Source: Time Finance APP (ID: TF-APP), author: Zhou Jiabao, editor: Li Qian.
Beauty bloggers are no longer in the era of "lying and earning".
"This year’s environment is too bad. In 2021, my after-tax net income of double 11 was still 210,000 yuan, and by 2022, double 11 was reduced to 110,000 yuan. But in these two months, no matter how good the data is and how many times it appears on various lists, no brand has been found." A little red book blogger with 100,000 fans spoke in the video.
The biggest "618" in history is coming, but the beauty bloggers who received soft advertisements in previous years are not happy.
Consumers have shown all kinds of expectations for this mid-year promotion, and similar content on social media such as "cheaper than last year’s Double Eleven" and "this year’s activities are too strong" began to be screened. Recently, the management of Tmall and JD.COM Platform respectively stated that this "618" was the largest investment in history and the largest investment in the whole industry.
Behind the feast is the professional anxiety of countless beauty bloggers. The transformation has declined, the brand has been tightened, and the once-sipping can’t be bought by consumers. In such an environment, the arrival of the big promotion is more like a battle of winning and losing. They have easily earned millions of dollars a year and are overwhelmed by the higher and higher transformation KPI.
Not long ago, Nicole, who has more than 1.3 million fans, decided to switch from a full-time beauty blogger to a part-time one. In the released video, she bluntly said, "I don’t make money" and "my ceiling on the road from the media is probably here, and there may be a little upper limit, but not much." And more mid-waist beauty bloggers choose to cancel the contract and withdraw from the circle with MCN.
The era of lying and earning beauty bloggers is no longer there. In April this year, bilibili, which has hatched many phenomenal bloggers, was caught in a storm of public opinion, and topics such as "Millions of bloggers can’t get advertisements" were once fermented. Some people in the beauty industry lamented on social media, "Beauty bloggers have become the tears of the times."
01 150,000 powder in one night, and beauty bloggers earn millions a year.
As a full-time blogger, Lin Xuan (pseudonym) entered the company during the industry bonus period. At the beginning of 2018, the beauty area in bilibili was very lively, and many millions of beauty bloggers were very popular among young girls. Because of her love of beauty and her willingness to share with friends, Lin Xuan changed from a senior fan to an UP owner.
The speed of adding powder was beyond his expectation. After only three videos were released in bilibili, Lin Xuan quickly gained 15,000 fans and an olive branch from MCN, and stepped into the ranks of full-time beauty bloggers, focusing on long videos on two platforms: bilibili and Weibo.
"That was the best time for the industry. Under the arrangement of the company, I soon entered Tik Tok and Xiaohongshu to make short videos." Lin Xuan said that the explosive growth of the number of fans is the best example of the industry environment, among which the short video platform is growing faster. Shortly after he settled in Tik Tok in 2018, Lin Xuan harvested an explosion with more than 46,000 likes, and the powder rose by 150,000 overnight. The rapid growth trend will last until 2019, more than one year, and Lin Xuan’s single-platform fans in Tik Tok will increase from 0 to 700,000.
The number of fans is an important basis for beauty bloggers to realize business transformation. As early as before Lin Xuan entered the business, the first generation of beauty bloggers who were active in the China market had a considerable ability to attract gold by virtue of their huge number of fans.
From 2015 to 2017, the makeup video of Pony, a Korean blogger with over 60 million fans, exploded in China. On the opening day of her store in Taobao, Pony attracted 450,000 people and harvested a large number of young people in China. After 90s, the media entrepreneur "Late Night xu teacher" decided to transform from emotional content to fashion beauty, and its fans on the whole network quickly reached tens of millions, becoming frequent cooperators of L ‘Oré al, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and other brands. At the age of 27, xu teacher even made the Forbes media category "30 elites under the age of 30".
The rise of live e-commerce has added another fire to the industry. In 2018, Li Jiaqi broke through the tight encirclement on social media with the label of "Brother Lipstick" and became the dark horse of beauty KOL. According to media reports, on the first day of the double 11 in 2021 and 2022, the turnover of live broadcast rooms in Li Jiaqi exceeded 10.6 billion yuan and 14.7 billion yuan respectively.
In 2019, Lin Xuan only relied on the commercial transformation of video advertisements on two platforms, Weibo and Tik Tok, and its annual income exceeded one million yuan. "In 2018 -2019, my dual platforms in Weibo and Tik Tok received 31 advertisements at the most in a month, and the monthly income and the company’s Sanqi share can also exceed 200,000 yuan." At that time, the total number of videos produced in Lin Xuan was about 250 each year. "It doesn’t matter whether there is conversion or not."
In 2020, the sudden outbreak of the epidemic did not prevent beauty bloggers from making money. Locke, a little red book blogger who entered the game in 2020, soon received advertising orders from L ‘Oré al and other beauty brands, and his monthly income reached 60,000-70,000 yuan, with the highest month exceeding 200,000 yuan. He also revealed that the account operated by the head blogger in the same year, the advertising income received by the team behind it could reach tens of millions of yuan in a single month.
02 income diving, "it’s good not to drop powder"
Beauty bloggers earn a lot of money, which comes from the continuous large-scale investment of brand gold owners.
"Beauty content is the easiest to realize. Especially in consumer nodes such as holidays and big promotions, brands will definitely be launched regularly. They convert the cost of previous paper media or TV into a tiled delivery of KOL. " Locke said bluntly.
Estee Lauder executives pointed out at the 2020 annual report exchange meeting that 75% of the group’s marketing budget went to KOL marketing. According to CBNData, in 2020, short video platforms such as Tik Tok and Aauto Quicker will become the main channels for advertising in the beauty industry, with Tik Tok accounting for more than 24%. In 2021, the person in charge of the beauty industry of Tik Tok E-commerce Business Department also publicly revealed that there are 220,000 beauty videos uploaded on the platform every day, and 600 million plays are related to the beauty content.
However, Lin Xuan, who has worked for five years, clearly feels that the investment of the gold owners is shrinking. "The launch of domestic brands has been significantly reduced. In the past, Huaxizi’s advertisements averaged 1-2 a month, but now they receive 1-2 a year. There are still many domestic brands that have disappeared directly because they can’t get money. "
"Middle-waist bloggers should all have a 30% single volume decline". Locke took the "May 20" marketing node as an example, and his advertising volume was directly reduced from 8 last year to 5 this year. Some brand staff revealed to Locke that the KOL budget of the company has been directly reduced from 30 million yuan to 3 million yuan this year.
Zhang Keke, who works in a beauty salon MCN organization, said, "This year, major groups such as Estee Lauder and L ‘Oreal have not signed up. In previous years, they all cooperated with millions." Another staff member of the e-commerce department of a cutting-edge beauty brand also revealed that this year’s launch was directly from 1 to 0. "Last year’s talent launch and star launch were all suspended this year."
The reduction of brand launch directly leads to the shrinking income of beauty bloggers. At present, Locke’s monthly income is halved from 70,000-80,000 yuan to 30,000-40,000 yuan; The number of fans in Lin Xuan has increased from 700,000 in 2019 to 900,000 now, but it is difficult to return to the level of 200,000 yuan per month.
The commercial advertising revenue of Weibo Platform was once an important source of Lin Xuan’s revenue, but since 2021, the advertising revenue from Weibo has directly gone to zero. "No customers have come to find it, and no one has asked about Weibo’s content. Since 2022, my Weibo platform has stopped."
Not only that, but the advertising revenue of beauty bloggers from short videos is also declining. As early as 2020, the launch of beauty brands began to divert to KOL of film, television, funny and food. According to Quest Mobile, more than 20% of the beauty brand content is put on these three types of KOL.
With the decrease of short video revenue, many beauty bloggers began to devote themselves to live broadcast, but the increase of live broadcast also means that the account is more "commercial", which makes it difficult for fans to buy it. Lin Xuan introduced that many bloggers in the same company lost their powder much faster than their powder increase, and they lost thousands of fans a month. "It’s good not to lose powder now."
03 live broadcast of transformation is useless, beauty bloggers are losing their right to speak.
In addition to the decrease in income, the brand’s requirements for beauty bloggers are becoming more and more demanding.
Locke bluntly said, "In the past, the short video KOL of the brand was tiled, but now it is very accurate. We should consider the background data and personal image of this blogger and measure his delivery in a balanced way in all aspects. And the review of the content is also stricter. There are more and more additional conditions required for advertising. "
"In the past, it was very easy. I shot two videos and cut two videos a day. Now I am completely busy. I not only have to shoot videos, but also have to take care of live broadcast selection, scheduling and live broadcast-related video content, but my performance is still unstable." Lin Xuan was helpless, and his workload doubled, making him very busy every day.
Lin Xuan said that, unlike before, 60% of brand launches have set a guaranteed ROI. "If you don’t reach it, you will get a refund in equal proportion. For example, I charge 50,000 yuan for advertising, and the guaranteed ROI is 1:4, which means that I need to sell 200,000 yuan of goods. If I only sell 50,000 yuan of goods in the end, I will refund the advertising fee of 37,500 yuan to the brand. "
There are some explosive products that are recognized by the market itself, and the ROI guarantee requirements for beauty bloggers to take orders will be higher. Lin Xuan revealed that the guaranteed conversion of a domestic sunscreen product was as high as 1:10.
"Only live broadcasts have direct conversion. Now the company hopes that every blogger will become a pure anchor. " Like many beauty bloggers, Lin Xuan began to slowly shift its focus to live broadcast in 2020.
The live broadcast of transformation can’t make beauty bloggers sit back and relax. A beauty blogger told Time Finance that apart from the head anchor, the live broadcast content of middle waist beauty bloggers is very homogeneous, and the phenomenon of grabbing products among peers is also very common.
At the same time, more mid-waist beauty anchors are also facing the problem of weakening their right to speak. A Ling, who plans marketing for several beauty brands, revealed to Time Finance that beauty brands have put forward higher requirements for the delivery effect.
Taking Tik Tok Live Broadcasting as an example, the cooperation between most brands and MCN institutions has become a pure commission mode (that is, there is no pit fee, only a commission will be paid for the sale). If you are a head blogger, you are required to give more additional services such as video promotion and avatar authorization while giving the pit fee.
Although the head anchor can still ask the brand for lower prices and more gifts to enhance the competitiveness of the live broadcast room. However, some insiders revealed to the media that the final sales of the live broadcast rooms in Li Jiaqi during the "3.8" festival this year were not as good as expected.
In the past few years as a beauty blogger, Lin Xuan has witnessed the overnight rise of brands and the disappearance of many brands from consumers’ sight. The era of lying and earning is gone forever, but Lin Xuan still hasn’t considered transforming other fields. "Because I still love this content, I can only do a live broadcast first."
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