From "power generation with love" to "power generation with money" B station and up master love to the end, you also need money
On March 29, 2021, Bilibili (09626.HK, hereinafter referred to as "Station B") officially returned to Hong Kong for a second listing.
At that time, station B invited 12 up hosts (content uploaders) to witness the time of the bell.
In fact, this year is also the 12th anniversary of the establishment of Station B.
On the day of listing, B station CEO Chen Rui said: “With the upgrading of equipment and technology, video will become the mainstream of Internet content. Video creation will be ubiquitous and cover every corner of people’s lives. Under this trend, I believe In the far future, there will be tens of millions of talented uploaders in China, who can create the most exquisite video content."
This may be enough to see the importance and dependence of station B on the up owners, and it also shows the firm confidence of station B in the future PUGV (high-quality video) content ecology.
Regarding the relationship between station B and the host of up, a certain netizen once commented: “The relationship between swimming pool and water. Station B is a swimming pool, and the host of up is water. If there is no water, no one will come to swim, and if there is no pool in water, then Sprinkle the ground and no one will come."
Below, Red Star Capital Bureau will take you deeper into the world of "pool" and "water".
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News reporter Yu Yao, intern reporter Liu Mi
Speaking from station B
Whether it is the NASDAQ listing in the United States in 2018, the stock price has doubled 10 times in three years, or the monthly active users surpassed 200 million, the magic weapon of victory is inseparable from the core competitiveness of station B: "content + community".
The "content + community" are closely linked, and this core competitive advantage is inseparable from the "up masters" of station B.
Up master creates the core competitiveness of station B
Why station B attaches so much importance to the up master? For station B, which was once called a "small break station", it has achieved good results in recent years.
Whether it is the NASDAQ listing in the United States in 2018, the stock price has doubled 10 times in three years, or the monthly active users surpassed 200 million, the magic weapon of victory is inseparable from the core competitiveness of station B: "content + community".
The "content + community" are closely linked, and this core competitive advantage is inseparable from the "up masters" of station B.
From the content point of view, the up master creates high-quality video content and sends it to the platform. The high-quality content attracts users to watch. The interaction feedback between the up master and the user increases the user stickiness and stimulates the up master's re-creation motivation, thus forming a positive way to continuously produce high-quality content. The feedback loop finally builds the PUGV massive content library of station B.
From the perspective of the community, station B also has unique genes.
Initially, station B embraced the gathering of a small group of young groups with common interests through "two-dimensional content and subculture". This small group realized the unique group identity and sense of group belonging to station B, and promoted users to form strong emotions towards the community. link.
Later, as the content continued to develop and grow, this community culture and community values continued to precipitate and expand. This is the "community + content" model that other platforms cannot replicate, and it has also become the "moat" of station B.
"Community + content" not only differentiates station B from other platforms, but also reduces the content cost of station B.
For station B, the arrival of the up master not only widens this "moat", but also "saves money."
This is the absolute advantage of B's content strategy.
Users broke the circle, up owners surged
With the gradual expansion of the influence of Station B, the user base is also growing. After more users know and understand Station B, it also stimulates more users' creative passion.
From the perspective of the number of up hosts, from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2020, in just two years, the number of active up hosts at station B increased from 230,000 to 1.9 million, and the proportion of monthly active users increased from 0.33% To 0.94%; that is to say, one out of every 100 users at station B is the up master.
Different from the content creation of short video platform, as a medium video platform, the difficulty, professional level, and time-consuming cost of video production at station B are relatively higher than those of ordinary short video content, and there is a certain entry barrier for creators at station B. Therefore, the number of creators at station B has made a significant breakthrough.
From the perspective of the number of main content produced by up, as of the fourth quarter of 2020, the average monthly video submission volume of main up has reached 5.9 million.
This was a year-on-year increase of 109%. On average, each up host contributed 3.1 videos per month, an increase of 11% year-on-year. At the same time, the PUGV inventory content deposited on the B station platform has exceeded 120 million.
In other words, while the number of up masters is growing rapidly, it still maintains a good PUGV creative activity.
From the perspective of content structure, as the total number of users grows, users' demands for PUGV content become more diversified.
In order to meet the needs of more users, the content of the main up is changed from "small and refined" to "large and complete".
The main production content of up is no longer limited to the two-dimensional related content.
According to Huoshaoyun's big data, of the number of up main submissions in the past 30 days, non-two-dimensional PUGV submissions accounted for 80%, far exceeding the proportion of two-dimensional PUGV submissions.
Station B has also established a more diversified content zone.
With the growth of the number of users, the PUGV content of station B is also growing and matching with it.
Both the base number and active level of the up host make the content ecology of station B gradually move towards a positive cycle.
"Money" is the problem
Regarding the income of the up owners of station B, there have always been ridicules of "generating power with love" on the Internet.
Going back to station B 5 years ago, the MAU (number of monthly active users) was less than 30 million at that time. The creative motivation of up masters mainly came from the realization of self-worth brought by the niche community atmosphere, and more up masters held " "Make friends" mentality, "use love to generate electricity" to produce content.
But perhaps Chen Rui himself knows very well that in the future station B, if you want to embrace capital, you must embrace the public.
And if you want to embrace the public, relying on the "power generation with love" of "small groups" is obviously far from enough.
Therefore, when the B station breaks the circle in the follow-up content, it also needs to "use money to generate electricity" to stimulate the creative motivation of the up master.
Regarding the income sources of up owners, they can be divided into four main types: charging plans, incentive plans, advertising income and live broadcast income.
How much money can the up master earn?
1. Charging plan
The "charging plan" of station B originated in January 2016. The so-called "charging plan" is the coin-operated income provided by users of station B to the main content of up.
Of this income, station B will deduct taxes and other expenses, and distribute 70% to the host of up, and station B receives 30%.
This is currently one of the main sources of income for up owners who are not influential.
Although the payment awareness of B station is strong, and the platform's income is also inclined to the up owner to a large extent, for many up owners, this income is still small in amount, and many up owners still say "We cannot make ends meet."
2. Incentive plan
In January 2018, station B launched the second platform-side subsidy model "bilibili creation incentive plan".
The plan stipulates that up hosts with more than 1,000 fans or 100,000 cumulative views can obtain corresponding subsidies at a ratio of approximately RMB 3 based on the flow and quality of manuscripts.
Regarding this income, Red Star Capital Bureau has also made some comparisons with other platforms: If you upload a video to Toutiao today, the income per 10,000 views will be about 20 yuan, and Baijiahao and Dayuhao will be 10- Around 15 yuan.
Under the same amount of playback, the income of a single video of the up master of station B is relatively higher.
In summary, it is relatively easy for the up master to make money at station B.
In other words, the input-output ratio of creators at station B is actually relatively higher.
But this kind of incentive plan has certain threshold restrictions, and it is more inclined to the waist and above.
For most tail-up owners, it takes a difficult 0 to 1 process to get this income.
3. Advertising revenue
Regarding the advertising revenue of the up owner, the amount is currently the largest source of income for the up owner.
The platform will not have too many restrictions on the intervention of up hosts, but advertising is a double-edged sword for up hosts.
For tail-up owners, there is no ability to attract advertisers; for waist-up owners, there is no absolute right of opinion. The quality of advertisers' products is uneven. Excessive placement of advertisements will reduce the quality of content and may lead to The little influence that the up master has finally established, because of the advertisement, the tone of the work has seriously declined.
For top up owners, the large fan base determines that they have a greater right to speak in advertising, but they are also more likely to be more questioned.
Regardless of which stage of the up owner, the entry of advertising is a game with the content ecology that he carefully manages.
4. Live broadcast income
Like other pan-entertainment platforms, station B also has its own live broadcast system. By rewarding the anchor, the anchor can obtain the corresponding revenue from the live broadcast. At present, this income is basically divided into half between the platform and the anchor.
For vertical live broadcast platforms, such as Douyu, the share between the host and the platform is also divided in half, and the income from station B to the up host on the live broadcast is also relatively balanced.
Internal: the main income of up is highly differentiated
Judging from the four main incomes of the up owners of the B station, they all have higher requirements for the content strength of the up owners. Therefore, the actual situation is that most up owners stay at the "0 to 1" stage and have not passed the real content revenue generation. Threshold.
According to the prospectus provided by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at station B, the current number of up owners at station B is 1.9 million, but they have been actively planned by station B (that is, those with more than 1,000 fans or more than 100,000 views). Main) is 340,000 people.
Less than 20% of up masters meet the requirements.
That is to say, more than 80% of up owners have not received active plan income, nor can they talk about advertising or other income.
According to the estimates of up main income provided by Huachuang Securities, even if the “incentive mechanism” threshold is passed, only a small part of the top up main income is considerable.
Most of the up owners with less than 10,000 fans may have only hundreds of thousands of dollars in income.
From the perspective of the income level of up owners, it is a viable career path for the head up owners to become a content creator and earn a living from this; for most of the tail and even waist up owners, the income brought by creation Not enough to maintain daily expenses.
External: the opponent spends a lot of money to "dig people"
In the process of the “power generation with love” from the “up” master of station B to the “power generation with money” stage, it also encountered “attacks” from competitors.
Among them, the most intense competition is ByteDance's Watermelon Video.
Previously, the "Witcher Finance" incident caused a lot of noise due to the "digging people". At that time, the "Witcher Finance" had 3.070 million fans at station B, and its monthly income was expected to be over one million.
According to Tech Planet report, Wizard Finance only has 10 million yuan in signing fee for Watermelon Video, and even the top executives of station B said: "Byte can give it very much."
With the traffic support of Toutiao Video, its "debut" has achieved rapid user growth.
As watermelon video breaks the circle in content, station B, which has a similar content form, has naturally become the main opponent of watermelon video.
In 2020, Watermelon Video exclusively signed a number of original platform B platform head up owners, and sent invitations to waist up owners, mainly including content areas such as life, knowledge, and popular science.
These videos are highly popular and have a wide audience. They are also in line with the platform tonality of Watermelon Video. At the same time, they try not to let the original up host of station B become "unacceptable".
How will station B go in the future?
For station B, from "power generation with love" to construction of a moat of "content + community" to "power generation with money", each stage echoes and cooperates with each other.
But Station B, which has embraced capital, will also be blocked by the same powerful "capital opponents", which seems reasonable from the competition in the capital market.
But this also seems to pose certain challenges and threats to the content ecology built by station B.
Regarding the content ecology of station B, from "small and refined" to "large and complete", remarkable achievements have been made through the synchronous and collaborative support of the up master.
For the future B station, if the "ecological closed loop" formed with the up master can continue to expand and impact the goal of 400 million MAU, how to start from the up master, activate the creative power of the up master, protect the core rights and bind the up master The commercial value of the fixed-up master is worthy of further consideration.