How does NetEase do content marketing?
text/Thomas's Skull
I don't know when it started, but NetEase has become a recognized major company in the industry and is the best at content marketing.
From 2018 to the present, many of NetEase's games have done well on Weibo, Douyin and other platforms. For example, "Onmyoji" and " Identity 5 " have always been frequent visitors to the top 5 game brands' Weibo rankings, and the latter is ranked first in the Douyin game brand list, with a fan base of more than 2.3 million. At the game conference held by ByteDance Juliu Engine, "After Tomorrow" has also become an official sharing case.
But content marketing is not easy to learn, so it is difficult for the marketing team to disassemble NetEase's ideas from the outside: How did these contents come about? What is the core value of content marketing and what are the assessment standards? How to do a short video platform?
Recently, Grape Jun interviewed Xiang Lang, vice president of NetEase Game Marketing. Some of his views have changed my understanding of content marketing:
1. R&D and marketing are both producing content, and content is dissemination. Therefore, there is no essential difference between the two.
2. In the new media base, the significance of short video materials is not only to reduce costs, but also to acquire more users and increase the space threshold for buying;
3. Content marketing can also do traffic, but its effect requires longer investment. As for the integration of product and effect, it is possible to use unconventional methods, constantly trial and error, and the best results may be possible, and it is difficult to become the norm in content marketing.
As Xiang Lang said, no methodology is suitable for all products. After reading this article, you may not be able to make a successful marketing case immediately. But perhaps some of the views in the article can help you and your team avoid detours in content marketing.
Content marketing: R&D and marketing are both producing content
Grape Jun: The first time everyone realizes the value of content marketing may have started with "Onmyoji". How do you understand the development and changes in content marketing since then?
Xianglang: NetEase is a content company, not a platform company. What should I do when traffic is needed? We choose to win users with high-quality content, so that users choose you because they recognize your content, not just attracted by your ads.
In 2016, after "Onmyoji" was launched, it conducted a live card draw incident. At that time, Weibo and WeChat were the centers of social media communication, so Weibo and Moments were the main communication bases of this incident. After that, many women could also accumulate momentum on Weibo and operate it for a long-tail. After
, competitive products emerged. MOBA and FPS products rely on anchors to harvest a large number of users, and live broadcasts have become the most important platform for content marketing; after the Spring Festival in 2018, short videos have become a new trend, and many casual competitive games and mini games have gained a large number of users on Douyin; in 2019, many new media platforms have begun to integrate and connect, and many KOLs have become influential content distribution points across the entire network.
During the chicken-eating war, for the sake of live broadcast effect, marketers really fought with each other...
In summary, the trend of content marketing has been changing in recent years. It must be able to follow users and lead some trends. But the essence of content marketing has not changed: is a user of the right channel and provides the right content , and this logic has never been outdated.
Grape Jun: What is the core of your content marketing?
Xianglang: The core of is to define a concept so that users who reach the content can clearly feel it. The concept of can be large or small, and the version is different, and the size of the concept is also different. We will update it every month.
For example, the "Shendu Demon Spirit Demon" in " Shendu Night Walking Record ", its core concept is " Chinese-style monsters and character designs are very exquisite ", which is a relatively large concept. The spokesperson Wu Xuanyi may have a lot of materials, but the core is to amplify this concept.
. In the next version, we may change our way of playing, and use the small concept of "The development team is kidnapped, and you can tear the tickets if you are not satisfied" to tell our development concept.
Grape Jun: How will you plan the follow-up content around these concepts?
Xianglang: First of all, the marketing team will meet a long-term plan with the R&D team to see what content will be launched in each quarter and which content is the focus. Later, the marketing team will make some suggestions in reverse, such as whether a certain month is a gap period, whether it is necessary to add content, whether it is necessary to do it, or whether it is necessary to fill it through linkage cooperation.
Our buying volume will follow the version, and marketing events and major activities will follow the new content of the product, so as to ensure that the product will have content coverage in the short, medium and long term. After has determined its long-term plan, we will touch it every month to see what we have done this month and what we are going to do next month.
Grape Jun: What is the architecture and process of your marketing team?
Xianglang: We are divided into product marketing team and functional group. The former is closer to product, while the latter is closer to resources and channels, including social media, media, advertising, creativity, buying volume, channels, etc.
The core materials of content marketing must be controlled by the product marketing team, while the peripheral materials will be controlled by the peripheral functional departments. But in this process, it is not to say which team does the most important thing, everyone is more like a cooperative relationship. For example, before shooting the TVC material of the spokesperson, we will also recruit creative teams to collaborate.
also has some small materials, and we will think about the direction of creativity together. For example, is it a beautiful and naughty film, or is it a different character design from the previous one? After the product marketing team selects the direction, they will also plan these materials with the social media team.
Grape Jun: How deep is the marketing team’s intervention in the R&D team?
Xianglang: Each R&D team has different styles. Some teams will set a goal to let marketing independently undertake KPIs and provide some support for themselves; some teams are willing to participate in the discussions of the entire process and give ideas at any time.
I personally think both methods are OK, but I prefer the second one, so that everyone will feel like they achieve a goal together.
Grape Jun: How do you judge their quality before the content is delivered?
Xianglang: is actually not much different from buying volume. First of all, we will use to observe what the previous popular materials look like, and have a rough understanding of the material templates. In this way, we will know what the effect of this material will have when it is released.
Second, we will judge the trend , such as studying what content on TikTok and Weibo will become popular - this content does not only include games, and then make appropriate support. For example, there was a popular dialect dubbing and finger dance in Douyin for a while, so we can also do the corresponding content.
The third is pure market intuition . This depends on the experience of market personnel. Maybe he thinks this kind of content will be popular. When new market personnel choose small materials, one out of 10 may become popular; but if experienced people may become 5 out of 10 may become popular.
Grape Jun: You put your market intuition in the third point, but for most companies, successful content marketing seems to rely on a flash of inspiration, and success is all about metaphysics. So how important is inspiration and creativity?
日本: The third point of is just an auxiliary, and it cannot be used as the main body. But this cannot be removed because creation does depend on inspiration, which is the difference between artists and ordinary creators.
Sometimes the inspiration comes from players. For example, in the early days of "Shendu Night Walking Record", we had a rabbit man whose material was widely spread. This character is dubbed by Li Dan in , and will say some bad things. If you treat him as a mount, the female player will be held by him, while the male player will be clipped under his armpit. It became a meme among players first, so we made a lot of related materials and got a lot of dissemination.
Grape Jun: How do you ensure the frequency of launching content? Will there be clear requirements for quantity?
Xianglang: If the quantity is required alone, you may only follow this quantity. We hope that everyone can choose the right path. For example, in , we will not require the self-media account to post how much content it has increased in a month, but we will see how many fans it has increased in a month. The launch of
content is hierarchical. The top content is PGC, which may be officially done from the beginning of product production. The PGC in the PC game era may be CG, and now it may be a promotional video or model display; the middle content is PUGC, based on the secondary packaging of the product, so marketers can do a lot here; the lower level is UGC, and we will cooperate with various platforms to encourage players to produce content.
For example, the proportion of UGC in "Identity V" may reach more than 90%. The official will produce as little material as possible, and do not emphasize the creation standards of content, rarely express their opinions, and let players perform as much as possible.
"Princess hug" comes from the creative fan comics of netizens @徐公司's Li Luo
Grape Jun: Then how do you motivate the appearance of good content?
Xianglang: single content will definitely have rewards in different levels, but we will pay more attention to the incentive methods of UGC content, focusing on topic tags, work volume and activity-generating material coverage rather than the data of individual content. now has too much information. It is unscientific to rely on one content to make a hit product.
We will ask everyone to grasp the needs of users more accurately. For example, every self-media operation student in will have clear hard indicators: how many Weibo posts do you have to read on every day, how many posts in the post bar, how many players will reply to, and how many players' names you remember. so that they will gradually have a sense of players and be able to plan good UGC activities.
Grape Jun: How do you understand the ratio of content production costs and channel delivery costs?
Xianglang: There is an unverified theory in the era of PC games: spending 5 million to make materials will cost at least 10 million to let others know. But in this era, content is dissemination, and good content does not need to worry about dissemination. The update of the game version is more like advertising, and the transmission of important information requires more dissemination and packaging. As for the purchase volume, as long as it meets the positive ROI requirements set by each project, we will consider adding it, and there are no rigid restrictions.
Grape Jun: Content is spread?
Xianglang: For example, "Onmyoji" has opened up everyone's cognition, and its card drawing mechanism, character character design, CP and other content will be spread by players. The same is true for "Shendu Night Walk". When the version was updated, many female players like to post screenshots of copywriting to communities such as Tieba.
After we discover this, we will add more lines that women like in the subsequent plot updates. In the character portrait, we will also consider designing some more beautiful demon spirits. In this way, everyone will naturally spread the content they like.
So from this perspective, R&D is also producing content, and marketing is also producing content. In essence, there is no difference between the two.
short videos have accounted for more than 20% of content marketing investment
Grape Jun: Let’s talk about short videos again. How would you classify short video content? Will it be divided according to platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xigua?
日本: we will divide it into horizontal and vertical versions. The vertical version of is more suitable for mobile personal display . This is also the logic behind many KOLs choosing to do Douyin. For games, how to use Douyin to achieve good user stickiness and spread new user groups may be the basic skills of content marketing;
and horizontal version is more like a display of the actual game scene, suitable for teaching content , such as game speed guide, this part of the content will be tried on Xigua and some other headline products.
we don’t know how to classify the platform’s logic, because videos are just carriers, and as long as the platform allows them, we are happy to release the content. Of course, the urban distribution of users of different products will also affect the focus of our platform. For example, "A Chinese Odyssey" is more suitable for Kuaishou, and "Identity V" is more suitable for Douyin.
Grape Jun: What is the specific method?
Xianglang: will study recommendation strategies for different platforms in detail. For example, according to our observation, the recommendation mechanism of Douyin is a traffic pool. When the content reaches a certain amount of playback or reaches a certain completion rate (whether the user has finished watching the video), it will enter the next traffic pool.
gives an example of inaccurate data. There are also 100 videos now, and only 10 videos have a playback volume of 5,000 people. Then these 10 videos will enter the next traffic pool and PK with some other videos with the same effect. So the better the content is, the easier it is to be seen by more people.
So when is doing content on Douyin, we will not let the video content look too much like an advertisement, and we will look at the current trend of popularity and add the information we want to convey.
Grape Jun: How would you choose the specific content production team?
Xianglang: We will find many teams to compare with each other, and then decide which ones to use based on historical playback data, cost and other data, and continuously introduce MCN institutions or video production experts to cycle through PK. There are already a large number of authors on short video platforms. In fact, just cooperate directly with the platform and filter the authors from it.
Grape Jun: How much investment do you have in the short video platform at present? What proportion of content marketing can it account for?
Xianglang: is currently gradually increasing, and all products of should account for more than 20%. The text and text content of our Weibo and WeChat is gradually decreasing, and this part of the content will be transferred to short videos.
We will continue to pay attention to the overall viewing time of game users and young users, from a larger plate positioning, what content should be produced and where to place it.
Grape Jun: What do you think are the main functions of short video materials? Some people think that short video platforms have demographic dividends, which means lower user costs.
时: short video materials may be more absorbent at the beginning, but their cost will gradually increase afterwards. is actually a bit like constantly changing materials in legendary games. It not only helps you reduce costs, but also helps you acquire more users and increase the space threshold for your purchase. , for example, a game, you can buy 1,000 users a day, but now you can buy 2,000.
Grape Jun: There is a very interesting phenomenon: legendary games often perform well on short video platforms.
Xianglang: legendary short video advertising is not game-oriented, but creative. Its core is not watching games, but watching miniature sitcoms. I think it is not that legends are suitable for Douyin, but that sitcoms are suitable for Douyin.
We have also tried the live version of the material. In comparison, the game CG conversion is better. My personal opinion is that if the content in the game can be done, then there is no need to work hard on the content outside the game. If the game is fun and the picture is good at first sight, then everyone is willing to choose it.
Three misunderstandings in content marketing
Grape Jun: Finally, I asked a few relatively macro questions. What misunderstandings do you think do you have about content marketing in the game industry now?
Xiang Lang: Misconception 1: Content marketing is the job of marketing and has nothing to do with R&D. But in fact, good content marketing comes from user needs and goes for product development, which is a bit like mobile phone marketing. The support of the R&D team is very important.
Misconception 2: content marketing is about building a brand, not traffic. But in fact, taking older young people to find a partner as an example, the buying volume may be based on big data and more accurate Internet blind dates, while content marketing is based on the introduction of friends with cognition and reputation. There is no difference in the purpose of the two.
However, some companies also have problems with their understanding of the effects of content marketing. Some people think that as long as they do content marketing, the natural volume of products will increase. But content marketing is a combination of punches, and it depends on long-term investment.If you want to do it for a week, you should not do it.
Misunderstanding 3: Small companies and small products do not need to be suitable for content marketing, and buying volume and channels are more important. But in fact, any market behavior is an investment. Whether the returns are positive depends not only on the data model, but also on the ability of the trader. At present, many categories do not rely so much on buying volume. If the content marketing effect is not good, it is likely that the right person has not been found.
Of course, if a game has no self-propagation basis, and there is no sound at all when thrown into the market, and the players have no response, then the marketers will have no way to catch them. At this time, marketers should discuss product design with R&D personnel and reach a consensus.
Grape Jun: But will it be difficult for small companies and small products to carry out content marketing?
Xianglang: The basis of content marketing lies in the understanding of products and users, and communication lies in the insight and creativity of the access channels, not in the amount of fees, and even many fun secondary communications are even free. So, the idea of is reliable. There is a hundred yuan for one hundred yuan, and a million yuan for one million yuan. The market cost is just an amplifier. is like buying volume, 500,000 is called buying volume, and 500 yuan is also called buying volume, which are both the same marketing method.
Grape Jun: What if the scope is expanded to marketing in the entire game industry? What problems do you think exist?
Xianglang: Let’s say one thing: the commercialization of KOL is not healthy enough, especially the price of top KOLs has been speculated to be a bit inflated. On the one hand, it is because of capital investment, and on the other hand, it is because some MCN institutions and content platforms are competing for content.
overseas, Twitch is a subscription system and will distribute a fixed part of the fee to the anchor. The anchor only needs to concentrate on the content and gain more fans. However, the income of domestic anchors often depends on commercial cooperation, and it is difficult for everyone to do something and not do anything.
Grape Jun: Nowadays, many marketers are pursuing the integration of product and effect. How do you understand?
Xianglang: is actually still content, marketing. If the content is at its best and the hot product is made, it will naturally be easy to obtain traffic.
For example, not long ago, we made a material for "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" that is close to the hot star XX Kun, and put it on B. Last week, we did not increase the purchase volume, but the natural volume increased. This is a case of product-effectiveness integration. In addition, the God City Demon Spirit Demon is also a case of integration of quality and effect.
Feel it...
But not all market behaviors pursue the integration of product and effect. For example, the purchase of "Kun" materials will damage your brand, but many users like this spoof material. In addition, whether can achieve the integration of product and effect depends on the development trend of user interest. When you look at the advertising of luxury goods, they are all product and effect, because their user tone is more in line with the brand's story logic. The content marketing of games is not a luxury, it is more like a daily necessity.
It’s a bit like buying financial products. How to spend 1 million market fees? Maybe you will buy 500,000 yuan to buy volume, which is a stable financial product and will definitely take effect; then use 300,000 to 400,000 yuan to build a brand and conduct stable content marketing, which is a long-term investment; then the remaining budget can target the integration of product and efficiency, and use innovative materials to try it out, just like buying stocks and adding leverage, you must make the worst plan. If it explodes, it will explode. If the sunk cost meets the project's expectations, you can also try it.
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