How to make money by telling stories on Douyin?

On Douyin, you can make money by telling stories. Although they are both sharing folk stories, their ways of making money are different. This article shares three different types of monetization methods, hoping to inspire you.

Some time ago, I introduced to you the case of making money by sharing earthy music on Toutiao. I easily made one million by sharing earthy music. Today, let’s analyze the case of making money by sharing earthy stories (folk tales).

Although they all share folk stories, there are three different types of monetization methods.

01 Folk Stories on Weibo

If you don’t want to write articles or shoot short videos, you can take a serious look at this case.

We usually see various hot news and strange things on various channels such as Moments, Toutiao, WeChat groups, Weibo, Baidu, etc.

For example, a rare plant was discovered somewhere, a couple had an argument somewhere, a pregnant woman gave birth to quintuplets somewhere, a left-behind child depended on his grandparents, etc.

From national affairs to how much money a neighbor spent on groceries today, these are all information about everyone's consumption.

So how can we monetize this content that is available to everyone?

First, Toutiao has a function called micro-toutiao. As long as the author is certified or the number of fans exceeds 100, you can post short updates similar to Moments, and you will earn money as long as the number of readers is high.

Secondly, publishing on Weibo headlines can also gain exposure and system recommendations. Sometimes a single piece of content can get tens or even millions of reads.

Third, many people will ask, isn't this kind of news available? Will anyone read it after it's published?

Of course, although they are on the headlines, not everyone can see them. The system will display them as recommendations.

Just like why, when you are browsing TikTok, there are hundreds of accounts posting about the same event, but the sources of the accounts that know about the event are different.

Fourthly, it is very simple to create such content. You just need to process it slightly. For example, if you see a video, you can take a few screenshots and then add some of your own copy and publish it.

For example, this account posted several micro headlines in succession, with nearly 1,000 comments and interactions, which means that it earned at least tens of yuan for each post.

The content he shares is what is already on the platform, or it is news you read on other channels. He does some simple secondary creation and is still able to gain traffic.

Things like folk gossip, family affairs, daily life, etc. will attract attention and interaction. Many accounts seem to be written by amateurs, but they are actually written by professional teams.

02 Article-type folk tales

Although the creative format of Weitoutiao is simple, it is not as good as accounts that specialize in writing articles in terms of revenue, account weight, and increase in followers.

You can use it as a practice, but if you want to play it for a long time and create a vertical account, you still have to write more articles and shoot more videos.

For example, the account [Xiao Han Tells Stories] now mainly shares stories through articles. Many of the content has a single reading volume of 50,000 to 60,000. As long as this kind of account continues to write, there will always be income even if it is less than 4,000 to 5,000 yuan per month.

What he wrote was mainly based on ancient folk tales. You can just search on Baidu for the sources of the themes of such stories.

If you like reading novels and books, you can find some folk tale collections online, or buy some storybooks from decades ago offline.

Then I copied the book, added some of my own understanding, and re-edited it.

It can be ancient fantasy, ancient war, etc., including modern and contemporary stories.

I have read books with 1,000 short stories offline before. Each story is only one or two pages long, easy to understand, and covers stories from ancient and modern times, both Chinese and foreign.

This kind of storytelling content has two obvious benefits:

First, the content itself is readable and inspiring, and some of it is about the deeds of modern and ancient celebrities, which means there is traffic.

Secondly, there is no copyright involved in publishing such stories, because they are all stories and one can create, edit and share them.

Therefore, those who have experience can create different matrix accounts according to different categories.

03 Short videos tell folk stories

There are hosts like News Sister and News Brother on Douyin, who often analyze and comment on some hot news, and their exposure and interaction volumes are extremely high.

However, due to issues such as our personal creative qualifications, we cannot keep doing this, and the risks to our accounts are also high.

But if you change the subject matter, you can continue to make money.

First, instead of talking about hot social and people's livelihood issues, they share stories about entrepreneurs' growth, management, operation, bankruptcy, etc. For example, Jack Ma, Pony Ma, Elon Musk, etc., their childhood, entrepreneurship, corporate crises, etc., all have traffic.

Secondly, just like when you listen to storytelling offline, some classic folk stories can be moved online and edited into a series of short videos.

Third, choose a story or a classic and explain it in depth, such as telling all the four great classics, and the stories of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea and the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam.

There is a blogger on Xigua who has filmed more than 500 episodes of the story of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, and each episode has been played more than 70,000 to 80,000 times.

So, everyone, China has a history of 5,000 years, with so many events, allusions, dynasties, and novels, and we can talk about any field.

You can also talk about dynasties and characters. Talking about ancient generals, beauties, emperors, etc. will be enough for you to create for several years.

04 There is money to be made, but it is hard to make

Of course, we have analyzed three specific cases and provided some directions.

It seems that there is a way to make money, but it is still difficult to do it.

First, you have to force yourself to create based on events. Even if you want to make a headline, you have to filter the news, edit and publish it, but you can just forward it at any time.

Secondly, you have to love this thing. If you don’t pay attention to people’s livelihood issues, don’t pay attention to history, and are not interested in money-making projects, even if you are told this direction, you won’t be able to write well and you won’t be able to find topics.

Third, you need to have basic creative ability. In fact, there is another form here, which is audio. Toutiao also supports the release of audio and can also share the traffic.

But whether it is micro headlines, articles, videos, or audio, basic creation and editing skills are required.

If you don’t even know how to write copy, write titles, or provide pictures, then you have to spend time learning and practicing before you can make money from them.

So again, any money-making project, you may know about it, but the key lies in whether you have the ability and resources to do it.

Author: Shili Village, WeChat public account: Shili Village (shilipxl)