For ambitious entrepreneurs, choosing the right lever to achieve user growth and monetization is vital. In today’s diverse social media ecosystem, short video platforms like Douyin may seem like a good choice, but they could actually be detrimental to entrepreneurs. Beware, as Douyin might be the main force depleting your funds, and the promised traffic dividend could well be a dream. Therefore, it’s more advisable to invest energy into platforms that can provide sustainable, private-domain traffic, such as Video Accounts (Channels).
Statistics show that Video Accounts can bring significantly higher view counts and fan growth than Douyin. At the same time, Video Accounts can lead people to your official account, hence achieving a stable growth of private-domain traffic. The deepening of content and enhanced personalization can attract a more loyal and aligned user base. Periodic live broadcasts on Video Accounts provide assurance for the Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV).
On the one hand, the conversion of private domain traffic on social media platforms contributes significantly to a company’s trust and conversion rates. People crave content that deeply links them to brands amidst an overload of information, which is key to the success of a strategy focused on private-domain content and Video Account live broadcasts.
However, not all platforms are entrepreneur-friendly. Douyin has not seen significant growth in daily active users (DAU) or user session duration, with its real growth point only in commercial conversion rates. The platform’s track control is increasingly strict, and you may not receive a real return despite continuous investment. The ecology of Douyin could require that your content or live broadcast rooms face the risk of being banned at any time, adding great uncertainty and operating risk for entrepreneurs.
For Video Accounts, the situation is vastly different. Video Accounts offer entrepreneurs an enabling environment to showcase themselves, build brand trust, and ultimately realize product sales. On such a platform, actively building a personal brand and private-domain traffic can help entrepreneurs establish a more solid and reliable business future.
Therefore, as commercial pressure increases on the platform, as an entrepreneur, you need to discern the opportunities and risks. Wisely choosing platforms, especially those that can provide lasting business value and customer stickiness, will be key to future success.
In the complex ecology of the Douyin platform, advertisers face severe challenges in their deployment strategies. In pursuit of a better Return on Investment (ROI), advertisers must continually adapt to the precise marketing approaches driven by Douyin. While this method can bring certain benefits, it may also just allow advertisers to survive on the margins, as if being given food but not allowed to eat meat, only allowed to draw broth. Later, it may even be reduced to the point where they can only rely on a biased diet of steamed buns. This situation arises because Douyin needs to maintain its continuous growth business model.
For those who can still make a profit in the current environment, the key lies in maintaining a low-profile yet effective profit-making approach. They need to see the present as perhaps the last chance to accrue wealth.
Others, like myself, used to rely on creating high-quality content for free and precise traffic. But Douyin’s new rules tell us that simply having quality content is not enough; we also need to continuously advertise on the platform and conduct live broadcasts. For creators, this is an immense pressure. Content creation itself is a huge undertaking, and now with added advertising expense, what’s all the effort for? Note that live broadcasting and content creation are the lifeblood of a creator. That’s why I chose to uninstall Douyin and remain bearish on it because Douyin is consuming our vitality, becoming an inharmonious adversary.
It can be said that we must regard TikTok as the “Big Brother” monitoring our ROI at that moment. On this platform, you may not always win, but you can try to maximize your interests. Next, let us consider the current strategy: How much money do you plan to invest in TikTok, how much human resources are you willing to mobilize, and what action strategies are you prepared to take?
I cannot help but recall the words of a former vice president of Kuaishou. When he left his position, he said to me, “Liu Siyi, have you ever thought about why platforms like TikTok, Kuaishou, and WeChat can monetize these data? That is monopolization, that is power.” In this regard, I am perplexed, this question… If you have given this some thought, feel free to add me as a friend, scan the code to communicate, and explore this topic together.
