Brushing the sense of existence, why is the WeChat video number becoming more and more ＂annoying＂？
Reporter | Xu Shiqi
The presence of WeChat video number is getting stronger and stronger.
On November 4 th, many people brushed a remarkable live link in the circle of friends, and it was at the top. Because it was too conspicuous, someone complained, "Who can tell me how to turn off this live broadcast?"
The content of the above live broadcast is a video number "Creation Camp" sharing meeting held by WeChat in Beijing. On that day, more than 300 creators were invited to discuss the creation and operation experience of the video number. The series of closed-door sharing has been held in Guangzhou and Shanghai, but the Beijing market has been made into a public live broadcast for the first time, and it has also put the live broadcast to a place where more people can see it for the first time.
After the live broadcast function of the video number was launched in early October, WeChat "managed" to divert the live broadcast. Forwarding and sharing is only the foundation. When you click on the video number, the attention number that friends are watching and are broadcasting live, etc., all attract people to click in through strong reminders.
In the past, people couldn’t escape the words of low-key and restraint when commenting on WeChat. The largest social tool in China with 1.2 billion users inherited the shy personality of its creator Zhang Xiaolong.
Now the video number seems to be breaking this image, with frequent updates, strong diversion and even sacrificing some user experiences.
More and more powerful diversion
In 2019 alone, Tencent tried more than ten short video apps, such as micro-vision, flash coffee, Tencent Cloud video, yoo video, dinner video, cat cake, Tencent Time … but they all failed to break through in the competition with Shake Fast.
The appearance of the video number is not only to complement the WeChat content ecology, but also an important blow for Tencent itself in the field of short video.
The video number was tested online on January 21st. In the previous WeChat open class, Zhang Xiaolong sent a clear signal: "The short content of WeChat has always been our direction." He felt that WeChat "accidentally" made the public platform into an article as a content carrier, but the short content of pictures and videos was missing.
A person familiar with the matter told the interface news that the video number had actually taken shape in 2018, but the user habits had not been cultivated at that time. Choosing to release it in 2020 was WeChat’s "planning before moving".
At the beginning of its birth, WeChat only sent invitations to some WeChat official account creators. Others wanted to open it, but only to WeChat official account creators. At that time, the outside world thought that the positioning of the video number was to assist WeChat official account, and finally the two were bound to communicate with each other.
"I didn’t pay any attention to it at first, and I don’t know what the ghost is." A creator who received the invitation to open in January this year told the interface news that the way of cold start in a small range of video numbers made many people pay no attention to it.
After quietly testing for a period of time and accumulating some users, the video number was greatly revised in June, and the four information streams of "attention, friends, recommendation and nearby" were basically set.
After that, the update is getting faster and faster. As of October, the video number has grown rapidly in the past four months, linking almost all products in the WeChat ecosystem, including search search, WeChat official account and small shops, and adding important functions such as live broadcast, which is close to other short video apps on the market.
There are more and more ways of diversion. Although the video number has not been fully opened at present, ordinary users can also feel WeChat’s strong "preference" for video numbers: the entrance is second only to the circle of friends, and people are attracted to enter through little red dot and the top of the circle of friends.
On the creator side, in addition to the offline activities of the "Creation Camp" officially held by WeChat, there are more and more spontaneous video exchange activities. Related industries have also begun to sprout, and the third-party website "visual beacon" provides the hot rankings of bloggers according to the video number; The officially developed "Seconds Jane" can do editing with exclusive video number specifications …
So far, the official has not disclosed the key data such as the monthly activity of the video number, only a screenshot of Zhang Xiaolong’s circle of friends circulated in June, and he said that the daily activity of the video number has broken 200 million.
According to the interface news from the creator, the video with the highest video number has been played hundreds of millions, and the popular recommended works can be played millions. Compared with Tik Tok, the number of popular videos is mostly in the tens of millions.
The traffic of the live video number is still relatively low. Even the Huawei Mate 40 conference, which has received much attention, has only about 5,000 simultaneous online users.
The effect of live broadcast with goods is also very general. Fang Yu, founder of the social e-commerce landing club, said: "At present, nothing can be sold. After all, the number of viewers is still too small, and everyone is still testing the water." As far as he knows, at present, the best result of personal live broadcast with goods is to sell 1 million yuan a night.
A difficult problem to be solved
Tik Tok, 4 years old, and Aauto Quicker, 9 years old, have perfected both the content and commercialization, and have also cultivated their own KOL. As the later "younger brother", the video number needs a lot of ammunition in terms of the most important "content" of short videos and the source of the content-the creator, although it is backed by the big tree of WeChat.
At present, the most popular content on the video number is still handling, and most of the bloggers in the head have made achievements on other platforms.
A skeptical creator said: "The slogan of the video number at that time was’ a video platform that everyone can create’, and the focus was on everyone. Because Tik Tok Aauto Quicker is now controlled by the head KOL, the head of the video number is also from Aauto Quicker, Tik Tok. "
Some creators also said, "I am very optimistic about the video number. I think it will definitely grow up, but does it grow up on its own content or is it forced to drag it up by relying on WeChat ecology?"
In this regard, WeChat is indeed consciously supporting original content and bloggers. According to the speeches of WeChat people in the "Creation Camp", the most important condition for making videos popular is original content, followed by factors such as the broadcast rate, likes and comments.
The video number "Shaozhuangzhu sobers up today" is a representative example. It only released the first content at the end of July. In two months, it accumulated more than 30,000 fans with 15 pieces of content, which is already a high fan order for the video number.
Xi Rui, the person in charge of this number, said that the important reason for being able to gather fans so quickly is that "Shaozhuangzhu" gave priority to publishing content on the video number, and gained a lot of attention through two "explosions" with millions of broadcasts.
In addition to the content, there are also some problems in the gameplay of video number private domain traffic. Although it allows bloggers to break through the initial communication threshold through friends’ praise and forwarding, it is difficult to push videos into the public domain and boost traffic with background recommendation like Tik Tok.
Wechat is trying to open up public domain traffic by means of "recommending friends to like content" and topic tags of friends circle, and the results are still difficult to determine.
It is worth mentioning that friends who like the content can also see it, which is the place where the video number is completely different from the Tik Tok algorithm. "Cherish feathers", the person in charge of the video number "Rosie’s Yoga Paradise" described the user’s praise psychology. Users give priority to the content that shows their own taste, which is similar to the psychology of decorating the facade of friends circle. This mechanism is a way to promote the production of high-quality content, but it seems that it can’t make users addicted as in Tik Tok.
In any case, a large number of people who test the water video number still regard it as a virgin land with explosive potential. "When we wait for the WeChat open class next year, Zhang Xiaolong will definitely mention the video number. At that time, the video number will inevitably usher in another outbreak period, which will be a shot in the arm for the whole industry." Fang Yu said that he was waiting for that moment to come.
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