Quickly create a short video account: How to benchmark the account?

This article details four methods on how to find benchmark accounts and how to analyze benchmark accounts. Friends who want to try to create short video accounts can read this.

According to data, as of December 2022, the number of short video users in China exceeded 1 billion for the first time , with a user utilization rate of 94.8%. Among them, the annual number of new users in 2019 and 2020 was more than 100 million.

In the past two years, short videos have become a traffic pool that companies must compete for. Compared with pictures and texts, short videos have a wider audience and can carry more commercial monetization models. Both companies and individuals have settled in the most popular short video platforms such as Douyin and Video Account.

However, many people fall into a trap at the first step of creating an account, blindly positioning their account and creating content, but with little effect. If you want to improve efficiency, the simplest way is to "cross the river by feeling others", that is, find a good benchmark account, do a good analysis, and quickly absorb successful experiences.

So how do we find benchmark accounts? And how do we analyze them? Let’s take a look.

1. Quickly find benchmark accounts

Finding a benchmark account is actually a search process. The key is how to find it quickly and accurately. The premise is that your account must have an accurate positioning, so that you can search with keywords and tags, otherwise it is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

For example, if your account shares marketing information, then the keyword is "marketing"; if your account is about workplace content or corporate management, then the keyword is "workplace" or "management".

There are three methods for reference on how to search specifically. Let’s take searching for the keyword “workplace” on the video account as an example.

1. Search directly by keyword

We can search for "workplace" directly in the video account, or we can search for workplace-related keywords, such as "job hunting", "recruitment", "management", etc., mainly depending on the level of segmentation of your account content.

The accounts searched out are basically related to the workplace. We can click on the homepage one by one to view the number of likes for the latest video, and select some popular accounts to record them in a table first.

Here is a little trick. If you want to search for a more precise account, just add "chat", "say", or "talk" in front of the keyword , for example, search for "talk about the workplace" and so on.

2. Find videos under the tag

Video accounts have a tag function, and the same tag generally contains content in the same field. We can directly search for "#职场" and then click on the "职场" tag in the video below.

Basically, the content in a tag are all popular videos, and we can select accounts from them to record them.

3. Find the platform rankings

On video account data analysis platforms such as Xinshi and Youwang Data, we can filter accounts by industry classification, or we can directly search for keywords to find accounts.

On this type of platform, we can see information such as an account’s estimated fans, number of works, various data, etc. However, analysis of live broadcast data and advanced data, for example, generally requires paid membership to view.

Through the above three methods, you can initially retrieve a list of benchmark accounts, and select and record about 20 to 30 accounts. However, you still need to carry out the next step of screening, analyze from different dimensions, find the most suitable account for yourself, lock it, disassemble it, and then learn from it.

2. Screening high-quality benchmarking accounts

When recording benchmark accounts, you should mark out the basic information of each account, including the number of fans, video format, fan portraits, monetization methods, etc. Especially in the account creation stage, you should give priority to accounts that are similar to your own in all dimensions, so that you can get twice the result with half the effort.

1. Number of fans

There are two situations here:

If your account is just starting out and you don’t have many followers, try not to benchmark against accounts that are too powerful. These accounts have many followers and strong IP attributes, so blindly benchmarking will not have any effect. My suggestion is to give priority to accounts with less than 100,000 followers.

But if you have a lot of traffic on other platforms, for example, your official account has 1 million followers, but your video account has just been created, then you also have the opportunity to grow it in a short period of time. In this case, you can benchmark some large accounts.

2. Video format

There are three mainstream forms of video content at present: pure oral broadcast, small theater, and screen editing . Each has its own advantages and characteristics, and you need to consider the conditions of your own account to choose. If your account cannot be used by real people, then it is obviously inappropriate to choose a benchmark account with real people appearing.

Characteristics of the three content formats:

Pure oral broadcast: the most mainstream, fast production

Pure oral broadcast is the first choice for most accounts to shoot short videos. For example, for workplace accounts, teachers only need to explain to the camera, and there are no high requirements for the shooting location. The main test is the quality of the script and the appearance of the real person.

Small theater: good effect, high shooting cost

This type of video is easier for users to accept by integrating knowledge points into the plot design, and can better balance the content and entertainment of the video.

Screen editing: No real person required, low shooting cost

This type of video does not require real people to appear on camera. The advantage is that the shooting cost is extremely low, and the knowledge points can be explained very clearly. However, the disadvantage is that there is no sense of character, which is not conducive to the creation of IP, and it has higher requirements for video editors.

3. Fan portrait

Fan portraits are easy to understand. It means choosing accounts that are close to your own fan portraits. You can mainly query user portraits through third-party platforms. There are several dimensions:

Male-female ratio: mainly look at the male-female ratio characteristics of the industry or product . Age group: as the name implies, it is to look at the distribution of age groups. For example, for workplace-type content, the two age dimensions of young office workers and corporate managers are definitely different. Geographical distribution: Different regions reflect differences in income. For example, if the fan audience is all in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen and all in second- and third-tier cities, the content presented will inevitably be different. Interest tags: Here we need to subdivide the type of content. For example, workplace accounts may have different tags such as management, practical information, job hunting, etc.

4. Monetization Methods

Monetization is the top priority for us when making short videos. Before creating an account, we must consider clearly how to monetize our account, such as through knowledge payment, product promotion, advertising monetization, etc.

For example, if your benchmark account monetizes through knowledge payment, but you yourself are unable to monetize through knowledge payment, then you must carefully consider whether you should learn to imitate this type.

5. Notes

When looking for an account, you should also pay attention to some points that are easy to fall into:

• There are a lot of videos in total, and the total number of likes is high, but the average number of likes is not high, and there are few popular videos. This kind of natural traffic generated by videos with great effort is of little reference value.
• If an account has few likes for each video but a large number of followers, it is possible that the followers of this account were bought, and such an account has no reference value.

3. Disassembling the content of the benchmark account

Through the above dimensions, we can basically select 3 to 5 accounts of one type for key analysis. Further disassemble and analyze the content of these accounts, give priority to the popular content, and record it in a table, mainly disassemble the following dimensions:

1. Account Introduction

You need to tell users the value of your account as soon as possible . Currently, the mainstream is to present it with personal IP, showing past achievements and endorsements to give users a sense of trust.

2. Cover and Title

The cover and title are the key to whether users can be interested in the first place. The cover should be clear first, and it is recommended not to have too many elements, but to have a focus that guides users.

The title should be not too long, preferably within 15 words, and avoid uncommon characters, abbreviations, and professional terms. There are many techniques for titles on the Internet, such as using hot topics, using numbers, and question sentences, etc. I will not go into details here. It is recommended that each time you choose a title, you should vote within the team and choose the one with the highest audience.

3. Video Length

The length of the video should be determined according to the content of the video. The shortest one is within 15 seconds, and the longest one is more than 5 minutes. You can refer to the video length of the main benchmark accounts.

4. Release time period

This has a lot to do with the fan audience. The easiest way is to look at the publishing time of benchmark accounts with similar fan portraits, and follow them in the early stage.

5. Content in the first 3 seconds

The first 3 seconds of a video are crucial and directly determine the completion rate of the video. You can learn from the popular content of benchmark accounts and see how they did it in the first 3 seconds.

6. Content of the topic

You can divide the content of the popular videos into categories to see which content is the most popular. For example, workplace accounts may have content types such as workplace tips, workplace cases, management tips, work skills, etc.

7. Lens form

Simply distinguish the video content. Common scene types include long shot, close shot, medium shot, close-up, etc. Most accounts still choose medium and close shots.

8. Screen format

The screen format is mainly divided into horizontal and vertical screens. You can refer to the benchmark account.

9. Background Music

The background music should be selected according to the account type, and you can refer to the benchmark account.

10. Super Symbol

Super symbols use visuals and sounds to create a unique and memorable symbol, allowing people to quickly remember the account at the first sight. For example, the background or cover of each video is the same, the same sentence is said at the beginning and end of each video, and so on.

4. Do a good job of video account data analysis

After learning from the benchmark, we should frequently review and analyze the data of our videos when we publish them, so as to find out what we do well and what needs to be improved and optimized. Only by constantly reviewing can we operate the video account well. Pay attention to the following dimensions:

1. Views

The playback volume directly reflects the situation of your data. It is mainly to observe which videos have higher or lower playback volume than the average data, and conduct key analysis. Especially for popular videos, summarize the common points and use them more in subsequent videos.

2. Interactions

The interaction volume includes likes, comments, collections and reposts. These data need to be observed and recorded, but it should be noted that it is meaningless to only look at the interaction volume without referring to the playback volume.

3. Comment rate

Comment rate = number of comments / number of viewers. A high comment rate means that the video can inspire people to express themselves. What should we pay attention to? What factors can trigger users' comments?

4. Forwarding rate

Retweet rate = number of reposts/number of viewers . A high retweet rate means that the video makes users want to share it. It may be that the video hits the user's point of view and wants the video to speak for him. It may be that the user wants to become a certain type of person and shapes his image through the video. It may also be that the user feels that the video is valuable and wants to share it with others for learning.

5. Collection rate

Collection rate = number of collections / number of viewers

A high collection rate indicates that the video is useful to users and that users are willing to watch it repeatedly. However, if the collection rate is high, but the number of reposts and likes is low, then it may involve privacy issues, because everyone can see which friends have liked the video.

6. Like rate

Like rate = number of likes / number of views. The like rate alone does not explain much. You need to analyze the previous data and use the like rate as an auxiliary data. For example, if the forwarding rate and like rate of a video are both high, while other data are average, it means that users are very eager to share the video with others.

7. Increase in followers per video

A high number of followers not only shows that the video is valuable, but also that the video clearly shows the positioning of your account. Users are interested in this type of content and follow you to see more similar videos. The above forwarding rate, collection rate and other data need to refer to the industry average standard to see if your video has reached the passing line. You can also refer to the data of benchmark accounts.

I suggest that you review the above data in weekly units. If there is an increase in data, you should find out the reason for the increase, explore the advantages and continue to use them. If there is a decrease in data, you should find out the reason and correct it in time.

In the end, when we analyze the benchmark accounts, we should learn the core reasons for the success of the accounts, rather than blindly copying and plagiarizing their success. This is to learn from the success experience of better people!

Author: Yan Tao

Source: WeChat public account "Yan Tao Sanshou (ID: yantao-219)"