7 Questions about Live Slicing

Does "live slicing" make money? What issues should be paid attention to in the process? How can we do a good job in the slicing business? This article will systematically explain the knowledge of "live slicing". Friends who are interested, come and take a look.

In the discussion about “live streaming slicing”, a controversial question is “whether it can make money or not”. On the one hand, some people point out that as long as the IP is big enough, popular enough, and the editor is diligent enough, money can be made.

On the other hand, others believe that IP slicing is competing with short videos. If a video is heavily distributed, data such as playback volume and likes will be downgraded. The new account will have no traffic at all and its efficiency in bringing goods will be very low.

My own opinion is that IP slicing can only be used as a supplementary means of live streaming sales . The era when ordinary people do slicing is over. Although some people may object, I still firmly believe that measuring with "monetization efficiency" is the basic principle of commercialization.

1. What is slicing?

Simply put, the recorded long video is cut and edited to produce various short videos, which are then distributed on platforms such as Taobao, Douyin, and Kuaishou. The effects of live streaming slicing are completely different on different platforms.

On Taobao, slices mostly display store broadcast content, tending to be real-life photography of clothing, outfits, fabric materials, etc., to help consumers better understand the products. This method is the lowest threshold for merchants to enter the short video market, and its purpose is to help consumers shorten the transaction chain.

On Douyin, slicing product attributes is not that serious. It focuses more on showing the UP host’s outfit or the content of the UP host’s oral broadcast to attract user attention and guide conversion. Taking the top host Xiao Yangge as an example, people are more willing to watch the funny moments during the live broadcast.

It can be seen that IP and live streaming slicing is not uncommon. The essence is to reuse the IP content matrix and then sell goods in the window. The slicing that impressed me the most was "Fan Deng Reading" and the TV series "The Way of Heaven". When Douyin first became popular, for every 10 videos you watched, you would see a video of Teacher Fan Deng talking about books or a performance clip of Wang Zhiwen, which made the book "The Distant Savior" one of the best-selling books on Douyin.

2. How big is the slicing market?

I think there are two slice ceilings:

1. How many influencers on the platform want to do slicing
2. What the platform thinks about slicing itself

On the one hand, mid-level internet celebrities and stars all want to make slices, or in other words, have various clips of their own live broadcasts and performances distributed by KOCs to bring in more traffic, so sliced ​​short videos themselves are enduring.

However, if there is no interest binding, how can KOC help with publicity for free and in the long term?

Therefore, the essence of slicing is still a relationship of interest binding, which depends on the popularity of the products promoted by the anchors and celebrities, as well as the price profit space, which is somewhat similar to the social distribution of the past.

On the other hand, the platform has periodic control over the promotion of slices. Take the superstar Andy Lau's debut on Douyin as an example. Within a week after the live broadcast, major short video media, video editing accounts, and KOCs all reposted the climax of the golden song to gain attention. However, people will always get tired of various phenomenal events, and the platform cannot manually intervene in the promotion of streams for a long time, let alone mid-level star anchors. Therefore, the popularity of slice videos decreases with the live broadcast and user preference.

3. What is the key to slicing?

If we use two words to summarize it, it would be “distribution”. As early as the era of live show broadcasts, many sliced ​​videos were distributed to other information platforms to help anchors promote or attract traffic.

Later, after Kuaishou and Douyin occupied half of the market, the slicing was upgraded, and many merchants and anchors began to focus on distribution within the platform. The focus shifted to KOCs and merchants who brought goods. Accordingly, the distribution method also began to change.

Specifically:

The anchor provides the officially authorized live streaming slice materials and corresponding product links and hands them over to the MCN company for management. The KOC who promotes the products obtains the live streaming video through the anchor’s official account or authorization and conducts secondary editing.

Then, through their own accounts, they upload videos, put products on the shelves, and wait for orders. However, due to issues such as docking costs, some anchors choose to be authorized and managed by third-party accounts; the entire operation can be said to be "killing three birds with one stone". In IP live streaming slicing, anchors can reuse content and expand IP influence, brand merchants can get more product exposure and sales on the site, and KOCs can also have an additional channel to make money. Moreover, KOCs only need simple editing skills, and mothers and students can do it.

4. What should we do?

Of course, you can’t just slice and post whenever you want. If you don’t get permission from others, it’s against the rules. So, if you want to use IP slicing to bring goods, you need to meet the following points:

• Your Douyin account has the showcase function enabled and has 1,000 followers, and you have paid a deposit
• Authorized by big V (exclusive product link after authorization)
• Be proficient in video editing. It is definitely not possible to copy directly (the original traffic is higher)

However, it is basically impossible for an ordinary person to directly seek authorization, so is there any other solution? Of course there is, you can go to the agency, the big V has basically signed a contract with the agency, you just need to join. The idea is right, but the operation is a bit difficult. After all, not everyone can make videos. Even a simple two-cut is difficult. In addition, if the playback effect is not particularly good after your editing, your confidence will be easily hit.

5. How much commission can I earn?

The general market price is "55-50 commission split" . If a third-party agency is involved, you may get at most about 30% of each order. All in all, this amount is not much.

Take facial masks for example. If the commission for a box is 8 yuan, what you get is 30% of 8 yuan. However, the cost you invest may not be low. This includes the cost of editing after the live broadcast authorization. The market price of one video ranges from 30 yuan to 50 yuan.

Moreover, your competitors include both "professional players" and "gray market players".

The former has a large number of accounts and manpower, and can use technical means to batch produce live streaming videos, and can also circumvent platform censorship by adding music, picture-in-picture, special effects, and cutting off the beginning and the end. The latter is even more unreasonable, and does not ask for authorization or management, and after the platform explodes, even if they are reported, they still get the commission, so I said that this money is not so easy to make.

6. What are the pitfalls in the process?

First , you can’t make money just by applying to an IP cooperation agency and posting videos. You can only know the magic of Tik Tok by trying it.

A friend of mine who is an actor has been unemployed at home because of the fierce competition in the past two years. He relies on the only bit of halo to post content on the platform, but no one watches it, let alone ordinary people posting slice videos.

Second , unlike other short video platforms that select products for promotion, live streaming slicing still relies on "editing skills". The host and celebrity's introduction to the product has already been determined, and the secondary distribution of content can only rely on creativity to attract attention.

So, if you look at Xiao Yangge’s slicing video, why can it attract audiences? It’s because even if it’s only 5 minutes long when broadcasting for a certain brand, various memes, reviews, and beauty performances will be fully mixed together, thus creating more opportunities for later stages.

If you edit and sell products yourself, you must extract the essence and capture the user's attention points, because you are not the only one doing their live broadcast. Therefore, this kind of editing skill is not about technical proficiency, but about whether you can find the "user demand points."

A friend who does slicing said that now it is not as simple as editing. Some institutions will also give reference suggestions, such as modifying the voice to make a simple explanation, inserting efficient emoticons, or even recording a title by yourself, etc. Therefore, the degree of involution is not low.

Third , as the path for selling goods through live streaming slicing becomes increasingly transparent, the bonus period has passed. Some people who have been bookmakers will seize everyone’s anxiety about making money through live streaming slicing and start training.

Some have even developed into a model of authorization + training, with the market price generally ranging from several hundred to several thousand. What's even more disgusting is that the official authorized slices for top talents are free, but some mid-level anchors charge authorization fees.

Some people have never done slicing, and they will have a mentality of "Should I sign up for a training class" to learn first. To be honest, there are only two options for seeking breakthroughs in live broadcast slicing numbers . One is to work hard on editing to make differences, and the other is to seek authorization from anchors whose live broadcast slicing numbers are not yet saturated.

Fourth , the popularity of live slicing depends on the trend of the influencer, just like Xiang Tai’s recent live broadcast, it will definitely take a few days for “slicing” to become popular again, but then again, the overall slicing market trend is downward.

I think this pattern will continue and temperatures may drop because:

• When it comes to content management, large platforms do not require a large number of homogeneous videos to appear;
• No one can stay popular for long. After the initial heat, the final slicing of videos to promote products will still have to fight back into the price war queue. Behind the price war, the decision-making power is determined by how much profit the brand gives.

7. How to make good slices?

Knowing how to do something and doing it well are two different things. For new players, finding the next "explosive IP" on the platform will give them the opportunity to earn basic dividends. Currently, many anchors are open for authorization, and it is necessary to carefully identify which anchors have more long-term value and which are short-term explosives.

For short-term hits, traffic is the key . After obtaining authorization, editing the videos into films and distributing them through a matrix can not only increase the success rate but also guarantee profits. For anchors with long-term value, the overall operational capabilities of short videos will be relatively tested.

Just like some bilibili UP hosts, they will choose to authorize their own slices to third parties to distribute to the Kuaishou and Douyin platforms to increase their overall personal commercial value.

Of course, it is impossible for players who do slicing to stick to just one internet celebrity, so in the future, content slicing will definitely appear on a large scale; in the end, those who can make money basically meet the following three characteristics:

1. Matrix Operations
2. Embrace platform changes
3. Long-term cooperation with many Internet celebrities and stars

It is worth mentioning that I am also thinking about whether this method of "slicing" can be used by "brands" for marketing? Just like Xiaomi Lei Jun's "are you ok" was widely circulated, it is not only low-cost but also highly efficient.

Overall:

A business that seems to have no threshold actually has higher requirements. Whether it makes money or not depends on how you do it. However, it is indeed a long-term concern.

Author: Wang Zhiyuan

Source: WeChat public account "Wang Zhiyuan (ID: Z201440)"