REDSTAR Hangzhou June 2020

广 告 • 生 活 方 式 // LIFESTYLE /
on different media, too "cringe." It's perhaps
another reason why Douyin is such an
appealing platform. The app allows those
with even the smallest followings to
"go viral" and become online celebrities
overnight. The main difference between
and other social media is how easy
it is to become famous online. Still, mainly
it is a never-ending entertainment source.
DOUYIN AND
MARKETING
Thanks to its growing popularity,
Douyin turned out to be a very efficient
marketing platform. One of the most
popular marketing formulas in China is
called KOL, which stands for Key Opinion
Leader marketing, and is very similar
to what we might call an influencer.
KOL marketing is another way to quickly
build trust between your audience and
your brand in China. Influencers may be
established online celebrities, or they may
be influential amongst your target audience
– both will have a large following for
themselves with high engagement rates.
WHY IS IT SO POPULAR?
Young people crave micro-entertainment
and short bursts of distraction. Videos
on Douyin are fun, sharp, and trendy.
People can follow other accounts and
create a feed of new content from the
creators they enjoy most. There is also
a "For You" feed that shows a random
assortment of videos from others. What's
both crucial and easy to miss about Douyin
is how it has stepped over the midpoint
between the familiar self-directed feed
and experience-based first on algorithmic
observation and inference. The most
obvious clue is when you open the app:
the first thing you see isn't a feed of your
friends, but the page called "For You." It's an
algorithmic feed based on videos you've
interacted with, or even just watched. It
never runs out of material. It is not (unless
you train it to be), full of people you know,
or things you've explicitly told it you want
to see. It's full of things that you seem to
have demonstrated you want to watch.
Douyin assertively answers anyone's what
should I watch with a flood. In the same
way, the app provides
plenty of answers for
the paralyzing what
should I post? The
result is an endless
amount of material
that people might be
too self-conscious to
post on any other social
network. It is frequently,
in the language widely
applied outside the
platform, from people
Understanding who your audience is and
who your audience is following is the first
step to start a KOL campaign. Then you
will need to think of a themed hashtag for
your influencers to create relevant branded
videos, and your chosen influencers
will encourage their fans to create their
videos all based on the themed hashtag.
Even though I have explained here
the basics of the app, the only
way to understand how addictive
Douyin can be is to give it a try!
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