Li Zikai’s video became popular overseas and China became the economic engine of online celebrity.
On December 12, 2019, the 17-hole bridge in the online celebrity landscape of the Summer Palace in Beijing showed the beauty of "golden light piercing the hole". Photo by Gong Wenbao (People’s Vision)
On November 28, 2019, in the Amoy E-commerce Pioneer Park in Ali Village, Dongxiang District, Fuzhou City, Jiangxi Province, Xinnian Wang sold his own agricultural product Dictyophora on the Internet. Photo by He Jianghua (People’s Vision)
On January 5th, young people shopped at Shuangta Market in Suzhou, Jiangsu. In 2019, after upgrading, the market took on a new look and became the punching place in online celebrity. Xinhua News Agency reporter Ji Chunpeng photo
On December 4, 2019, online celebrity Gan Youqin (first from left), a farmer in ling shan, Qinzhou City, Guangxi Province, was broadcast live. In 2018, she sold more than 350,000 kilograms of litchi through live video. Xinhua News Agency reporter Cao Yuming photo
Dyeing clothes, making wine, weaving, making paper by ancient methods, and making rouge and lipstick … … Recently, a girl named Li Ziqi made a video of traditional culture and rural life, which attracted the attention of netizens at home and abroad. At present, her number of fans on Youtube (an overseas short video platform) is nearly 8 million, and the number of more than 100 short videos is mostly over 5 million.
With the prosperity of Li Ziqi, there is also a unique group in the Internet age that she represents — — "online celebrity" and the subsequent "online celebrity economy".
Online celebrity’s economy is an economic phenomenon born in the Internet age, which means that online celebrities gather traffic and heat on social media, market a huge fan base, and turn their attention into purchasing power, thus realizing a business model of traffic.
As a product of the Internet age, China’s online celebrity economy has reached a breaking point in its development. The benefits behind it are beyond imagination. "China is the engine of the global online celebrity economy and the world’s number one online celebrity economy." Troika brower, a network economist at the German Free University, thinks so. Behind the rapid economic development in online celebrity, it reflects the strong vitality brought by the economic development in China and the great potential of the China market.
The Scale Effect of online celebrity’s Economy
In 2019, the economic achievements of many internet celebrities refreshed people’s understanding of the concept of "online celebrity". Li Jiaqi, Li Ziqi and other "online celebrity" frequently "go out of the circle", which attracts people’s extensive attention. The social identity of "online celebrity" is also further enhanced, and many online celebrity "selling anchors" are widely recognized.
How much money does "online celebrity Economy" make? Statistics of related big data trading platforms show that in 2019, online celebrity Li Jiaqi earned a lot of money. The net profit of some companies may not be as good as that of a online celebrity.
In 2018, the number of online shopping users reached 610 million, and the huge user base contributed to the exponential growth of online celebrity’s e-commerce market. In the "double 11" in 2019, online celebrity’s live broadcast sprang up, and more than 50% of the merchants who participated in Tmall’s "double 11" achieved growth through live broadcast, driving the turnover to nearly 20 billion yuan.
From the current industry practice, there are three main sources of profit for online celebrity’s economy: rewarding fans on the live broadcast platform, placing brand advertisements on social media, and selling goods to fans on the e-commerce platform. No matter which mode, "people like to sell goods" is the general way to realize "online celebrity economy".
Taobao Live, which was born in 2016, has occupied an inestimable weight in the traffic market after three years of rapid development. According to the data of "Report on Ecological Development Trend of Taobao Live Broadcasting in 2019", the monthly users of Taobao Live Broadcasting Platform increased by 100% year-on-year in 2018, with goods exceeding 100 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth rate of nearly 400%, and there are more than 400 live broadcast rooms with goods exceeding 1 million yuan per month, which has created a market of 100 billion yuan. Taobao live broadcast not only promoted the employment of women and farmers, but also created a new employment model for all walks of life.
At present, online celebrity Daihuo and online celebrity independent e-commerce have covered consumer goods such as clothing, beauty, food, mother and baby, automobiles, daily necessities, digital products, etc. More and more brands have started to cooperate with online celebrity, and even made efforts to cultivate their own online celebrity. The way to promote their own brands or products through online celebrity is increasingly favored by major advertisers. Advertisers who are willing to use online celebrity to publish their own brands have expanded from the traditional beauty and clothing industries to the fields of automobiles and finance, and their budgets are constantly increasing.
Why is online celebrity’s economy popular?
In China, online celebrity’s economy has a sufficient social foundation. According to Baidu’s Survey Report on the Life Style of Post-95 Generation, the population of post-95 generation in China is about 100 million. They have been with the Internet since childhood, and they love to screen, bask in life and spit. Accenture research shows that more than 70% of China post-90s consumers prefer to buy goods directly through social media.
The rise of the Internet economy has greatly reduced the cost of communication, making it possible for some anchors to obtain huge traffic in a short period of time. A magical performance and a moving song, with the help of the Internet, may make an unknown person become online celebrity.
The development of digital economy and mobile Internet in China has brought about changes in the macro environment. At the same time, the media communication environment, corporate advertising and consumers have also changed. Ying Zhou, an associate professor in the marketing department of Antai school of economics and management of Shanghai Jiaotong University, believes that online celebrity’s economy has reconstructed the "people’s freight yard" from "people — Goods — Field "becomes" goods — People — Field (online) "; The demand path is reconstructed from "demand — Products — Consumption ",to" content — Demand — Consumption "; Reconstruct business logic, from "finding the right person", "using the right goods" and "going to the right place" to buying "what you see" while watching; Reconstruct the communication model from selling products to selling trust. In addition, the marketing model has been reconstructed and the marketing of "follow-up" and "planting grass" (recommending products to fans) has been developed.
Wang Gaofei, CEO of Sina Weibo, once wrote in the Weibo: "In fact, none of the truly successful online celebrity in recent years is engaged in mass content. They all conceive product positioning first, then accurately locate the target audience, and make their favorite content for these people, and then make products. " (Reporter Yang Junfeng)
This comment points out the core of online celebrity’s economy. The ultimate goal of online celebrity is not to win traffic, but to realize it with traffic. Starting from this goal, the first thing they should do is to design their own image and plan their own performances according to the preferences of the target users, so as to create a "positioning" in their hearts. For example, Li Jiaqi, the beauty anchor, sells lipstick, and his target users are young white-collar women, so he should try his best to make himself a "lipstick brother", and then design some promotional words that hit his heart according to women’s psychology.
Only by following the rules can we develop for a long time.
Standardizing online celebrity’s behavior through education and training is one of the measures to promote the healthy and benign development of online celebrity’s economy.
In 2019, the news that a university in Harbin opened a "online celebrity Training Course" attracted attention. On December 21st, 2019, Harbin Vocational College of Science and Technology launched the "New Media Anchor Talent Training" project, which improved the legal awareness and normative awareness of new media anchors through systematic study of comprehensive qualities such as policies and regulations, cultural literacy and professional skills.
The school will issue a notice on enrollment in February, 2020. After passing the training examination, students will receive a certificate issued by the Talent Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. It is understood that the school is the first institution in Heilongjiang Province to carry out training for new media anchor talents. The relevant person in charge of the school said that this opportunity and the platform will be used to contribute to purifying the network environment, improving personal quality and promoting career development, and jointly promote the development of the new media anchor industry.
Li Lizhong, director of the Talent Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, believes that on the basis of joint cooperation, a group of new media anchor talents with comprehensive qualities such as "laws and regulations, cultural literacy and professional skills" will be cultivated.
This is not the first time that the Talent Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has jointly launched a new media anchor training course with universities. As early as June 2018, the Culture and Art Talent Center of the Ministry of Culture (now the Talent Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism) and Phoenix College of China Communication University opened a training course for new media hosts (network anchor direction) in Shanghai, and more than 50 professionals including e-sports professionals, anchors and commentators, star brokers, content production and anchor operation participated in the training.
In addition to training, strengthening content supervision and standardizing market behavior are also the proper meanings to promote the healthy development of online celebrity’s economy. On January 9, 2019, the official website of China Network Audiovisual Program Service Association published the Management Specification of Network Short Video Platform and the Detailed Rules of Network Short Video Content Auditing Standard, which further standardized the order of short video communication.
From September 2019 to December 2020, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, State Administration of Market Supervision and National Medical Products Administration jointly launched a nationwide special campaign to implement the "four strictest" requirements for food and drug safety. In the special action, the three departments have made a heavy attack on food safety violations carried out through the Internet, e-commerce platforms, social media, TV shopping columns and other channels. Focus on the investigation of foods with a wide audience, and immediately investigate and deal with unqualified foods. Punishment information is disclosed to the public according to law, and foods with problems and hidden dangers are exposed in time, so that every consumer can know fairly well and enjoy delicious food safely.
At present, "online celebrity Economy" is subverting the traditional consumption scene, bringing consumers a more diversified and personalized shopping experience. However, in the final analysis, the essence of "online celebrity economy" is the refraction of the real economy field on the Internet, so it is impossible to develop without market rules, and of course, there is no need for perfect market supervision. Therefore, in order to realize the long-term development of "online celebrity economy", it is still necessary to bring it into the supervision of laws and regulations in time, so as to better play its leading role in the real economy.