust in the product will increase accordingly.

The manager of a Xiao Yangge authorized slice account said in an interview with E-commerce Online that before joining the Xiao Yangge authorized agency, his product selection was through the Douyin Merchant Selection Alliance, and the commission ratio was not very high. However, after joining the agency authorization, the commission ratio can even be as high as that of big anchors. "Big anchors have bargaining power for goods, and the product links are given to us by the agency, so the commission ratio is also higher."

Slicing and editing is not as low a threshold as the public imagines. The anchors have standards and requirements for both content and products.

For example, Three Sheep will restrict the selection of editing materials, and editors must use materials provided by the official website; the content is not simply cut and pasted, but also needs to be processed and re-created. More importantly, the products sold by the slicing account must be products provided by the official Three Sheep.

The platform will also have certain restrictions. Some service providers have said that posting sliced ​​videos of the shared bikes will affect the platform's traffic distribution, so more assessment indicators will be involved.

When it comes to live streaming, content is key, and there are often too many people and too little material for highlights. In order to avoid the proliferation of similar slicing videos, agencies will also provide reference opinions on enhancing editing creativity. Some accounts will also place orders to record product unboxing videos to increase the watchability of the videos. Or they may turn to anchors that have not yet been widely developed to apply for authorization.

A contracted editor of Three Sheep mentioned in an interview that after a live broadcast, Three Sheep will send a digital version of the live broadcast content to the contracted editor. The editor will write down the materials that he feels when watching the live broadcast. He will start to think about how to sort, explain and set special effects in his mind.

Currently, Three Sheep is the leader in the slicing model, but as this model develops, brands will also take the initiative to do slicing. For example, some razor brands will ask celebrities to do slicing.

After the carnival, there may be silence. This business relies on big anchors and is completely dependent on the platform. For the platform and the anchor, this is just another way to make money, but for the sliced ​​accounts, it may be a matter of life and death.

Author: Li Huan

Source: New-Daybreak (ID: new-daybreak)