This article from the micro-channel public number: entrepreneurship forefront, author: Yin Bai, Editor: Feng Yu, the original title: “Short Video Battle: vibrato Nikkatsu 400 million, fast hand 300 million a day, why did WeChat video number break through? “The title picture comes from: Visual China.
The large-scale open beta of WeChat video number is obviously the battle of Tencent WeChat.
The growth path of Microvision can be described as twists and turns. In 2013, Tencent abandoned Tencent Weibo to set up Weishi and switched to short video. However, due to insufficient attention, in 2015, Weishi became a product with “simple maintenance”. This situation continued until April 2017. Due to the unclear positioning of Weishi in the early stage, coupled with the market size Misjudging, Weishi was eventually closed, and it is widely believed that this was a “strategic abandonment” by Tencent.
Although it was the first to enter the short video field, Tencent Microvision repeatedly encountered obstacles and was constantly overtaken by latecomers.
During the Spring Festival of 2018, Douyin suddenly emerged, and the number of daily active users soared by 30 million, which is even faster than WeChat. Around March 2018, the daily live users of Douyin surpassed Sina Weibo. The siege of Douyin in the short video area has aroused the alert of Tencent. Only one month later, Tencent decided to restart WeTV, which had been out of service for up to a year, in order to hedge the plunder of the users by Douyin.
But Tencent still underestimates the strength of byte beating.
According to data disclosed in the 2019 Douyin Data Report, as of January 2020, there are 400 million daily users of Douyin. Last January, Douyin lived 250 million days a day, and in July the same year, that number was 320 million. This means that while Internet growth is slowing and traffic dividends are declining, Douyin is still growing rapidly. At the same time, at the beginning of this year, Kuaishou also announced that it has reached the small target of 300 million daily users.
Facing strong enemies, in December 2019, at the Tencent Staff Conference, Tencent COO and PCG principal Ren Yuxin revealed the new goal of Weishi, hoping to reach 50 million daily users in 2020. The obvious fact is that compared to short video platforms such as Douyin and Quick Hands, Microvision and the former are not an order of magnitude, and there is still a large gap.
From the perspective of Yang Hongxiao, an industry insider who has been in contact with Douyin and WeTV, WeTV has actually “hit the street”. “Tencent mobilized almost all resources in the group to support WeTV. Neither Douyin nor Kuaishou’s back are visible. “
But now that Tencent has launched the video number again, it doesn’t seem to have the idea of exiting the short video field. It still has hole cards after all. Tencent’s latest financial report data shows that WeChat monthly active users are 1.164 billion and QQ monthly active users are 647 million. With two major traffic entrances, can Tencent’s second entry into short videos be successful?
1. Fight short videos again
January 9, 2020 is the day when Tencent will hold an open WeChat class. In the open class, Zhang Xiaolong, the “father of WeChat”, admitted to the outside world that WeChat had made two mistakes in the form of a speech video.
One mistake is that the public platform has only a PCWeb version for a long time, which limits the scope of content creators. Another mistake is that the public platform originally wanted to replace text messaging as a mass sending tool that connects brands and subscribers. But accidentally made a content platform exclusive to the media.
“Short content is the direction that WeChat really wants to work on.” Zhang Xiaolong said. From the perspective of Tencent, short content is a blockbuster product that once again launched an attack on the short video field after WeTV. From the perspective of Douyin and Kuaishou, the short content is that WeChat is using the huge traffic pool to escort it, trying to divide the cake of its own interests.
On the 12th day after the WeChat public class, the short content WeChat video number arrived as scheduled.
In the early morning of January 22, the WeChat team announced through the official public account that the WeChat video account officially opened internal testing. This is also the second time Tencent has entered the short video field.
Whether it’s WeChat or WeChat video number, Tencent has sent a clear signal to the outside world-the short video battlefield must not fall behind.
After mid-March, the WeChat video number has begun large-scale open beta. The video number after opening can not only publish videos, but also include location information and WeChat public account links, but temporarilyThere are no live broadcast, shopping cart, advertising, etc. features yet.
It is not difficult to see from the frequent expansion of internal testing invitations of WeChat video number, WeChat video number is making rapid progress with the help of WeChat, a super traffic platform.
(Picture / Video number screenshot)
Compared with WeChat, the feature of WeChat video account is that it and the public account build a new ecosystem that is connected to each other, allowing graphics, short video content to be seamlessly integrated. At the same time, WeChat has gradually expanded from the two main functions of social and communication to entertainment functions.
The WeChat video number is built into WeChat. It can be said that it is not only Tencent’s resistance to vibrato and fast hands, but also a supplement to the shortcomings of WeChat content ecology.
2. The war is far from over
Tencent needs short videos.
In the past few years, Tencent has launched more than a dozen independent short video apps, including Weishi, yoo, Xiafan, and hotpot videos, but most of them are tepid. The most successful one is Weishi. “Before, Microvision was once trapped by commercial realization, but now the business model and market size of short videos are mature.” Yang Hong said.
In fact, the commercial prospects of short videos have been proven back in 2018.
Third-party agencies have done evaluations. The revenue of Douyin ’s streaming advertising in 2018 is estimated to exceed 10 billion yuan, and the income of Kuaishou in 2018 is close to 20 billion yuan, most of which are contributed by live broadcast. In addition to information flow advertising and live broadcasts, open-screen advertising, video paid promotion, commissions for e-commerce diversion, etc. also make the short video profit model clearer.
(Photo / Photograph Network, based on VRF protocol)
In addition to valuing the commercial potential of short videos, Tencent also needs to use short videos to stabilize its hegemony of the content ecosystem—compared with WeChat ’s content ecosystem known for its graphics and text, the visual stimulation of short videos is more direct and It can carry more information.
But it’s still one step behind. According to a previous report issued by QuestMobile, Tencent’s traffic has been falling because only the remaining market dividend has been snatched by the byte-beating system, the most prominent of which is the vibrato. The report also pointed out that the current short video user scale has exceeded 820 million, a year-on-year growth rate of over 32%, and an average of nearly 8 out of 10 Internet users are using short video apps.
Judging from the current competitive landscape of the short video market, the status of the fast players and Douyin has been basically established. They have harvested the vast majority of short video users, and the WeChat video account was born under this pressure.
3, Lessons from the Car
It’s not only Tencent that is frustrated in the short video field. Zhihu and Sina Weibo have both fallen on this track.
In June 2018, which was the second month after the resurrection of Microvision, Zhihu also realized the potential of short videos, and launched a video section on its homepage to start testing short video content. Similar to the form of the WeChat video number, at the beginning of the launch, Zhihu only randomly opened permissions to some users in the form of internal testing, and then gradually opened it.
The independent video area is based on time, popularity, and interests as the ranking mechanism, and mainly focuses on life and humanities video content. The video duration is mostly between 3-5 minutes. From the perspective of Zhihu short video, its style is more entertainment-oriented, consistent with Zhihu’s consistent style.It is not suitable, which makes the original Zhihu users temporarily unable to adapt.
In Yang Hong’s opinion, the biggest characteristic of knowing is the viewpoint, knowledge and science, not entertainment. “The core contradiction of Zhihu short video is that the content pushed by Zhihu should be completely different from the vibrato and fast-handed entertainment and leisure, but more focused on the sharing of knowledge and dry goods.
The short video style has not differentiated from Douyin and Kuaishou, and entered the market after the short video industry pattern has basically taken shape. Knowing that the test of water at this time obviously does not have many advantages.
In contrast, Sina Weibo is more like a pioneer in short video.
Whether it is a short video or a live broadcast, Sina Weibo has taken the lead in layout, but has not achieved brilliant results. In 2013, with the support of Sina, the following technologies have successively launched short video products such as second shot, small coffee show, and the official live APP one live broadcast, known as China’s YouTube.
(Photo / Photograph Network, based on VRF protocol)
As the helm of technology, Han Kun is very skilled at short videos. He relied on Sina Weibo ’s traffic portal and social attributes to create three short video apps at the time and tried to find Differential styles other than quick hand and vibrato.
Unfortunately, short video users are often more willing to use short video on professional video platforms such as Quick Hands and Douyin, and for full content platforms such as Weibo that include graphics, short videos, users do not buy it. “This is well understood. If users have the need to shorten the video, the first reaction must be to turn on the vibrato and fast hands.” Yang Hong school said.
By 2017, the second shot, the first live broadcast lost power in the competition with Douyin, and was subsequently acquired by Sina Weibo.
Zhuhu and Sina Weibo’s test in the field of short videos provided valuable experience for WeChat video accounts.
Two issues that WeChat video accounts have to consider: one is how to differentiate with Douyin and Kuaishou in terms of content; the other is how to overcome the obstacles from the graphic platform to the short video platform.
4. Defensive offenses
“The role of the WeChat video number may not be to subvert vibrato and quick hands, but to guide the public number and defensive offense.” A former WeChat employee told the “front line of entrepreneurship.”
It is an indisputable fact that the bonus of the public account is exhausted, and the opening rate has been reduced year after year. However, as a graphic content platform, WeChat must restore the situation. “The proportion of short videos in the entire content industry is getting higher and higher, and WeChat is unlikely to be without this one.” The employee said, “It is more plausible that a link to the public account is built into the WeChat video account, which is also guiding them. “
Compared to the drainage of the content platform, the defensive attack of the video number is more significant.
In the early years, Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo met narrowly, and the latter also adopted the same play. In 2009, after Sina Weibo went live, Tencent also launched Weibo. At that time, one of the loudest arguments outside was that Tencent could easily win Sina Weibo with its relationship chain and traffic, but it didn’t take long for Tencent’s Weibo to “disappear”.
(Photo / Photograph Network, based on VRF protocol)
Many people later reacted. Tencent Weibo was not trying to kill Sina Weibo at that time, but to curb its development. Now that Tencent’s restart of Weishi and WeChat video numbers are also defensive offenses, the outside world will inevitably have illusions about them. So, as a super traffic platform, does WeChat video number have the opportunity to change the pattern of short-sightedness?
An analogy is the competition between WeChat and Today ’s Headlines on the flow of information.
With the product thinking of information flow, the daily active users on headlines are getting higher and higher, and the profit model is becoming clearer. WeChat ’s play in the information flow is “Look at it” and use social networking to empower Information flow, but “Look at it” is not an independent app, it just makes WeChat more fit the habits of users and makes the WeChat content ecosystem more complete.
In this way, in the current short video landscape, the innovation of video numbers in the WeChat social ecosystem is not so much a counterattack as it is to consider it as a product iteration—a perfect content ecological approach If you want to avoid the tepid situation of WeChat small videos, you may need more fresh social gameplay or positioning to highlight the encirclement under the pinch of vibrato and fast hands.