From the traffic is king to win by quality, short video ushered in the "long development"

Watching short videos in free time has become one of the ways people relax after dinner. Today, short videos have covered a wide range of general knowledge content, including leisure and entertainment, novel hot spots, personal selfies, knowledge sharing, skills and experience, product promotion, etc. While users are having fun, they can also subtly broaden their horizons, improve their abilities and integrate into a social atmosphere that suits their personal preferences.

The trend of short videos has not yet passed, and the development prospects are still strong

With the gradual decline in traffic charges, people can now generally afford to use traffic to watch videos. Common video programs include short videos, online live broadcasts, film and television programs, etc.

Among them, short videos are very suitable for people to kill fragmented time with their concise and interesting characteristics. The "2021 Short Video User Value Research Report" released by China Media Research (CSM) shows that in terms of duration, the average daily usage time of short video users has increased to 87 minutes.

In February this year, QuestMobile released the "2021 China Mobile Internet Annual Report". Its data showed that as of the end of last year, the monthly active user scale of the video industry had exceeded 1 billion. Among them, short videos have surpassed other applications in terms of user stickiness. It accounts for 25.7% of the total user usage time and continues to penetrate and expand into the local life field.

Coincidentally, the "2021 China Internet Audiovisual Development Research Report" released by the China Internet Audiovisual Program Service Association also shows that among various online video carriers, short videos have the highest user usage rate, reaching 88.3%, with a user scale of 873 million, far higher than the usage rates of online live broadcasts (62.4%) and film and television programs (71.1%). This shows that whether it is leisure and entertainment or social shopping, short videos occupy an extremely important position in people's daily lives.

The scale effect of user numbers and usage stickiness naturally bring huge commercial value and potential commercial benefits. On the one hand, the market size of the short video field exceeded 200 billion yuan in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 57.5%. On mainstream video websites, the number of paying users has been showing a steady growth trend, and nearly half of the users have paid for online video programs.

On the other hand, short videos themselves are also an important marketing channel and commercial carrier. Short videos can be used as a means of attracting traffic for live film and television programs, and can also be used as an effective way of e-commerce operations.

For example, the movie "My Sister" released last year eventually grossed more than 860 million yuan. The reason why it became a box office dark horse during the Qingming Festival was that online promotion, especially short video marketing, played a significant role. The topic of this film has been played billions of times on the Kuaishou platform. Many people watched videos on Kuaishou and were attracted to the cinema after seeing the touching scenes in the movie.

Short videos can not only be used for large-scale commercial promotion and marketing, but can also be used as a channel to attract individual users and realize traffic monetization.

Wen Yue is an ordinary white-collar worker. In her spare time, she likes to shoot short videos to record her thoughts and experiences in using cosmetics. After uploading the shared videos to the Douyin platform, she often communicates and interacts with interested users. Over time, Wen Yue has made many new friends, and her fans have gradually increased to more than 20,000.

Now Wenyue can also get some cosmetics video promotion work. For Wenyue, short videos are not only a carrier for recording life and beautiful moments, but also equivalent to an additional part-time income.

The short video industry is moving from traffic value to user value

Short videos have brought new impetus to the development of the Internet industry, and short video users have accounted for nearly 90% of the total number of Internet users. However, under the premise that traffic, volume and the overall scale of the industry have peaked, the growth of the short video industry will gradually slow down in the next few years. The simple, extensive and land-grabbing development model of burning money to attract traffic is obviously no longer feasible, and we must take the path of refined operation and standardized development.

From a micro perspective, the user group of short videos is young, especially netizens aged 20-29. Their interest in online videos is the highest among all age groups, accounting for as high as 92.3%. This shows that short videos have a strong appeal to young people, and this appeal is still growing.

From a global perspective, short videos also have a broad user base overseas. Data from the "2021 Chinese City Overseas Short Video Platform Influence Report" shows that from the beginning of last year to January 10 this year, the number of views of videos with the tag #china on TikTok exceeded 27 billion times.

Specifically, how to enhance the audio-visual experience and improve user stickiness and activity naturally becomes the first issue that each platform needs to consider. The most fundamental solution to this problem can only be promoted by high-quality content.

Yu Jian Column believes that in the next few years, high-quality content will still be the key to the long-term development of the short video industry. Short video operators should focus on using various effective measures to encourage users to produce more excellent works with good content, high quality and attractiveness. Whether it is a platform company or an individual user, only by continuously producing high-quality content can they win long-term attention.

Second, the focus of short video operating companies cannot be limited to young consumer groups. The large middle-aged and elderly groups also have their own audio-visual and consumption needs. Therefore, in terms of creators and content output, the platform should do a good job in top-level design, subdivide reasonable and differentiated short video vertical content sections, and encourage individual and corporate users to create products suitable for all age levels and groups.

Third, we must fully tap the role of cutting-edge technologies such as 5G, big data, and artificial intelligence as "efficiency multipliers" in the field of short videos, and optimize information flow algorithms to make short video dissemination faster, more accurate, vertical, and intelligent, thereby continuously enhancing the dissemination and competitiveness of platform short videos, better meeting users' needs for knowledge, information, and leisure and entertainment in fragmented time, and further reducing users' screening and selection costs.

The deep integration of the short video industry and Internet e-commerce will be the next blue ocean of development

Since short video creation is flexible, entertaining, and has low barriers to entry, and does not require long duration or shooting time, the initial short video creation was very popular and showed a trend of universal participation. Kuaishou’s data showed that the growth rate of the number of Kuaishou short drama creators exceeded 30% last year.

Among them, more than 10,000 people have more than 100,000 fans, more than 1,000 people have more than one million fans, and nearly 50 people have joined the ranks of "Million-dollar Big Vs" from zero fans. This shows that the short video industry has quite active supply and demand both from the creation end and from the consumption end.

However, today's short video industry is gradually improving with the changes in user consumption needs. It is developing from mass entertainment to vertical segmentation and specialization, and is moving from meeting users' single needs to realizing diversified value.

The original model is no longer sufficient to support the large-scale development of the short video industry. Short video creators are all exploring how to find a content monetization and sustainable creation path that suits the characteristics of the short video industry.

Content monetization is a key factor supporting short video creators to continuously output content, and difficulty in monetization has always been a bottleneck factor that has plagued the development of the short video industry. The current main source of profit for short video platforms still relies on information flow advertising, and short video creators mainly rely on advertising, subsidies, or promotion of products and services. How to establish a complete operating mechanism and a long-term commercial monetization model is still a difficult problem facing platforms and creators.

Judging from the current situation, in addition to advertising, Internet e-commerce is the most direct and relatively mature way to realize traffic monetization. For example, Kuaishou’s "Trust E-commerce" ecosystem focuses on content creators and users, and relies on the creators' continuous content output to establish a stable trust relationship with users. On the basis of gradually accumulating traffic, it continuously improves the e-commerce conversion rate.

Douyin's "interest e-commerce" ecosystem relies on rich and diverse content and algorithm recommendation technology, allowing users to discover low-priced goods and stimulate consumer interest while watching short videos, thereby creating conditions and opportunities for consumption.

In 2017, Chen Qiao started sharing original short videos about clothing matching on Douyin when she was in college, and gradually accumulated nearly 500,000 fans. During this period, she received many promotion projects, including several well-known domestic clothing brands. During this period, the number of fans continued to increase. By the time she graduated from college, the number of fans had reached about 1 million.

At this time, she registered a company and decided to develop her own brand. From project planning, casting and shooting to post-production and publicity and promotion, the company has initially formed a professional team and creative chain, and the products have been rolled out on multiple platforms, with monthly sales reaching nearly 10,000 orders.

"Yu Jian Column" believes that the short video industry and Internet e-commerce are integrated and complement each other, and have become the next blue ocean of development for the short video industry, with the continuous strengthening of the content ecosystem in various forms such as bringing goods, product promotion, and content payment.

The short video industry in the future will have a more segmented market, more refined content, and a more complete industrial chain. It will not only meet people's diverse leisure needs, but also provide publicity and operation services for more industries.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that professionalism, diversity and intelligence will be the three main labels of the short video industry. Now the industry has entered a critical stage where platforms and creators need to explore in depth how to create a more in-depth, deeper and more attractive content output model. This puts higher demands on platforms and creators in terms of organizational management, content operation, product creation and other aspects.

Note: The article comes from the Internet. Please let me know if you have any questions!