Don’t do unmanned live streaming anymore? The practitioner invested more than 30,000 yuan, but the sales volume was 0 and the account was blocked...

What is unmanned live streaming? Why is it so popular despite repeated bans? This article starts with the scam of unmanned live streaming, shows us the current phenomenon of unmanned live streaming, then explains why unmanned live streaming is so popular despite repeated bans, and finally explains the prevalence of "no content" gameplay today. It is recommended for people who are interested in unmanned live streaming to read, and I hope it will be helpful to everyone.

"It's been 23 years, and we're still doing unmanned live streaming?" Recently, a report in Liaoshen Evening News about unmanned live streaming of goods has sparked discussion.

In the report, two users said they attended a training course on unmanned live streaming and built an unmanned live streaming room. However, after investing more than 30,000 yuan, the live streaming room not only had no traffic and no transactions, but was also banned by the platform, and the store deposit could not be withdrawn.

Such cases are not uncommon in the industry. Unmanned live streaming has been popular in the industry for many years due to its low threshold and low cost, and it still continues to be popular despite the continuous suppression of the platform.

Xinbochang also discovered that it is not just unmanned live streaming that sells goods. Other ways of selling goods, such as product cards and pictures and texts, which do not require high content, are also gaining attention in the industry and have become key projects promoted by many training institutions.

Where there is demand, there is a market, and the training institutions’ sickles have been changing direction as the platform’s gameplay changes...

1. Unmanned live streaming sales went bankrupt

“No one is live streaming (selling goods), and the monthly income is over 10,000 yuan. Is this true or false?”

On April 24, Liaoshen Evening News published two reports on Douyin about unmanned live streaming sales. The content was about following two female students to defend their rights against an institution that provided training on unmanned live streaming sales.

In the video, Ms. Guan said that she met another online celebrity named Bai Youzhi through @雷厉风行 "干点什么赚钱" with more than 3 million fans on March 13 this year. According to Bai Youzhi, unmanned live broadcasting can make money, and he also promised Ms. Guan on WeChat that "one computer (a day) can earn 150-200 yuan, and a month can earn 5,000-6,000 yuan."

So, Ms. Guan paid more than 20,000 yuan, including 13,600 yuan for the tuition of the unmanned live streaming course, 5,600 yuan for two computers, and other fees for purchasing related accounts and software.

Later, under the guidance of Bai Youzhi's teaching course, Ms. Guan recorded some live broadcast content from abroad, and then edited it and put it into her own live broadcast room. But after a period of time, the transaction volume in the live broadcast room has been zero.

During this period, Ms. Guan has been communicating with Bai Youzhi's team, who said that the live broadcast room was temporarily without traffic due to regulatory reasons and would help solve the problem later. Afterwards, not only did the traffic problem of the live broadcast room remain unsolved, but her account was also permanently blocked by the platform, and the deposit and other fees in the account could not be withdrawn.

Afterwards, when Ms. Guan complained about her problem to the Bai Youzhi team, she received almost no positive response, so she chose to seek help from the media.

Obviously, Ms. Guan was deceived by the training institution and became the leek under the sickle of the unmanned live broadcast training institution.

This incident also resonated with netizens. Some people left messages under the video, requesting that XXX be exposed, while others said that they had similar experiences and invested XXX money...

Unmanned live streaming refers to a live streaming room that does not require real people to appear on camera or real-time explanations, and mainly uses the form of recorded broadcasts. Because the entry threshold is low, it has become the first choice for many novices who want to do live streaming.

Unmanned live broadcast training institutions have seen through this point and have promoted unmanned live broadcast as a myth, widely publicizing that this is a track where one can make money as soon as they enter the game.

As early as 2020, industry insiders accused training institutions of promoting unmanned live streaming as a myth, believing that "more than 80% of training institutions in the industry are just cutting leeks."

2. Why is it so persistent despite repeated bans?

In fact, the platform has been cracking down on the chaos of unmanned live broadcasting, but it can be said that it has been banned repeatedly. Searching for the keyword "unmanned live broadcasting" on platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou will not only pop up related live broadcast rooms, but also a large number of teaching videos and special training accounts.

So, why is unmanned live streaming still happening despite repeated bans?

On the one hand, the live streaming e-commerce industry continues to be hot, and there are still many entrants who are attracted by the myth of getting rich through live streaming e-commerce. On the other hand, due to the lack of content and operational capabilities, the popularity of unmanned live streaming e-commerce training has been boosted.

On the other hand, unmanned live streaming has existed for a long time, and its ability to bring goods has indeed been proven in certain application scenarios.

In the early days, unmanned live broadcasting, which mainly played video materials and recorded videos, had already appeared and set off a wave of popularity.

At the end of 2019, unmanned live broadcasting and other black and gray production methods such as "virtual positioning" appeared in the industry. At that time, the live broadcasting tools of Douyin and Kuaishou were not perfect. If you wanted to play recorded video clips in the live broadcast room, you needed some "black technology" as an aid. At that time, some unmanned live broadcasts that played inspirational chicken soup, motivational speeches, and game clips were quite popular.

Some organizations and teams use this method to obtain considerable traffic by building accounts in batches, and use group control software or patches to guide users in the live broadcast room to give rewards or purchase goods.

However, the platform soon noticed this type of gameplay, and as some of the content had serious copyright issues, it cracked down on it severely.

In 2020, live streaming e-commerce entered a stage of rapid development. For some live streaming rooms that require competing for running time or scenes where faces are not shown, there is still a demand for unmanned live streaming rooms from the perspective of cost saving.

For example, live broadcast rooms that sell low-priced snacks, clearance books, low-priced daily necessities, etc. have low product profits and simple user decisions. Building an unmanned live broadcast room is not only low-cost, but also allows one person to manage multiple accounts, which is more cost-effective than a live broadcast room with real people.

During this period, the materials for unmanned live broadcasts changed from online materials to pre-recorded live broadcast room materials, which can only be distinguished by the interactive effects. At the same time, this type of live broadcast room can also be used to broadcast Dou+ and even Qianchuan, which has also given rise to some semi-unmanned live broadcast gameplay, that is, the live broadcast room plays relevant materials, but also connects to the real-time voice of the anchor or operator, who will guide orders when the live broadcast room is popular and users are active.

In addition to the unmanned live broadcast rooms mentioned above that sell low-priced goods and have performed well, some live broadcast rooms with special or exclusive sources of goods, such as Huaqiangbei Five-Code Machine, also adopted the low-cost gameplay of unmanned live broadcast.

Later, with the explosion of live broadcast rooms for local life businesses, many merchants doing group buying and discount packages also chose unmanned live broadcasts in order to convert users at different time periods.

For this reason, even though the platform still cracks down on recorded broadcasts, the relevant live broadcast rooms will be banned if they are not careful, and the review of live broadcast rooms has been strengthened, but it still cannot stop the continued popularity of unmanned live broadcasts...

"Unmanned live streaming has a greater impact than short videos selling products," said an industry insider.

3. “ No content ” gameplay is prevalent

Nowadays, with the gradual application of digital humans and AI technologies in live streaming, unmanned live streaming has begun to move beyond the scope of black and gray industries.

This has also made major training institutions more "enthusiastic" about this type of gameplay, and they use the gimmick of "making money without doing anything" to attract people who have no source of goods and operational capabilities to join in.

However, unlike the early industry environment, today’s unmanned live streaming rooms are more of a low-cost operation method that does not benefit from any traffic dividends. Newbies can hardly make a deal and will only be fleeced by training institutions.

In fact, in addition to the report of Liaoshen Evening News, many local media have also reported similar live streaming training programs. Newbies without any experience and resources participated in these training programs, spent money to buy some tools and services, but simply couldn't do it.

However, where there is demand there is a market, and the training institutions’ sickles have been changing direction as the platform’s gameplay changes...

Xinbochang found that among the training projects, in addition to unmanned live broadcasts, product cards and graphic and text content have also been popular recently.

The so-called product card gameplay is also aimed at short video live streaming platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou. After they began to build malls in 2021 and gradually increased their investment in the malls, the exposure of products no longer depends on the content. As a result, the product card gameplay that guides users to select products and distributes them and uses the method of brushing to expose products is popular.

In addition to being popular on Xiaohongshu, text and picture content has also become popular on Douyin and Kuaishou as they allow text and picture content to be added to shopping carts. This type of content creation method has a lower threshold and naturally looks very friendly to incompetent beginners.

"Taobao pictures and texts have been out of business since 2018." A traditional e-commerce person said this in a community, but this does not stop many players from flocking into the picture and text sales business, thereby providing training institutions with high-quality cases and promotional materials.

Therefore, another practitioner said in the community: "You e-commerce people don't make as much as those who sell courses."

From unmanned live streaming, product cards to picture and text sales, you will find that the reason why these gameplays are popular and sought after is not only because of their low cost, but more importantly, compared with live streaming and short video sales, the threshold and difficulty of content creation are lower.

On the one hand, more and more traditional e-commerce players and supply chains are pouring into Douyin and Kuaishou. They are not very familiar with content gameplay, but have relatively strong capabilities in operations and paid traffic, so they prefer this type of gameplay.

On the other hand, Douyin and Kuaishou have invested in the operation of shopping malls in the past 1-2 years, separating content from e-commerce. On the content level, users stay longer and increase the platform DAU; on the e-commerce level, users can make quick transactions and free up more time to consume content.

A very obvious phenomenon is that during the period 2020-2022, there were e-commerce live broadcast rooms in the industry that planned various creative content, but now there are fewer and fewer of them.

The weakening of the platform's content planning ability is promoted by training institutions as giving more opportunities to ordinary people. However, in the eyes of practitioners, this will be a competition for stronger product capabilities, operational capabilities and payment capabilities.

Author: Aligu

Source: WeChat public account "New Broadcasting Field (ID: yunyingpai666 ) "