Capital play can not turn to middle-aged and elderly social?

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There is a saying that "post-70s" are online refugees, "post-80s" are online immigrants, and "post-90s" are the indigenous people of the internet. Before the 70s who were "not commented on", they were regarded as the marginal people of the Internet.

However, under the trend of traffic inward volume, the screen held by middle-aged and elderly people may also hide the last traffic depression.

Coupled with the intensification of the aging of the population structure, the spending power of the elderly is also regarded as a potential "gold mine". Not only do they prefer a variety of health care products, but their spiritual needs for social entertainment are equally strong.

As capital and big factories scrambled to enter the game, the wind of silver-haired social networking also blew for several years. However, just like the Internet gangsters can't play the post-00 social network, the middle-aged and elderly social track has not yet rushed out of a phenomenon-level product, and there are many projects that have broken the sand.

Is the social networking of middle-aged and elderly people that capital has coveted for a long time a good business?

01

There is no shortage of good stories in the social track for middle-aged and elderly people.

Two months ago, Mei Zhang and well-known actor He Bing performed an advertising film "Front Wave" with the theme of "Seeing Different Middle-aged and Elderly People".

The film tells the story of a group of uncles and aunts who are rare in the past and "ride the wind and waves". Some of them dabble in cycling, mountaineering, fitness, extreme sports, some play rock, photography, catwalk, Cosplay. Looks like they can play more than young people.

Once upon a time, many people's cognition of middle-aged and elderly people still stayed on stereotypes such as "rejecting new things", "poor learning ability", and "old-fashioned and conservative".

This is especially true in the age of the Internet. Middle-aged and elderly people have always been regarded as "digital immigrants" or "digital refugees" who have been turned away.

In fact, the story of middle-aged and elderly people and the Internet is far less simple than we think.

As the last traffic depression of the Internet, middle-aged and elderly people have long been the object of competition for Internet companies. Under the impetus of policies, major mainstream apps have carried out age-appropriate transformation.

Taobao and Douyin launched the "elder mode", Kuaishou and Himalaya launched the "big character mode", Meituan launched the "voice interaction mode", Didi launched the "help the elderly mode".......

In addition to software, hardware manufacturers such as mobile phones and tablets have also tried to reduce the difficulty of using middle-aged and elderly people, developing simple modes, enlarging logos, simplifying page settings and even imitating physical keys.

Rather than responding to policies, it is better to say that major software and hardware manufacturers are taking precautions and competing to win over middle-aged and elderly users.

Middle-aged and elderly people are integrated into the Internet. They have plenty of time for entertainment and even love surfing the web more than young people.

According to CNNIC data, by the end of 2020, 51.1% of middle-aged and elderly netizens in the country spent more than 4 hours a day online, while the average daily Internet time of all age netizens was only 3.74 hours.

Some people also described a very typical microcosm of the elderly's online life: using American articles or small rice cakes to import photos into mobile phones, making videos with BGM (background music), learning square dance with jelly beans, brushing short videos with Vibrato and Kuaishou, chatting with WeChat and QQ, watching news with headlines and NetEase, shopping with Pinduoduo and Taobao, and finally spending time with national K songs and happy consumption.

From a market perspective, the spending power of the elderly is also a potential gold mine.

According to the data of the seventh national census, the population aged 60 and above in the mainland exceeds 264 million, accounting for 18.7%. By 2025, this figure will exceed 300 million. That is, one in every 5 people is over 60 years old.

From a longer span, the mainland population over 60 years old will reach 487 million in 2053. According to the National Social Science Foundation's "Research on Pension Consumption and Pension Industry Development" research group, by 2050, the mainland elderly consumer market will reach 60 trillion yuan.

Compared with the previous generation, the "new retirees" represented by the post-60s generation have stronger spending power and willingness. After the "fan economy" and "single economy", the "silver economy" is also becoming the most hardcore new consumer force at present.

Compared with various health care products, the spirit of this year's middle-aged and elderly people in social entertainment is stronger. Some surveys have found that they spend more money on social entertainment education than on health care products.

At a time when many people still believe in "getting the world for young people", the capital with a keen sense of smell has already begun to lay out the social track for middle-aged and elderly people. Tencent Investment, IDG, BAI, Shunwei Capital, Matrix Partners China, Zhen Fund and so on rushed in.

02

At the beginning of 2022, capital has locked its eyes on the middle-aged and elderly groups.

First of all, the middle-aged and elderly online interest community "Red Pine Academy" received a financing of 100 million yuan led by BAI Capital, and the old shareholders Jingwei Venture Capital, Genesis Partner Capital and Lanchi Venture Capital followed the investment, refreshing the largest single financing record in the field.

Subsequently, the middle-aged and elderly interest learning platform "Ming Chun Society" under the opening of the course bar completed two rounds of financing in less than two months. One of them is a 10 million yuan strategic financing led by well-known domestic pharmaceutical and health enterprises.

For a time, the middle-aged and elderly groups seemed to have become the darlings of capital again. In fact, as early as around 2015, a battle to bet on the "uncle and aunt" market has begun.

At that time, a wave of square dance fever was set off across the country, and the cultural and social needs of middle-aged and elderly people were increasing. Capital and entrepreneurs are also beginning to test the waters.

A number of light social platforms such as small rice cakes, jelly bean square dance, music dance, love square dance, dancing dance, and le retirement have been launched one after another.

Among them, Jelly Bean Video is a typical representative of the square dance community. It was launched in September 2015 and won four rounds of financing in 2016 and a new round of financing in 2019. So far, it has accumulated $100 million in financing. The capital behind it includes Well-known investment institutions such as Tencent Investment, Shunwei Capital, IDG, GGV, and Red Dot Venture Capital.

As a representative of the graphic creation and sharing tool, the beautiful article is also highly sought after by capital. It was established in March 2015 and has received six rounds of financing of 180 million yuan from investment institutions such as Tencent, Matrix Venture Capital, Zhen Fund, and Mango Cultural Creation.

Meiwen was originally positioned as a graphic creation tool for users of all ages. In September 2021, it began to transform from a graphic tool to a "not confused" content community, and the target audience began to change to middle-aged and elderly people.

Overall, at this time, many entrepreneurial projects focus on content services such as square dance, graphic creation tools, video album production and short videos.

In order to seize the silver social outlet, a lot of capital has invested in more than one area.

Tencent, the social "one brother", may be the company with the most social projects for the elderly in the middle. There are Tencent behind the jelly beans and the beauty chapter.

In addition to investing in the Red Pine Academy of the social circuit, BAI Capital also invested in the gong and palladium technology of the entertainment track.

In 2019, weChat Mini Programs, which have been online for two years, are in the limelight, supporting many small programs in the social field of middle-aged and elderly people.

Small rice cakes, national K songs, ticket circle long videos, jelly beans and other products have caught up with the outlet of WeChat Mini Programs, and have developed rapidly in the silver market, grabbing a wave of traffic dividends.

After the audio album production tool Xiao Mochi launched the Mini Program function on WeChat, it launched its own Mini Program in time. In 2019, its Mini Program user scale ranked first for a long time, with a total user volume of more than 500 million, a monthly active activity of more than 200 million, and a monthly advertising revenue of more than 10 million.

Founded in 2019, the Red Pine Academy was also originally parasitic in the WeChat ecosystem. After running through the business model on the Mini Program, an independent app was launched.

Red Pine Academy is committed to the "interest socialization" of middle-aged and elderly people, providing online entertainment, live courses and other community services. Through the "small station" model, it integrates teachers from all over the world, covering hundreds of majors such as vocal music, musical instruments, calligraphy, painting, and dance.

According to a Mini Program Top100 list in July 2019, the small rice cakes, national K songs, ticket circle long videos, jelly bean videos, and watching happy channels gathered by middle-aged and elderly people ranked among the top 15 users of mini programs.

2020 is a watershed year for the social racetrack for seniors. The WeChat traffic dividend peaked, and some platforms began to decline. And the attitude of capital has also turned from hot to cold.

This year, the scale of small rice cake mini program users dropped by 60% and ranked 15th. The small program for the production of middle-aged and elderly music albums launched by Kuaishou did not persist for half a year and then "stopped". Many tool-based products are also facing transformation, and the content community is one of the mainstream directions.

2020 is also a trough in the financing of the social track for middle-aged and elderly people. Capital no longer provides sufficient "ammunition", and the financing of many head players is mostly stuck in 2019 and before.

03

Internet manufacturers have always believed that "those who get young people win the world". Tencent, Momo, Weibo and other established social platforms, as well as B station, soul, etc. all want to catch the post-00s.

Tencent has launched 10 social apps in 2019, including cats, light chats, notes, friends, echoes, lantern encounters, happy encounters, etc., trying to avoid any gaps in the social empire through casting a wide net.

Even so tossed, there is still no social app on the market that is truly exclusive to young people. One can't help but wonder if Gen Z socials may be hidden in the metaverse.

Ma Huateng once said: "When we first made QQ, we were young, but as we got older, we found that many young people like to play and we couldn't understand it. ”

Just like the Internet gangsters can't play post-00 social networking, the elderly social networking is also a difficult bone to gnaw. Capital has come and gone, so that many middle-aged and elderly social projects such as fire cooking oil flowers are brocade, but there are also many folded sand or feathers returned.

2015 is known as the first year of square dance, and more than 60 square dance apps have been launched in 2 years. But after a lot of sand, most of them have stopped or transformed because they have not found a clear profit model.

Jelly Bean is one of the few survivors, even taking the top spot in square dancing socially through its own iteration. On the one hand, thanks to the early start, its own achievements are outstanding. It is also because of the capital boss and get enough "feeding".

In 2017, Jelly Beans began to try to monetize. Launching the "Bean Mall" in the community has also added a lot of e-commerce and medical information flow advertisements to the content. But at that time, its e-commerce conversion rate was less than one in 10,000.

Even the Red Pine Academy, which just received 100 million yuan of financing at the beginning of the year, claims to "serve more than 10 million retirees and has thousands of webmasters", and its volume and scale need to be further developed.

At the beginning of March, some singing bar employees broke the news that the singing bar would force sanctioners, and the middle-aged and elderly business lines would all be cut.

At the end of 2021, Sing Bar just launched the "Peanut Classroom", an entertainment education platform for the middle-aged and elderly, providing free live courses including Chinese painting and vocal music for middle-aged and elderly people. According to the person in charge of the business, the peanut classroom seems to be doing education, but in fact, it is still more entertainment and social.

This direction of entry is similar to that of the middle-aged and elderly interest community "Red Pine Academy", but the fate of the two is diametrically opposite. Red Pine Academy has just received the largest financing on the track, while the Peanuts Classroom business has no relevant entrances and apps.

Many middle-aged and elderly social projects have stopped operating, and there are many reasons behind it. However, in essence, it is still difficult to monetize commercialization. Many monetization models such as e-commerce, advertising, live tips, paid courses, and member value-added services have not been effectively verified in the social networking of the elderly.

Even if the number of users claims to be more than 500 million and the number of monthly active users is hundreds of millions, the advertising revenue is only tens of millions.

In addition, most of the elderly social products are also facing the pursuit and interception of mainstream apps, and they are highly replaced.

In order to break the traffic dilemma, Douyin and Kuaishou will broaden the target group to the elderly group.

By inviting stars to settle in, Douyin has supported a number of large trumpets such as You Benchang, Uncle Mo Na, and Grandpa Little Naughty Boy. Kuaishou held square dance competitions, supported elderly Internet celebrities with traffic, and added creative content in the vertical field of middle-aged and elderly people.

In addition, Xiaohongshu also launched a "friend video" to try to "plant grass" for middle-aged and elderly people...

For middle-aged and elderly people, interest and circle layer are two anchor points to meet social satisfaction, so interest courses and UGC content are the mainstream content forms of middle-aged and elderly community products, and at the same time have a certain traffic entrance.

However, it is not easy to meet these conditions at the same time. Moreover, it is also an indisputable fact that it is difficult for community products to make profits. The valuation of Xiaohongshu is 20 billion yuan, but the road to realization is still bumpy. The B station business has been losing money for many years, and the stock price has been cut.

The middle-aged and elderly population is an incremental market full of structural opportunities. Capital and big factories will still bet on the silver-haired social track. How to do a good job of commercialization of social projects for the elderly needs to be further explored.