On June 26th, at the 15th anniversary celebration of station B, Chen Rui, CEO of station B, reviewed the data of inbound users in 2009, and among the top ten videos in terms of playback, ACG accounted for half of the country. Today, these users are 35 years old, most of them are still active in station B, and their favorite is the second element, which shows that the heart of the second element is always hot-blooded.
Station B was established in 2009year,It was still on the eve of the mobile Internet,At that time, short video had not yet risen,Long video was monopolized by Aiyouteng,No one thinks that Station B will become a subversive of the medium and long video track in the future。 Station B is also misunderstood as non-mainstream due to the two-dimensional culture and the "embarrassing" positioning between long and short videos.
If Station B sticks to the second dimension, it may disappear like other niche communities. In fact, Station B can occupy a place in the content track, which is inseparable from its continuous breaking of the circle and breaking through the comfort zone. This not only meets the demand for rich content for user growth, but also brings new business opportunities.
Station B, which broke the circle, met with more users
After the "2019 Most Beautiful Night" New Year's Eve party came out of the circle, in 2020, Station B successively released the May Fourth Youth Day brand film "Hou Lang", the graduation song "Into the Sea" and the brand film "Happy Meeting", collectively known as the "Wave Trilogy", which means "Happy Encounter in the Back Waves into the Sea". Station B, which does not hide its ambition to break the circle, hopes to attract more future waves with high-quality video content.
The 15th anniversary celebration of station B can be regarded as a summary of the expectations of the year. Station B, which carries the genes of the second dimension, house dance, animation, and games, has attracted more and more different types of UP owners in the process of continuous growth, and different categories of content collide with each other, making it a community where diverse users gather.
In Chen Rui's view, high-quality content is the main reason for the growth of station B. As the users of Bilibili grow older, they will have a demand for learning, life, fashion, technology, workplace and other content, which will motivate UP owners to produce more new content and bring new users.
As early as 2021, Bilibili became one of the largest online self-learning platforms in China, with more than 100 million people studying at Bilibili.
Taking Jiang Ping, who has been popular recently, as an example, in other platforms that pursue rapid monetization, mathematics may only be a short-term traffic bonanza. But in today's station B, mathematics has become a habit of users.
At the 15th anniversary celebration, Chen Rui showed a set of data: the top 10 videos played by inbound users in 2022 are all science and engineering subjects such as advanced mathematics, university physics, and computer science.
"I can't believe that young people nowadays love to learn so much!" Chen Rui sighed.
Source: Chen Rui's speech at the 15th anniversary celebration of Station B
Behind user habits is the support of platform rules.
On short video platforms where traffic is king, the completion rate is a key indicator to determine the number of times a video is recommended, and if the video is too long, it will be swept away by users, and the system will reduce the number of recommendations. As a result, most of the short video content pursues short, flat and fast, which is not suitable for serious learning.
On Bilibili, professional content is more popular with users. Chen Rui once said that for the original creator, station B is the most friendly platform, an original video author, no need to buy advertising, no need to hype himself, just need to seriously create high-quality content, continue to contribute, there must be a chance to become popular on station B.
Therefore, when short video creators regard "golden 3 seconds" as the guideline, many UP masters who do not have a large number of fans but are "specialized, refined, special and new" (professional, exquisite, distinctive, and trendy) have found another world at station B.
With content breaking the circle, new users joining, and old users continuing to be active, Bilibili has not only become a paradise for young people's interests and hobbies, but also a gathering place for young people's life and consumption.
The data shows that in 2023, the playback volume of games, food, and knowledge categories at Station B will increase by more than 20% year-on-year, the growth rate of technology, fitness, and home improvement and home furnishing will exceed 40%, the growth rate of automobile content will exceed 50%, and the average daily playback volume of mother, baby and parent-child categories will increase by more than 110% year-on-year.
Make the community a good business
For a long period of time, in order to maintain the community atmosphere, Station B was very restrained in commercialization. After breaking the circle, with the increase in users' acceptance of commercialization, the increase in the number of UP masters, and the growth of Bilibili's demand for profit, Bilibili has been able to achieve a balance of commercialization while maintaining a good community atmosphere.
At present, Bilibili has more than 340 million monthly active users and more than 20 million full-time login users every month. The richness of the content library and the active community ecology not only enhance the stickiness of users, but also provide advertisers with opportunities for accurate delivery and monetization, which was unimaginable in the past at Bilibili.
Source: Chen Rui's speech at the 15th anniversary celebration of Station B
Taking the hottest AI in recent years as an example, how should AI companies find users when the large model is formed? From the perspective of user portraits, young people are more willing to try new things and are more receptive to new things such as AI; From the perspective of customer acquisition channels, AI is more suitable for in-depth explanation of professional knowledge due to its high technical and cognitive threshold.
Bilibili has the characteristics of high youth density and strong community learning atmosphere, with more than 80 million users watching AI-related videos every month, of which 60% of users are post-00s. The user group of Bilibili is highly compatible with AI and has become a must for AI companies. More than ninety percent of domestic AI manufacturers choose to communicate with users on station B.
In addition to AI, automotive content is also very popular at station B. Market research data shows that among the post-95s who have not yet bought a car, nearly eighty percent plan to buy their first car before the age of 30. In the first quarter of this year, Bilibili's car videos attracted an average of 73 million users per month, with an average daily playback of more than 80 million, a year-on-year increase of 71% over the past year.
Young people's attention to cars has made Station B the core discussion field of new energy vehicles.
UP owner "@搞机所" once produced a review of the "New M7 Parking Challenge", and the video attracted nearly 450,000 views in less than two days after its release.
Source: Station B UP main @ machine station
In the cramped underground garage, the UP owner has a Ferrari to the left and a Lamborghini to the right. These two expensive "neighbors" always like to squeeze into his parking space, so that he can't afford to pay for the fear of scraping a luxury car, and he is terrified when he parks every day. In the end, the smart parking feature solved his frustration.
Although it can be seen that it is an advertisement, this real life scene still resonates with users, and the professional video content is irresistible to users who want to buy a car, thus becoming a reference for them when buying a car.
In addition, the enthusiasm of Bilibili users for professional content has made some businesses that pursue brand quality and technical capabilities, even very niche businesses, break through on Bilibili.
For example, the niche category of ink screen, by co-creating content for different usage scenarios with the UP owner, has successfully achieved million-level playback of commercial orders. For another example, a sports training UP owner's tailor-made content for a certain massager still brought a significant increase in sales 6 months after its release.
By co-creating content with UP masters trusted by fans in various circles, and using professional knowledge to attract users, it has become the basic logic of the commercialization of station B. This kind of cooperation not only brings exposure and sales to merchants, but also provides users with a more transparent content experience.
Why is Bilibili willing to accompany users to grow up?
For many platforms, monetization is often equated with traffic. In fact, monetization is not only related to traffic, but also related to the user's spending power.
The data shows that station B may be the community with the highest concentration of young people, and nearly seventy percent of China's post-90s (including post-00s) are active in station B. Many of them may still be studying and have limited consumption power temporarily, but when young people gradually complete the transformation from campus to joining society, Station B, which has been growing up with users, has a basis for commercialization.
The first batch of two-dimensional users who settled in station B have now started a family, and when they grow up, they encounter practical problems such as buying a house and decorating, raising a baby, etc., and will look for answers to fireworks at station B, and also bring more business opportunities to UP owners who can answer user questions.
The UP master "Engineer Zhang Decoration in Beijing" has more than 40,000 fans, relying on the account matrix to attract traffic to the decoration team behind it, and realizing more than 100 million a year. Judging from the video content, "Engineer Zhang" himself appeared, a few minutes of oral broadcast and rough editing, the creation cost is not high, and the number of broadcasts is usually only a few thousand, but because the content is down-to-earth, it can always attract users who are troubled by decoration.
In fact, whether it is matrix operation or monetization of private domain drainage through video, there is nothing new about "Engineer Zhang"'s play, but thanks to the more relaxed competitive environment of station B, the ROI of video production is very high, and the business opportunities are greater.
Of course, the users of station B have grown from the young two-dimensional to the main group of consumers, and the constant point is the demand for high-quality content. As Chen Rui said in his speech on the 11th anniversary of Station B in 2020, he hopes to wait until the 15th and 20th anniversaries of Station B, and when the first batch of users reach the age of 40, when their children ask them what is Station B? He was able to answer like this: Bilibili is a wonderful community, with many talented UP masters and a variety of excellent video content.
Nowadays, the first generation of users of Bilibili may have entered middle age one after another, and their demand for content is changing.
At the same time, there are still more waves of back waves coming here and continuing to grow in the company of station B.