The Trouble Of Xiao Hong's Growing Up: To Protect Content Quality Or To Speed Up Commercialization

In the past two years of Chinese Internet, Xiao Hong is a fact that can not be ignored.

No content community can start out as a little red book with UGC (content generated by ordinary users), whether it is micro-blog, jitter or knowledge, and the answer is all detonated by stars and big V. No vertical content platform, like the little red book, is showing explosive growth after the growth bottlenecks (the latest data, 250 million of the small red book subscribers, 85 million of the monthly live users); no start-up company can maintain a delicate balance between Ali and Tencent as a little red book.

With the development of Xiaohong book, a series of questions have emerged: how can it operate? Can it break the curse of the commercialization of the community? Can it grasp the balance in content quality and commercialization? And what is the little red book like Ins, like a jitter or even a beauty search engine?

We take the little red book's "growing pains" as the key words, connect these problems in series, and try to find out the answers through communicating with MCN, KOL and similar products on the ecological chain of Xiao Hong book.

What is the little red book?

It is still a small red book and KOL, MCN storm.

In May, Xiao Hong published the new standard of "brand collaborator". The new regulation aroused the intense reaction of bloggers because it raised the entry threshold of KOL on the one hand, and asked the brand partner to sign MCN. This means cutting off KOL's money. If you do not get the certification of the brand partner and do not sign MCN, KOL will not be able to advertise. Once the platform discovers the private advertisement, it will be punished by the title.

In June, Xiao Hong raised the threshold again. It is required that the MCN institutions to be settled will pay 200 thousand of the deposit. If there is a blogger's private order, false partnership with the blogger, data cheating and cheating, the deposit will be deducted and the cooperation will be suspended for one year. MCN institutions believe that the margin limit is too high (trembling, micro-blog and so on, mostly around 100 thousand), and the punishment is too heavy.

More than one MCN agency leader has expressed complaints to tiger sniffing: "the purpose of them is very simple, that is, in order to make money, support the obedient MCN, and then it can be pumped high."

This speculation is clear that the 6 years of Xiaohong book, although hatched a group of red blog owners, has not been commercialized. For example, micro-blog and jitter have already tasted sweetness from net red cash. Micro task, star map and so on have been directly pumped into the system. The proportion of star images has been even up to 60%.

In an interview with tiger sniffer, Qu Fang, the founder of Xiaohong book, denied this statement: "the attitude of Xiao Hong's book to business is to make it grow more slowly, rather than rush to harvest traffic." In her statement, doing the above adjustment is mainly aimed at perfecting rules and ensuring the content quality of Xiaohong book.

Xiaohong book is a natural advertising platform, with grass properties and high conversion rate. This makes all kinds of marketing ads packed into notes, mixed in the normal content. The above measures will make advertising more public, which is indeed conducive to standardizing content.

Subjectively, standardizing content will objectively pave the way for commercialization, and Xiao Hong's series of tough measures for MCN and KOL are reasonable. It is easy to ignore that these initiatives also reflect the change in content strategy of Xiaohong book.

Xiao Hong started with UGC and hatched a lot of vegetarian bloggers. There are many domestic content platforms under the banner of UGC, but most of them are moving towards specialized content production. Youku has changed from video UGC to professional content producer. Last year's Hornets' suspected Frauds also proved the difficulty for ordinary users to contribute.

The little red book can start UGC, on the one hand is to create a better interactive atmosphere early, it has more than 10 official accounts. These accounts are personified to operate. Besides answering users under their notes, they will also "grab hot spots" under other accounts. So as to guide users to participate in interaction (commentary, commentaries, concerns) and note taking.

On the other hand, the recommendation mechanism of Xiao Hong's book is not based on the number of fans. First, drop the notes into the flow pool and decide whether to push the larger flow pool according to the user interaction. This mechanism is a bit like a jitter, but earlier than the jitter.

This mechanism makes the KOL of Xiao Hong Book dispersed, and the agglomeration effect of the head net red is not obvious. The number of fans in the tens of thousands of KOL is more popular. "The bloggers of more than 50 thousand fans in Xiao Hong's book have commercial value. Because the recommendation logic of little red book has nothing to do with the number of fans, so we prefer customers to gamble probability, that is to say, if you invest in a 1 million powder KOL, you might as well throw in 10 100 thousand powder than throw in 100 10 thousand powder. Ice field advertising leader, tiger sniffer writer black flame Cross said.

2017 is a turning point. At that time, due to the progress of the cross-border e-commerce business, the whole user grew slowly.

But fortunately, when it was in trouble, Lin Yun, who became popular with the movie Mermaid, spontaneously sent his first note and feedback in Xiao Hong's book. After that, many stars followed suit. Fan Bingbing's participation brought the star to the high tide.

Star enrollment directly led to the growth of the number of users of Xiao Hong book. Tiger sniffing data, in June 2017, Xiaohong Book accumulated 50 million users in four years, and by April 2018, this number has been turned to 100 million. The monthly activity of users is close to 30 million, which is three times that of a year ago.

In the early part of 2018, Xiao Hong got the D round of Ali's investment, which was two years away from its previous round of financing. The little red book, which has money, sponsored the two program "idol trainee" and "create 101". The explosion of variety art directly promoted the download of the little red book App, and the user was young enough to sink enough.

Perhaps it is the sweetness of stars. Since 2018, Xiao Hong has started signing MCN and reds, focusing on the creation of professional content. In this year's two new rules, we also mentioned the tilt of quality MCN resources.

However, there is some contradiction between the actual action and the official attitude. In a public activity, Deng Chao, the head of Xiaohong book product, quoted data from jitter and Instagram to show that UGC will continue to be the top priority of Xiao Hong's book.

"From the Instagram data, the user's attention to the brand home page is reduced by 12% because of the exquisite pictures, that is to say, the attractiveness of high cost content is decreasing.

"In the jitter, the video of the stars generally shows a low upper limit, which means that the popularity of star videos is generally high, but it is hard to get a burst."

This contradiction tends to boil down to the ambiguity of the positioning of Xiao Hong's book.

Xiao Hong is a community. The content of ordinary users contributes to its base and valuation. Its A round investor and Jinsha River venture partner Zhang Yutong made a definition of Xiaohong book in an interview with Chinese entrepreneur. The little red book can be understood as China's Instagram. "There is no such company in China today, and Xiaohong book products and community style are similar to INS."

But in the product design, Xiaohong book is more and more like the short video platform of jitter, and its content tends to be professional, relying on professional content producers to attract users. Zou Yunli, the C round investor and capital management partner of Tian chart, once said this: Xiao Hong's book is not surprising if the small red book is regarded as a competitor of trembling voice. The content of Xiaohong book is more excellent and has allowed users to publish short video content. They consume user time and have the lifestyle attributes of young people.

Tiger sniffing understands that Xiao Hong's highest permeability function is "search", that is to say, users come to Xiaohong book to find a product with clear purpose. From this perspective, the little red book is more like a lifestyle Baidu.

Little red book is no longer entangled in how to define, directly cast a concept of "city" - Xiaohong book is a city, the most important thing in the city is people. The implication is that if Xiao Hong book becomes a comprehensive content platform, we can see that Xiao Hong's book strengthens the operation of 3C digital, home, wedding and so on.

Two, is commercialization the real problem of Xiao Hong's book?

Xiao Hong has been founded for 6 years, and has iterated many times on its products, accumulating its user groups, and now entering the commercialization stage.

The main reason why community products have been questioned is that it is difficult to commercialize. From the bean and tiger to know, quick, or even micro-blog, or once or now encountered the trouble of making money. For the community, when the number of users has accumulated to a certain stage, it needs commercial cash value to support its overvalued value.

In the Internet industry, the complicated way of liquidation is no more than three points: advertising, electricity suppliers, games, and the subdivision of the community has increased one knowledge payment, and micro-blog is the main practitioner.

Xiaohong book is a grass planting community, which is closer to the transaction.

By the end of 2014, the online business of Xiaohong book was once allin electricity supplier. It has built more than 20 warehouses and built its own customer service overseas. In Wuhan, a customer service team of more than 300 people has invested a lot of manpower and financial resources. Finally, it has set up a chain of e-commerce, including marketing, warehousing and logistics, customer service and so on.

There are electric business practitioners told tiger sniffing selection, Xiaohong Book electric business is strong in the store conversion rate is high, Taobao is two times. The so-called store transformation, that is, the user enters the brand shop, then she will probably buy the order.

"For example, I saw a product in the community of Xiao Hong book. I was very interested to find it in its e-commerce module. The user who clicked into it was converted into an order user. This ratio is very high. In Taobao, it may be to enter the store, and finally did not buy directly away. This shows that the user group of Xiao Hong is accurate and has strong purchasing intention. Once I get attracted by your content, I want to place the order. The person said. (Note: This is store transformation, not direct conversion of content).

However, the little red book business has been doing very well. "The volume of transactions may be the level of a big Tmall store." A beauty makeup business operator said. According to "finance and economics" magazine, Xiaohong Book Self operated electricity supplier did not finish the KPI of GMV100 billion in 2018, and although the number of small red books was several times that of Taobao, it did not achieve profitability until 2018.

Due to a large number of investment in electricity providers and did not bring equal returns, the number of users of Xiaohong Book slowed down in 2017, and was in a predicament.

For the little red book, why do the business people do not succeed? Look at the development process of Xiaohong book, there are factors of the industry environment, product design, and the disadvantages of the community business model itself.

In addition to the electricity supplier, what are the ways to realize Xiaohong's book? Before answering this question, let's look at what models the colleagues provide.

The commercialization of the content community has three models to learn: one is the jitter, the other is information flow advertising; the other is fast hand, live broadcast + electricity supplier; and the other is micro-blog, which focuses on fan economy + information flow advertising.

We will not be familiar with the information flow of headlines. This is a pure selling mode of traffic. Jitter is very strict for traffic control, and is the most typical public domain traffic practice. Flow is firmly grasped in the hands of the platform. Whether a content can be fired depends entirely on whether the platform will recommend it.

In addition to information flow, shaking is also trying to broadcast live (brush gifts), MCN draw (star system, brand on top to find KOL advertising, shaking from the middle), marketing tool sales (mainly refers to DOU+ function, in order to improve the amount of video playback, you can push the video to more accurate people through DOU+. Unlike the advertisement of information flow, it does not contain the word "advertisement". )

This year's revenue target is 50 billion yuan, and it is difficult to finish.

The fast hand revenue is mainly from live broadcast, and the platform and anchor 5:5 are divided. According to the interface report, the fast hand expects that this year's live revenue will reach 30 billion. The fast hand's attempt to control information flow is more restrained. Every day the advertisement is pushed from 2 to 3, and the information flow has billions of revenue.

For the fast hand, the more imaginative is the electricity supplier. In December last year, the fast seller launched the "electricity supplier service market", providing the fast service providers with the supply chain resources of e-commerce, and the skills training and service related to the electricity supplier sales, and even the operation of the shops. The interface quoted people familiar with the matter, saying that the GMV could reach tens of billions of dollars this year.

Because of its richer content, more chattering and faster hands, micro-blog's commercialized products are numerous, which can be described as: information flow advertising, membership revenue, live broadcast, hot topics, MCN/KOL/ star advertising and so on. It can be summed up in two aspects: advertising and marketing revenue (information flow advertising, etc.), value-added services revenue (mainly refers to member services, live broadcast revenue). In 2018, micro-blog's revenue was 1 billion 720 million yuan, about 12 billion yuan.

Tiger sniffer won an official investment document entitled "Xiao Hong book business ecosystem". From this document, Xiao Hong's commercialization rhythm is quickening, and its cash flow path is more like micro-blog: many forms of realisation (electronic commerce, information flow, interactive topics, brand stickers, popular search, etc.), but mainly rely on content interaction, diversion to e-commerce and information flow.

In terms of content interaction, the brand side can be exposed through the popular search (the little red book is called the flame topic), attracting users' attention to enter the activity page. Taking CLARINS as an example, the hot topic of "unlimited repo essence" has been put into effect. This topic has led to 1426 notes and 6 million 91 thousand exposure topics. You can also enhance interaction between brands and users through interactive topics and custom brand stickers.

From the beginning of this year, the application of Xiao Hong's open brand number has been verified as the brand number after the beginning of this year.

MCN extraction and information flow have been described.

In short, the small red book holds 250 million users, and the user is precise, 80% for female users, the purchase conversion rate is high, so do not worry about commercialization.

In comparison with how to commercialize, the more serious problem faced by Xiao Hong is how to find a balance between content quality and commercialization. This determines whether Xiao Hong can retain users and continue to grow.

All content communities are facing this problem, which no one can answer at present. Whether it is knowing, trembling or micro-blog, it has been criticized commercially. The higher the degree of commercialization, the more diluted the content is, the lower the quality.

Especially for the little red book, grass planting platform is a natural advertising hotbed. It is difficult to distinguish real content from soft advertising, which increases the difficulty of identifying Xiaohong book. Even the media suggested that "truth" advocated by Xiao Hong is actually a paradox.

　　 epilogue

The ambition of Xiao Hong's book is not just a grass planting platform for women, it is sinking and content integration.

Accompanying it is that the difference between Xiaohong book and jitter and micro-blog is getting smaller and smaller, becoming a direct competitor of jitter and micro-blog. An unconfirmed news that in 2017, micro-blog offered a price of more than ten billion dollars to buy the Xiaohong Book wholly-owned.

To protect content quality or to speed up the commercialization of revenue is also a dilemma for Xiao Hong's book at this stage.

In the test which is not limited to the above, whether Xiaohong book can pass smoothly will test the wisdom of management. For the little red book, its core weapon is that the user is young enough: Tiger sniffing data. As of January 2019, 70% of the users of Xiao Hong book more than 200 million were 90, and 50% of the users were 95. It is recognized that users are relatively young, and the main users are 24 to 30 years old, accounting for about 40%.

The little red book started with UGC and took a detour in the electricity supplier. By insisting on content, relying on celebrities to turn around, usher in a surge in user numbers. The young company is faced with choices and challenges, but it also has hopes and prospects.