In the post Internet era, the traffic anxiety and commercialization dilemma of content creators are not new topics. The updating of creators' thinking and content iteration is one aspect, while the platform's adjustment and transformation of strategies is a more fundamental and fundamental aspect - it solves the problem of soil and nutrients.
As the first batch of content platforms to rise in the Web 2.0 era, Weibo holds a large number of high-quality, experienced creators who have insight into Internet trends and user preferences. For many years, the influencers and influencers it has produced still occupy the top ranks of the internet celebrity economy, with tags such as "hot search" and "explosive" becoming synonymous with the focus of public opinion.
Behind the frequent release of content highlights by influencers, there is a mature and complete strategy of Weibo. It covers products, operations, communities, and so on, which is enough to support creators and content ecology in the rapid change of the Internet.
Weibo Super Celebrity Festival is a precise observation window. The 2024 Weibo Super Celebrity Festival has just come to an end. As the most important platform and event hosted by Weibo for celebrity influencers of the year, the gathering of over 300 highly popular influencers, as well as strategy presentations from Weibo management, can roughly outline the platform's strategic outline.
At the V Influence Summit forum, Cao Zenghui, Senior Vice President of Operations at Weibo, expressed the platform's thoughts and implementation on the topic of the influence and monetization of big Vs. The focus on operation, vertical field construction, and product operation policy support of Jincheng V all reflect the platform's concern for the content and commercial ecology of influencers and their components.
This is what creators truly expect from the platform. After all, in the noisy environment of the times, what kind of content can stand out from the encirclement and truly shine is no longer unrelated to the support and confidence provided by its soil.
Cross domain and vertical domain: cultivating and operating the 'soil':
Before delving deeper into Weibo's operational strategy, key data can be used to observe the current basic atmosphere of content creation and user interaction on this platform.
In theory, the quadrennial Olympics is a common national celebration, but the 2024 Paris Olympics presented on Weibo has reached a new height - not only in terms of data popularity, but also in the new cognition driven by content and interaction.
During the Paris Olympics, the number of Weibo posts on all platforms reached 416 million, an increase of 9% compared to the Tokyo Olympics; The total platform interaction reached 1.698 billion, a year-on-year increase of 11%; The total platform topic reading volume reached 479 billion, a year-on-year increase of 13%. Moreover, from various hot search terms, the focus of public opinion has surpassed the gold medal itself, and has begun to focus more on the charm of competitive sports and the personality of athletes.
The source of popularity is certainly very intuitive, which is the core characteristic of Weibo as a billion level traffic field. But if we combine the trend changes of viewpoints, this is a true portrayal of the platform's genes, behind which lies its unique content ecology and operational strategy.
At the V Influence Summit Forum of the 2024 Weibo Super Red Person Festival, Cao Zenghui thoroughly analyzed the content ecology of Weibo: firstly, the IP ecology composed of entertainment, ACG, and sports; secondly, the hot ecology composed of media and social influencers; and thirdly, the vertical content ecology composed of numerous fields.
The first two have attracted more users to join through increasingly strong competitiveness, and have completed user consumption sedimentation through numerous vertical fields. The cycle between the three ecosystems is enough to radiate high-quality content to a sufficient number of target users, consolidating user stickiness while achieving content output. This is also a stable development model for Weibo to maintain growth.
To have such a content ecosystem, it is necessary to match corresponding operational strategies.
With the existing content ecosystem of Weibo, it is not difficult to see the importance of "vertical domain" or "field". It is a unique label for the content creation of influencers, and also a key battlefield for ultimately achieving user retention and monetization of consumption.
At this year's V Influence Summit forum, policies in vertical fields and cross domain strategies were also a key topic, and their significance lies in further improving efficiency and promoting value realization.
Firstly, in the vertical field, professional content production remains the primary task and important foundation. The operation strategy of Weibo is intuitive and effective. Starting from recommendation flow, the platform can help professional authors expand their interest consumption users and convert potential fans in public domain scenarios. The hot search landing page is one of the important marketing and communication tools. In short, Weibo can promote the continuous consumption process of professional content from a platform perspective.
Vertical hotspots are also an important component of vertical operation strategies. By optimizing algorithm recommendations and social products, Weibo is able to strengthen its support for content and accounts in advantageous vertical fields, increase content production and discussion heat in multiple segmented markets such as digital, automotive, gaming, fashion and beauty, medical and health, and enhance the competitiveness of creators and platforms in these fields. It is reported that the number of vertical hot search terms on the list increased by 69% year-on-year in the first half of the year, corresponding to a 34% increase in traffic.
Secondly, regarding cross domain strategies, this will be an important opportunity for influencers to explore new factions and achieve breakthrough influence. Nowadays, the Weibo platform covers 40 fields of content, and creators of cross domain content have the opportunity to "activate" the content value of diverse fields, making their tags more abundant and "alive", and creating a new pattern of integrated development of content through diversified dissemination.
To this end, Weibo has also launched the "Weibo Cross Domain Plan" to empower Golden V real creators with over 100000 followers, 5000+fans, and a wide range of interests. That is to say, Weibo supports top bloggers in creating second person designs through practical actions, and has stronger cross circle capabilities directly linked to commercial monetization space.
When the vast content ecosystem has formed its own fundamentals, creators who rashly pursue traffic and advertising revenue may sacrifice the quality and originality of the content. At this moment, the platform's operational strategy becomes crucial as it is the key support for the sustained positive activity of the content ecosystem.
Nowadays, even though Weibo has been advancing in the highly competitive content field for many years, it has still found breakthroughs in vertical and cross domain operations, and provided systematic support for influencers and influencers immediately. Perhaps this is the fundamental reason why Weibo content creators have always had confidence and continuously contribute outstanding content in various hot events and special cycles.
Monetization remains the top priority
Breakthroughs in content and the accumulation of fans alone are certainly not enough. For creators, commercial monetization is an indispensable productivity.
Weibo has implemented a series of policies in the past period to enhance the monetization ability of influencers and influencers, involving operations, marketing, products, and other aspects, including monetization of content creators, advertising and marketing revenue, value-added service revenue, and more.
For example, the construction of the vertical domain ecosystem mentioned above has directly increased customer investment budgets and the income capacity of bloggers. Currently, there are 5 industries on Weibo where the growth rate of account buying and advertising has exceeded 50%. Among them, gaming has seen the highest increase, reaching 156%, automotive 155%, mobile phone 93%, medical 56%, and food and beverage 50%. The improvement of industry investment has also driven the purchase of surrounding areas, such as the mobile phone industry to drive photography and the Internet, and the game industry to drive animation.
In terms of creator operation, Weibo announced the author operation system of Golden Orange V last year, aiming to improve the supply of high-quality accounts and provide customers with more account purchasing choices. This year, the quality of Weibo's content ecosystem has significantly improved, becoming a solid foundation for the sustained growth of commercial monetization capabilities.
In terms of data results, as of June, the scale of Weibo's all platform gold V was 18000, a year-on-year increase of 50%, and the scale of orange V was 66000, a year-on-year increase of 70%.
Among them, the proportion of all platform traffic of JinV has increased from 40% to 49%, and the vertical ecological JinV scale has grown more significantly, with an increase of 2600, an increase of 54%, equaling and exceeding the growth of IP ecology and media hotspots. The Golden V system is the biggest difference between Weibo and other KOC platforms and recommendation engine platforms, and its influence and monetization ability are important goals for Weibo.
This mechanism indeed supports a large amount of monetization space for creators. Public data shows that in the first half of the year, the advertising revenue of micro task Weibo reached 880 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22%. Among them, the author revenue of Golden Orange V was 650 million yuan, an increase of 55%, and the revenue of Golden V was 430 million yuan, an increase of 59%. Weibo is expected to exceed 1.7 billion yuan in annual revenue in 24 years, reaching the highest level in history.
In the second half of the year, Weibo will also strengthen the construction of enhancing the influence of Golden V bloggers, focusing on increasing the scale and revenue capacity of this account in more fields, and forming a clearer understanding of "big V marketing" in the customer buying market.
Weibo is not just about promoting content ecology or strengthening monetization channels, but also a combination of making good content better monetized.
The Weibo Creator Advertising Sharing Program is an example. In the first half of 2024, Weibo allocated 150 million yuan in revenue to the traffic contribution of Golden Orange V creators through an advertising sharing program, with a planned revenue sharing scale of 320 million yuan in 2024.
This is not a 'traffic only' policy. Weibo expressed it very clearly that the plan abandons the traffic centered revenue sharing model and instead adopts a core incentive mechanism that encourages high-quality content in a targeted manner. At the same time, the platform has strengthened the negative content management mechanism, deducting relevant profits for controversial blog posts (such as provoking battles, opposing guidance, false content, etc.). In short, Weibo will reduce its promotional activities and allow such revenue sharing to return to an orderly social ecology - which is more beneficial for creators with high-quality content productivity.
In addition to monetizing creator content, the marketing side also tests the platform's ability to create systematic content for brands and user cognitive influence.
Wu Mo, Vice President of Weibo Marketing, mentioned that the establishment of a brand's "mind" is not just a slogan, a TVC, a story, or a concept, but should be exclusive content that is discussed, remembered, and agreed upon with flesh and blood. In today's brand mentality competition, Weibo has the differential value of "social consensus definition right". KOLs, as participants and influencers of hot topics, have the ability to influence brand awareness in public opinion.
Centered around mental marketing, platform KOL integrated service system, and Weibo commercial system, it helps creators obtain more commercial opportunities and increase marketing revenue.
In the increasingly competitive content field, how to better monetize is a common industry challenge for creators. The dilemma for platforms like Weibo is to balance content quality and commercial growth while also enabling creators to adapt well. As of now, this platform, which has gone through cycles and accumulated years of experience, still has come up with the support plan that best understands and digests the situation of creators.
From product to community: How can the influence of influencers last?
In the rapidly changing Internet content field, a question that can never be avoided is: good at the moment, but what about the future? For creators who devote themselves to polishing their content, what expectations can they have for Weibo?
In fact, in terms of lasting influence, compared to operational strategies that tend to generate immediate impact, the platform's product strategy and community operations have a deeper and more subtle impact on the influence of influencers.
The product strategy of Weibo not only enhances user experience, improves content distribution efficiency and commercial monetization ability, but also plays an extremely important role in consolidating and deepening the relationship between users and content, users and creators.
Taking general search and hot topics as examples, Weibo can improve the relevance and accuracy of search results by optimizing its general search function, making it easier for users to find content they are interested in. The optimization of hotspot streams also means more accurate capture and push of hotspot content, increased ways for users to interact with hotspot content, and providing more diverse forms of hotspot content display.
These product strategies can not only attract and maintain user engagement on Weibo, but also provide more effective content promotion and user reach channels for brands and creators. Through these optimizations, Weibo can not only improve user satisfaction and strengthen user stickiness, but also further promote the platform's commercial development, which will ultimately be reflected as the influence of creators.
Since the beginning of this year, Weibo has increased its investment in search products, especially by leveraging opportunities for AI enhancement.
According to Zheng Wei, Vice President of Weibo Products, Weibo will launch Weibo Smart Search in 2024, based on big model technology, to create AI search products with Weibo characteristics. Zhisou can generate content summaries based on the platform's rich information and diverse speech AI, helping users quickly understand the whole picture and improve information acquisition efficiency.
At the same time, intelligent search analysis can target hot and main keywords, insight into public emotions, capture typical viewpoints, provide analysis and insight reports, help creators quickly grasp current online public opinion and discussion hotspots, and provide value for content creation topic selection.
Zheng Wei emphasized that empowering bloggers with AIGC technology will be an important product direction, and the platform will open up AIGC capabilities to top users to improve interaction efficiency. Currently, it has opened up applications for exclusive intelligent AI assistants for Jincheng V.
For the persistent influence of influencers, improving the community environment and managing account ecology from the perspective of community operation are also key factors. This means that creators have a continuous willingness to create, as well as a favorable landing environment for content before it becomes a hot topic.
Currently, with the enrichment of account supply in the Golden Orange V system, Weibo has the opportunity to carry out stricter ecological cleaning. It is reported that the governance of this account ecosystem will mainly focus on two directions: high follower low-quality accounts and interactive brushing volume.
Among them, low-quality accounts with medium to high followers will be cleaned up based on the true follower rate as a measurement indicator, and the threshold will be continuously raised; The interactive brushing volume will be regulated through the strengthening of anti spam interception mechanisms, upgrading of product rules, and account disposal. Weibo hopes to achieve fundamental changes through six months of governance.
In terms of improving the community environment, Weibo's direction is also clear. On the one hand, it encourages positive communication, and on the other hand, it combats negative behaviors such as online violence and rumor spreading. Through organizing various activities to provide positive content and enhance friendly interaction among users, it creates a positive, healthy, and beneficial community atmosphere.
Product strategy is equivalent to product strength, and community operation is equivalent to a creative atmosphere. Only when the two complement each other can a platform for creating positive content and optimizing interactive experiences be created. This is enough to strengthen the complete ability system of creators from fan stickiness to brand awareness and influence, and truly and sustainably "generate electricity with love".
From the operational strategy of focusing on vertical and cross domain ecological construction, to the product strategy of doing a good job in content outreach, to the community operation of strict ecological governance, and the multi-dimensional strengthening of monetization ability, Weibo is now fully prepared to lead creators to stand out from the competition - with its comprehensive support and backing, creators can truly blossom and bear fruit on the journey of pursuing their dreams by focusing only on their passion.