At a time when Didi is valued at more than $50 billion, didi drivers have begun to complain that their income is getting lower and lower. After today’s toutiao is valued at more than 10 billion DOLLARS, the income of many “we media” is also beginning to enter the winter period. This team is becoming stronger and stronger.
Once: We media wanted to replace traditional media
According to iResearch statistics, in 2017, the number of kols with more than 100,000 fans on weibo platform increased by 57.3% compared with 2016, and the number of wechat public accounts has already broken the 10 million mark. The number of “we media” is growing rapidly, and its position in the social marketing industry is becoming more and more important. Therefore, when sohu, netease and other information portals, kugou, lychee and other audio media, Weibo, wechat, Zhihu and other social media, Youku, Tudou, Panda live and other video media have been occupied by “we media”, some people boldly predict that “we media” will replace traditional media.
From the income dimension, it is no secret that the monthly income of self-media professionals is tens of thousands of yuan. When we media spread all over major websites to seize the jobs of mainstream media, we have to sigh that in this new era of freedom of speech, there is another channel to make big money. The revenue of “We media” mainly comes from the main brand advertising, the marketing and promotion expenses of dealers and regions, and the self-run e-commerce income of creators. Mi Meng, Luo Zhenyu and other well-known “We media” personalities enjoy the first wave of dividends and make a lot of money from “we media”.
From the perspective of influence, the reason why we media can seize the information communication channels of mainstream media and shine in all fields is due to the diversification, popularization and universality of its communication subjects. With the development of digital technology, we can make our own information and publish it on a larger network platform at any time and anywhere, and the timeliness of information dissemination is greatly enhanced. From production to publication, the efficient information transmission of “we media” is beyond the reach of traditional TV and newspaper media.
At the technical level, forums, blogs, microblogs, wechat and emerging video websites constitute the existing main expression channels of “we media”. These channels are characterized by nonlinear communication, zero threshold and low cost, etc. Such characteristics of the Internet determine that the information content released by users is not completely controlled by the website. The traditional media’s privilege of filtering information and setting the agenda will face unprecedented challenges.
From three aspects, “We media” has certain value and can accelerate the development of the content market. However, due to the differences between the old and new media in content, it is still far away for “We media” to completely ban the traditional media. The flood of “we media” will lead to the lack of innovation in its content and the loss of users. And the quantity of we media supply increases, and its advertising value also decreases. The other side of fame and fortune is the hidden anxiety of “We media” people in this fast era.
Now: We media is in chaos in the Red Sea
There are no inherent disadvantages such as technical difficulty, low entry threshold and lack of normative constraints, as well as acquired obstacles such as strong traffic competition and low content quality, so that the we media industry is gradually emerging as a bubble. This year, well-known enterprises frequently Sue “We media”. After a war of lawsuits, the future of “We media” industry is worrying.
I. We media industry is embroiled in litigation
As we all know, the right of individual freedom of speech gives birth to “we media”. However, there are various kinds of people, and the we-media on behalf of individuals are also good and bad. Some media platforms flood with vulgar content in order to attract attention. These “we media”, which rely on vulgar, headline party, rumor making and false content, are gradually encroachment and subvert people’s values in modern society.
Traditional journalism has high barriers, with more than 220,000 accredited journalists nationwide by the end of 2016, according to the China Journalists association. Statistics from Imedia Polaris show that the number of full-time “we media” practitioners has reached nearly 2.6 million. In other words, the entry threshold of we-media practitioners is as low as none. The excessively loose screening of practitioners and the mechanism of only reviewing content undoubtedly give many fish who escape the net room to survive.
On the other hand, in the era of new media, there are various ways of information transmission and the transmission speed is fast. When blasting vulgar network be criticism, became a proverb to literary circles, there are more and more since the media people no lower limit publicity, walking in the direction of the “hot style”, but his pocket money income, the more “good scold ah, scold gadites opportunity to have higher fire” has become the media people believe in the survival of the law.
The rapid development of we media has created a mixed industry atmosphere. In recent years, many well-known enterprises, such as Ali, Didi and Wahaha, have sued we-media to the court, for nothing more than the reason that we-media wrote dark articles, made bad remarks and attacked the good brand image established by enterprises in disregard of industry ethics. Although China has a lot of laws and regulations to control online activities, most of them just stay in the management of websites. Lax supervision and legal loopholes are also one of the reasons for the chaos and frequency of we media.
Second, the competition for traffic entrance of “we media” is becoming more and more fierce
During the hot development period of we media, all platforms are using various subsidies to seize the big V and other content export. Today, The first article used 20 million yuan to dig the anchor MC Tianyou from the fast hand. For content distribution platforms, quality content resources are crucial, and content distribution exports are closely related.
Since this year, content distribution platform internal integration speed up step by step. At the end of May, Baidu baijia and Baijia merged. In early June, Ali Entertainment’s Big Fish completed the first stage of platform access and product integration; Tencent abolished the department of news and information and the department of Industry, Economy and Information, and established the department of content production and the department of information operation, as well as the department of news product technology and the department of external cooperation. BAT attaches great importance to the integration strategy of the content distribution department, and the battle for traffic entrance of “We media” will become increasingly fierce.
For “we media”, the number of users and influence are the key factors to attract advertisers. Therefore, individual “We media”, in order to raise the advertising price, have started to mix user data with water. As long as the search on Taobao “public account attract fans” and other keywords, you can find the name of promotion services under the guise of “brushing” products. Just as Professor Huang He of Renmin University of China said: Due to excessive pursuit of short-term results and vicious circle of competition, there are many “chaos” in content production and communication of we media.
Third, the demand for high-quality content is strong, and the survival threshold of we media is getting higher and higher
It’s easy to become a “we-media” person, as long as you have an ID and register a “we-media” number. When social information communication develops to the point that everyone is “we media”, fake original articles, information flow advertisements and chicken soup articles also start to flood on the Internet. When we media users realize that inferior articles occupy too much of their daily time, they begin to consciously reduce invalid reading, and the frequency of reading of we media decreases, which is the reason why most operators of We media quietly quit toutiao.
In the age of new media in which information transmission channels blossom everywhere, any channel can be divided into user traffic. After entering the era of new media, we-media can no longer quickly increase their reading volume through a platform with a large number of users as before, and their content production also begins to close to professional high-quality content, making the threshold for the survival of We-media personnel higher and higher.
When “we media” spreads all over the Internet, everyone can edit his/her own running account record of life trivia, his/her profound perception of life circumstances, his/her observations and comments on current affairs and politics, and his/her exploration and thinking on professional knowledge… This also means that users are getting more information and more distracted. In the long run, users will have higher and higher requirements on the content quality of “We media”, and the survival threshold of “We media” will gradually become higher.
The future: “rely on we media to feed themselves” or into the shushou
“We media” evolved from personal homepage and blog, and was boosted by social media such as Weibo, wechat public account and Zhihu platform. Finally, it developed and grew through information platforms such as Toutiao, netease “We Media” and “Baijia”.
However, according to a survey conducted by Imedia, 65.2% of netizens unsubscribe from their official accounts due to lack of content pushed by them, and 57.9% unsubscribe from their official accounts due to low frequency of updates. 2018 is approaching, the dividend period of “we media” has passed. Will “we media feed ourselves” become a hiss head?
There are three criteria to measure whether we media can make money. First, the number of users and user relationship. If the number of users of We media is large and the viscosity of fans is high, advertisers will find them, which is the basic condition for the survival of We media. Second, even if the 10W + article, also need to see whether there is commercial value, if there is no real possibility of realization, can not have a practical impact on readers, then such we media content is only a flash in the pan. Third, ranking in we media, that is, influence. From the above three measures, the pattern of “we media” has been basically decided. Affected by the decline of dividend of mobile terminal users, there are not many we-media people who can really live well.
Now the public number has turned to group competition from the beginning of the individual fight alone, that is, the content has begun to standardize, industrialization of the direction of output. The involvement of capital and the formation of the industrial chain make “we media” tend to be capitalized, team-oriented and professional. More and more unstable contents begin to be eliminated, and the illusion that everyone can make money from “we media” is shattered.
Now we media industry has entered the final dividend period, but there are still many people eager to try. They are eager to build themselves into the next “we media” big V from scratch, and most of them are walking in a daze on this road. In general, the future of content creation of “we media” can only return to content quality. One is to increase high-quality content supply. Second, we will make demand response more targeted. Only by creating a loud and sustainable we media IP can we win the long-term support of users. Otherwise, we media without influence will have to “rely on we media to feed themselves”, and will only be a shushy leader in the end.
Liu Kuang, meditation on the Internet, wechat official account: Liukuang110