On December 22, 2022, at Tencent’s internal staff meeting, Ma Huateng said, “WXG’s most eye-catching business is the video account, which is basically the hope of the whole audience.”

The Tencent Binhai Building located in Shenzhen is the headquarters office building of Tencent . (Visual China/Photo)

On December 22, 2022, at Tencent’s internal employee meeting, Ma Huateng said, “The most eye-catching business of WXG ( WeChat business group department) is the video account, which is basically the hope of the whole company (the whole company).”

Few people know that the original name of the video account was actually "Outside the Circle". In May 2019, Zhang Xiaolong, the "father of WeChat" came up with a whim, "Is it possible to open up a place outside the circle of friends and let everyone see the world outside the circle of friends?"

Ma Huateng said at the above-mentioned staff meeting that short videos have had a huge impact on the entire Internet on a global scale in the past three years, and all platforms and companies have to pay attention to this. It will erode the time of many long videos, games and other products. This is an objective development law. The

video account has undoubtedly become Tencent’s “hope for the whole village”. In the memories of Tencent employees, the video account team has always been the team that attracted the most attention at employee meetings. Zhang Xiaolong, who has always been taciturn, has publicly praised the video account team at least twice, and Tencent has also given them annual internal awards.

In the third quarter 2022 investor financial report conference call attended by Ma Huateng, Liu Chiping, , the video number became the most concerned issue for investors. Three of the 10 questions in total revolved around the video number, and the video number also became one of the few bright spots in the financial report.

On January 22, 2020, the video account started internal testing. When it entered the market, it was already surrounded by powerful enemies. The fierce battle between , Douyin, , and Kuaishou was in full swing, and the short video world was almost divided into two. Can the late video account find a new way?

non-intervention and slow growth

From the official launch to the launch of information flow advertising, Douyin took exactly one year, and the video account took two years and seven months. There is a visible speed difference between the two platforms. A person in charge of a major domestic academic company

told a reporter from Southern Weekend, "Similarly, if you apply for a topic, Douyin will respond very quickly. Even if it is already live broadcasting, if Douyin goes to operate it again, it can push the volume up." When

cooperates with video accounts, "you may have to apply for topic selections several days in advance, then manually screen the topics, and then decide what kind of people to push to, which is much less efficient. When hot spots appear, video accounts may not be able to keep up."

video account service provider refers to a company that has signed a cooperation agreement with the video account to provide WeChat with a series of support services including incubating authors, connecting with advertisers, and connecting with e-commerce sellers. There are only two to three hundred WeChat service providers, and service providers that cannot meet the business targets set by video accounts are regularly eliminated. Liu Jinjin, the person in charge of a video account service provider at

, also told Southern Weekend reporters that Douyin’s response to the service provider is real-time, but a request for a video account often takes a month to queue up, and work orders can also take two or three days to wait.

But the video account is the most stressful in Tencent. A Tencent employee told a Southern Weekend reporter that the people working on the video account are the busiest. “If you say something in any video account group, someone will reply. They are online 24 hours a day.”

All this stems from Zhang Xiaolong’s employment philosophy. His view is that Internet products are about creativity, not about numbers of people. “If a team of 100 people cannot make a product, it will not be able to make a product if it is given to 1,000 people, or even worse.” A service provider learned that the entire Douyin ecosystem has as many as 20,000 employees, but there are only a few hundred video accounts.

Liu Jinjin has a very close relationship with the video account team. According to his understanding, WeChat has also tried to expand a large number of operations. "At the beginning of the year, there were no seats in the TIT park." Until March 2022, the operators of the video account told the creators that content related to a certain emergency might receive traffic support.

This caused resentment in the operation group.The service provider said that after this incident, the management of the video account suddenly realized that if the operation team is too large, it will not only be inefficient, but also increase the difficulty of management.

WeChat product managers have a stronger say, while Douyin operators have a heavier say. The internal power structures of the two products are completely different. Compared with Douyin, the operation of video accounts is already weak, and the above incidents have further weakened the operation of video accounts.

In the operation of Douyin, each category is divided very finely, and many large categories can have dozens of people. The same category is also divided into groups. "One group is responsible for videos, and another group is responsible for graphics and text," a Douyin employee told Southern Weekend reporters. Liu Jinjin revealed that “the entire video account operation team only has a few dozen people in total.” The operating authority of the two companies

is also different. A leading parenting blogger on the video account told a Southern Weekend reporter, "If you know someone on Douyin, they may give you a nod and say, OK, we will promote him next time. But on the video account, it is not very good."

Liu Jinjin said that if the system misjudges merchant accounts, there is no way to find a video account operator. "They also write emails for you. These are two independent departments. The operation department cannot interfere with the decision-making of the review department, and the review does not back up performance, so they will ignore you at all." Douyin is a completely different matter. It will protect large businesses. "Operations can push some actions around operational goals."

has different operating powers, and the platform has completely different control over content. Douyin can launch a top stream every once in a while to maintain the popularity of the entire platform. Behind the popularity of Lao Luo , Liu Genghong , and Dong Yuhui, there are traces of the strong official intervention of Douyin. Looking at video accounts, there are almost no big Vs.

Zhang Xiaolong is not interested in creating a big V. He has publicly said, "We will more often invite individuals we think are interesting, rather than inviting people who are already famous or who are mostly performers." The above-mentioned internal Tencent employee told Southern Weekend reporters that for a long time, video accounts have restricted MCN accounts and restricted these mass-produced contents. The company

MCN also looks down on video accounts. Douyin has formed a complete set of game rules, and the returns from video accounts are still unstable. A leading video account businessman told Southern Weekend reporters that video account traffic (referring to attracting traffic to the live broadcast room through advertising) is a metaphysics. Sometimes the return rate can be as high as 1:50, and sometimes you can't buy traffic even if you want to, and "you can't spend money even if you want to."

Douyin streaming has formed a stable rate of return. "You will never lose money, but it is impossible to make a lot of money." A Douyin service provider told Southern Weekend reporters that Douyin's return on investment has been extremely stable, and it is impossible to get rich by investing in traffic.

Another video account service provider told Southern Weekend reporters that many leading MCN companies have video accounts, and they are very low-key. Douyin is still their main business, and no one has publicly bet on video accounts. Geek Park once reported that the video account wanted to bring Dong Yuhui under its wing, but Dong Yuhui’s personal account was not implemented in the end. Oriental Selection still existed in the video account in the form of an institutional account, and did not provide original content to the video account. The

video account has also become a miracle in the content platform: with almost no original content and no native big V, it has become one of the short video platforms with the highest monthly activity by relying on content distribution.

It has become one of the main tasks of WeChat service providers to go to Douyin, Kuaishou, and Bilibili to persuade them to "develop on multiple platforms." Since November, Wang Tianci has received the same private message almost every day: "I am a video account owner. Now that I have a video account, in addition to official traffic support, there are also cash red envelopes. It is easy to start the volume at this stage. Are you considering multi-platform development?"

Wang Tianci is a video player. Content director of MCN, a company that produces general financial content. This company operates short video accounts for financial institutions. An investment Douyin account under his name has 570,000 followers, which is at the waist of the segment. "Sometimes two or three companies post at the same time in a day, and sometimes the same company posts repeatedly." Wang Tianci did not reply to these private messages, "I only gave him 300 yuan in red envelopes."

Even this 300 yuan red envelope was not taken out of the pocket of the video account. Regarding investment in content, the video account’s attitude is “nothing is spared”. The above-mentioned Tencent employee revealed to Southern Weekend reporters that the video account has never paid for content in any form. In their view, buying content is damaging to the content ecosystem.

Zhang Xiaolong once said publicly, "At the beginning, we wanted to invite celebrities to join the video account, but the celebrities said they didn't want to come without the signing fee. We said, if you don't come, you won't come. I believe that ordinary people have great creative power. On the contrary, the content purchased may not impress people." The video account of

remains absolutely vigilant about buying content. A painful lesson is that , Weishi, and spent 3 billion but failed to buy retention rates. Instead, they attracted a group of service providers to "take the money and leave."

"non-intervention" and "slow growth" are the way for video accounts to survive, so with almost no investment, video accounts slowly grew a content ecosystem. One of the most typical examples is "Second Uncle Cured My Mental Internal Conflict". This annual phenomenon-level video ultimately generated 46 million views for Bilibili. What is little known about

is that before it was forwarded to the video account, its views on station B were only 4 million. It was Moments that really ignited the fire. WeChat is still the largest traffic portal in China’s Internet, which is the strength of video accounts.

, a video account without native content, also faces the same dilemma as , headline account, , and Penguin account. “The same piece of content can be sold by public accounts for hundreds of thousands, but headline accounts may sell for thousands of dollars without anyone investing.” The above-mentioned video account service providers believe that content ultimately determines the ceiling of video accounts.

Others have content first, Tencent has users first

Perhaps Zhang Xiaolong did not foresee that one day he would create a "Douyin". In 2016, he said that WeChat allows users to leave as soon as they use it, and users cannot be trapped in WeChat. But after becoming a video account, Zhang Xiaolong redefined "just go", which means that everyone misunderstood that "just go has nothing to do with the length of time, but to do with efficiency." It was only after

had a video account that Tencent as a whole understood what it means to truly "leverage the entire group." The last Weishi, which was built with the efforts of the entire group, only occupied the cover of a red envelope in WeChat when it was most popular. During the Spring Festival of 2020, “Use Weishi to Send Video Red Envelopes”, “WeChat Red Envelopes” and “New Year’s Greetings Red Envelopes” appeared on WeChat together.

WeChat has never spent a penny on the content of the video account, but it has opened all the traffic doors that can be opened. One-click forwarding to Moments, WeChat groups, and public accounts is something that other short video platforms never dare to hope for.

WeChat discovery page has over 10 billion traffic every day. It not only gives the video account a first-level entrance, but also cleverly clicks a "red dot", which can embarrass a large group of "obsessive-compulsive disorder" users. A founder of MCN, a company that has spawned bloggers with tens of millions of fans, told Southern Weekend reporters that it was this small annoyance that made him not optimistic about video accounts from the beginning. "WeChat is a chat tool. Everyone hopes that it can be a quiet chat tool and don't add this kind of mess." In order to close this little red dot, he closed the entire video account function. Another huge controversy in

is the most important buttons in the video account interface: private like, favorite, and watching. It has been revised continuously for three years. An obvious question is, why not just follow the good user habits that the public account has cultivated? Many interviewees of

said that they had the experience of being misled when they first started using their video accounts. I thought "love" meant "like", but ended up "watching" a video, which led to the publication of a video I didn't want to make public. For example, a married man liked a video of a beautiful woman late at night.

The above-mentioned Tencent employee told Southern Weekend reporters that Tencent also discussed this issue internally, and finally strengthened the internal consensus once again, "Don't teach WXG to make products, they won't listen."

According to Liu Jinjin, the biggest difference between Douyin and video accounts is that Douyin is a product with full market competition, but video accounts are a defensive product. " Zhang Yiming is still waiting for Douyin to be launched, and WeChat does not have the problem of being launched." Video accounts are far less eager to make money than Douyin.

has a profound feeling after actually dealing with both parties, "Douyin is more like an army. Everyone only needs to be responsible for tightening their own screws, but Tencent is divided by princes."

He gave an example. It only took Douyin half a year to open up the entire e-commerce link, but just a WeChat business group was repeatedly reinventing the wheel. Each small department wanted to keep the transaction on its own plate. "How much GMV is generated can be reported."

For some time, the video account required brands to put all transactions in the video account store and close the mini program mall. Some big brands have requirements for online shopping malls, such as membership systems and discount systems. "That video store doesn't have anything." The matter was shelved, and a small program mall was finally allowed to remain.

According to Liu Jinjin, just from the backend of the video account, you can feel the deep internal department walls. "The creator of a video account now has to log in to four or five backends and switch constantly: the video account assistant backend, the video account live broadcast backend, the video account store backend, the service provider backend, and the MCN organization backend."

Another Tencent employee told Southern Weekend reporters that the video account advertising business is also divided into two branches. One is the information flow advertising business, which is placed in Tencent Advertising, and the other is the heating tool, which is placed within WeChat and is considered a value-added service of WeChat. What Liu Jinjin understands is that they mainly buy WeChat beans now, and "the conversion effect will be better than information flow advertising."

In the view of this Tencent employee, two similar businesses belong to different business groups, which is not the most important reason why the commercialization of video accounts is not as good as that of Douyin. In the final analysis, the algorithm is not as good as human beings. "It is said that algorithms can be solved by spending time and money. Is it solved now?" In his view, the fundamental way to solve the problem of algorithm and is to accumulate enough user behavior. Although the video account has not announced the user duration, multiple third-party data show that "there is still a big gap with Douyin."

He explained that the algorithm is the result of the normal operation of a flywheel. Good enough content attracts users to watch for a long enough time. It is long enough to accumulate enough user behavior. Enough user behavior can modify the algorithm. An algorithm that is accurate enough can push enough attractive content to users. Whether an algorithm of

is accurate is directly reflected in the traffic cost. Wang Tianci is the content director of an MCN organization. They recently calculated the traffic cost of video accounts. "The cost of fan conversion is about ten times that of Douyin, 10 yuan to 20 yuan per fan." Whether the

video account can become another money printing machine in the Tencent empire, the algorithm is the key. Fortunately, there are at least 1 billion monthly active users who can help it mature.

Wechat business

The video account store will soon charge technical service fees, which has become a new node in the commercialization of video accounts. "In the past, no one cared whether you had services or not," said a video account service provider engaged in e-commerce. Now that fees are charged, the commercial value of the platform can be truly tested. The "2022 China Mobile Internet Semi-Annual Report" released by

third-party organization Quest Mobile also shows that by June this year, the monthly active scale of WeChat video accounts exceeded 800 million, surpassing Douyin and ranking first. The second-placed Douyin has 680 million monthly active users, and Kuaishou has 390 million.

As early as around May this year, the above-mentioned service provider revealed to Southern Weekend reporters that the video account would soon charge service fees. It was not announced until the end of the year. In his opinion, it was later than expected. "The market is very enthusiastic and everyone is anxious to make money with WeChat." An unsurprising outcome of

is that WeChat business became the first batch of beneficiaries. Video accounts changed the relationship between WeChat and WeChat. They were transformed from deported regulatory targets into commercial service targets.

Founded in 2017, Mojie International has rapidly grown into the leading live broadcast merchant in the video account in the past year. The sales volume of "618" and exceeded 10 million, and its video account ranked first. On Double Eleven, the transaction volume was 16 million, ranking fourth. Mojie International mainly sells cosmetics. Their model adopts a membership system, which is what everyone thought of as micro-business in the past. Pan Xiaoping, the head of

Mojie International, told Southern Weekend reporters that at the beginning of this year they decided to "all in" video accounts. Video accounts now have the lowest cost and the highest return among all platforms. "On Douyin, there will be no success unless you spend tens of millions." The video account's official support for merchants is very strong. "For every private domain traffic you bring, the official can send you five times the public domain traffic." In her opinion, video accounts are still a blue ocean of and . She thinks they have reached their end. “Maybe next year many big brands will come in.” The

video account gave them a second life. "Now you go to the group and send pictures and texts, and post to Moments to refresh the screen, everyone has become numb," Pan Xiaoping said, and the video account has almost reactivated the entire private domain traffic. Many old members have become fans of his video account again.

Pan Xiaoping said that now you can find WeChat official website at any time, and WeChat will also send you traffic, which was something you couldn’t even imagine in the past. Especially with the launch of the video account store, the anchors of the entire video account can sell goods for me. The

video account has also changed the relationship between WeChat and service providers. Third-party service providers like Youzan have placed heavy bets on video accounts. In July 2021, Youzan announced that it plans to help "100 video account creators achieve the small goal of earning one million per year." The support will include products, traffic, services, supply chain and other aspects.

As a result, until July 2022, service providers like Youzan were waiting for a bolt from the blue—the video account was about to open a video account store. In the past era of public accounts, these tasks were all left to third parties like Youzan.

A service provider close to Youzan told Southern Weekend reporters that they believe WeChat must enter an open ecosystem. In the end, all the dirty work will have to be done by service providers. No one thought that the video account would end up becoming an e-commerce business on its own. Now they are still waiting. An unanswered question is, "Is the closed loop of e-commerce mentioned by Ma Huateng a large closed loop or a small closed loop?" If it is a large closed loop, then they will also be included in it. If it is a small closed loop, WeChat will do it by itself. "Does he have so many people? Can he have such a service?" Is it powerful?”

On July 18, the video account officially launched native information flow advertising. The first batch of advertising brands include BMW, Armani beauty, Yili , which means that the video account finally sounded the clarion call for commercialization. Xia Zhinan, director of the new list of the

third-party research platform, told Southern Weekend reporters, "The significance is that after more than two years, the commercialization of video accounts has taken off. Tencent's information flow advertising business in the fourth quarter is expected to have a single-quarter revenue of 1 billion, although this The number seems small, but going from 0 to 1 is the most difficult, and you can just roll on this basis. Compared with brand advertising, performance advertising is more direct. How much traffic can I buy, how many conversions can I bring, and how much sales can I create? This is the most direct, and it is also what the brand is most willing to do."

new list is also a video account service provider, helping brands place advertisements on video accounts. In the past six months, the business of the new list has grown significantly, and advertisers' willingness to place video accounts is increasing, "probably an increase of 50%." At present, the willingness of big brands to place video accounts is still relatively weak. According to Xia Zhinan,

, the video account will focus on solving two key problems. One is the accuracy of the algorithm. "For users, if you push a bunch of ads to me, which happen to be what I need, the degree of interruption or harm will not be that high."

The second is the granularity of commercial services. Can the streaming tools it launches make better choices? Maybe the delivery effect this time is not good. I will change the strategy next time. Delivery is also a process of continuous optimization.But if your functions, service granularity, follow-up customer service, and operational services cannot keep up, it will also be a headache for the brand. Brands can only throw money at blind people and touch the elephant without optimizing.

Southern Weekend reporters have repeatedly interviewed the public relations manager of the video account, but the other person declined the interview on the grounds that the video account has nothing to say. As a "rich second generation" among Internet products,

's video account has attracted much attention since its birth. Although the growth rate is far lower than market expectations, as long as people do not abandon WeChat, everything is still possible with video accounts.

(At the request of the interviewee, Liu Jinjin’s pseudonym is used in the article.)

Southern Weekend reporter Dong Qianqian