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Text/Chen Fashan
Source/Leopard Change (ID: baobiannews)
Douyin is trying to make a big splash in the medical field.
After byte layout of women’s and children’s hospital, oral care, tumor treatment and other sectors, recently, Douyin launched the first phase of the new star plan of medical MCN institutions. During the period from October 31 to December 4, medical and health MCN institutions only need to develop Enough qualified doctors post short videos on Douyin, and they can get up to 1 million data pack rewards.
The business has not been moved, and the big V is the first. This development idea has been verified and effective in the field of live broadcast and short video delivery, and life services. Now it is being copied by Douyin to the medical and health field.
However, unlike other fields that can make steady profits as long as they play with traffic, products, and conversions, medical big Vs have to carefully maintain a balance between traffic, compliance, and monetization. A little carelessness may touch the red line, and years of accumulation will pay East flow.
Especially in June this year, the medical short video accounts certified by Huang V were banned from short videos and live broadcasts, and the commercial value of such accounts was greatly reduced. At the same time, more and more medical staff are pouring into this track. Are they all here for health science popularization?
In fact, there are not only the planning of the Douyin operation team, but also the gray interest chain hidden under the surface of science popularization to fuel the flames.
Medical has become a bonanza for short video traffic?
“Parents beware! A 7-year-old girl with a high fever for a week was diagnosed with ‘kissing disease’. Especially some fathers and elderly people like to hold their children and kiss them fiercely. In fact, your saliva may contain Epstein-Barr virus, which can easily cause children to be infected. Serious It will cause damage to various organs and even endanger life. Parents must be vigilant and stop kissing their children at will.”
Chen Cheng (pseudonym), who has just become a father, turned on Douyin and was accurately recommended a medical science video. A doctor was explaining that parents kissing babies may cause children to be infected with “kissing disease”. In addition to the algorithm playing a role behind this, there is also the boost of the Douyin medical and health team.
The above-mentioned video is part of the Douyin Medical MCN Rising Star Project, which is planning to attack doctors from top tertiary hospitals across the country and let them post short videos on Douyin to do health science content. In the “Douyin Medical and Health Popular Topics Library” obtained by “Leopard Change”, about 30 health-related Internet hot topics are updated every day, and video bloggers are guided to record relevant content.
On November 29th, “Kiss Disease” was in the topic pool and was marked as a four-star popularity.
The top column of the topic library is marked in bold. Participating in related topics will get more traffic and popular video recommendations, and get more attention on the Douyin hot list. This hits off with medical MCN institutions that need traffic support to operate Douyin accounts.
The short video platform, which started with brainwashing music and entertainment content, is trying to retain users through precise operations after the traffic peaks. Health care has become the common goal of Douyin and Kuaishou.
The “2021 Kuaishou Big Health Industry Data Value Report” released by Kuaishou shows that in October 2021, the average interaction volume of the Big Health video was 118.0% higher than that of Kuaishou’s overall video; the average interaction volume of Big Health live broadcast was 394.9% higher than that of Kuaishou’s overall live broadcast; and doctor-seeing videos have the highest inventory; health sales and gender knowledge have the highest average playback volume. Medical health has become a traffic bonanza for short video platforms.
In addition to the high flow rate, medical customers have always been willing to spend money on promotion, which has also become an important reason why major manufacturers have deployed medicine and medical care.
But even if Douyin and Kuaishou intend to support them and are constrained by the system, doctors still face many restrictions if they want to become Internet celebrities. Doctors from several tertiary hospitals in Hangzhou and Wenzhou told “Leopard Change” that the hospitals are now “catch up” and that doctors are not allowed to go out for consultations. Doctors are not allowed to operate Douyin IP privately, and all of them are required to be managed by the hospital. Public hospitals certainly don’t want their doctors to leave and practice in more places, which will affect the image and reputation of the hospital.
According to media reports, a chief physician in Zhengzhou had nearly a million followers on Douyin, and many patients came here admiringly. For his own self-interest, the doctor diverted patients to third-party hospitals for medical treatment and profited from it. In the end, the matter was revealed, and his Douyin account was also banned.
“At most, I sell food in the employee group, and do micro-business of skin care products. I don’t see any doctors around me selling medicine or privately diverting them to other hospitals for treatment.” A doctor from a tertiary hospital in Wenzhou said. “The hospital’s official account is spent money to hire an outside company to operate and plan it, which is mutually beneficial. After all, it takes time and effort to create an account. Usually, I am very busy at work, and no one in the department has time to do this.”
However, some medical IP incubators said that if they don’t want to get close to the resources of the hospital, who would like to earn a small amount of money and work hard to help the hospital set up an account?
In fact, it is an indisputable fact that many doctors have gone out of the circle to become “Internet celebrities”, and many of them are doctors from well-known top three hospitals in the country. Usually, doctors appear on the scene to explain medical science, and the hired staff or the cooperative MCN team are responsible for filming, editing and account operation.
The hidden danger of this model is that after the account is enlarged, disputes between the two parties are likely to arise due to issues such as profit distribution and operation direction. Similar to Li Ziqi and Weinian Company going to court because of the account, the super big V of “Li Ziqi” is completely indifferent. .
For patients, seeing a “net celebrity” doctor does not guarantee the curative effect. Perhaps after paying a high price, what they get is the service of a doctor who is more slick with short videos. In essence, they are paying for traffic and marketing.
“It’s all about popular science, but it’s all about business”
The medical and health track seems to be lively, but in fact it is also facing the dilemma of difficulty in realizing it.
Short video platforms are naturally suitable for planting grass and impulsive consumption. Therefore, in the past few years, a large number of short video players have chosen short videos and live streaming after making a name for themselves. According to media reports, the Douyin e-commerce payment GMV is expected to nearly double this year, reaching about 1.5 trillion yuan; the Kuaishou e-commerce payment GMV is expected to increase by 26% year-on-year this year, reaching about 410 billion yuan.
But this monetization model does not work in the healthcare field. On June 6 this year, nine ministries and commissions, including the National Health and Medical Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, and the State Administration for Market Regulation, jointly issued the “Key Points for Correcting Unhealthy Practices in the Field of Pharmaceutical Purchase and Sales and Medical Services in 2022”, requiring that medical institutions and their staff across the country Continue to promote the “Integrity Practitioner Action Plan”, “seriously investigate and deal with medical institution staff taking advantage of their positions and identities to carry goods”, and stop the growing chaos in the medical field.
According to the observations of industry insiders, some medical workers used to choose products related to their own IP to carry goods, such as medical beauty products, health tea, health care products or small personal care appliances. From the perspective of efficacy, these products are “IQ tax” products that do not cause much harm, but have no effect. Such products often have a high premium and need to rely on the IP of medical staff to support the high price, but it is the reputation of doctors and hospitals that is damaged.
After the document was issued, Douyin and Kuaishou successively closed the product sharing function of the medical and health-certified creator accounts, and the realization of some such accounts also went under the water.
A veteran of medical and health IP incubation told “Leopard Change” that although there is no way to bring goods, there are other ways to monetize medical accounts. The most common is that doctors practice more in addition to working in the hospital and direct patients to private hospitals. flow. “Doctors in any department see what diseases, and well-done accounts are generally vertical diseases, or even consumer diseases.” The person said.
This move is undoubtedly subject to institutional constraints and arouses controversy in public opinion. Why do many big doctor Vs directly type their names, positions, and hospitals directly on the video? The person said that the institutional environment of each hospital is different, and it mainly depends on the leadership. In the era of short videos, hospitals also have needs for external publicity and health science popularization, and they also operate short video accounts, but less for the purpose of diversion.
However, the accounts incubated by medical MCNs, pharmaceutical device companies, and third-party medical service organizations have a strong impulse to realize cash and are not managed by hospitals.
After the monetization of e-commerce was blocked, online consultation and payment for knowledge became the standard equipment for many doctors to “generate income”. Take the Douyin account of a chief physician of a tertiary hospital in Shanghai as an example. In the lower left corner of the video, there is a link “Xiaohe’s health, make an appointment for outpatient clinic”.
After “Leopard Change” makes an appointment as a patient, the system prompts that it is necessary to go to the hospital where the doctor is located and pay a registration fee of 50 yuan, which is the same as the registration fee on the hospital’s official website.
The above-mentioned medical and health IP incubation veteran said that it is difficult for doctors and the operating agencies behind them to make money if they only look at the registration fee. The payment for medical knowledge is similar to this, and it is also difficult to expand the scale of revenue.
“However, some doctors will use their accounts to guide offline consultations and earn money for back-end business.” The person said. “Establish doctor IP, increase doctors’ offline patients, and then divert patients to cooperative private hospitals or physical stores to sell disease-related packages.”
Because doctors generally lack video shooting and account operation capabilities, the private domain traffic of some doctors’ accounts is in the hands of private hospitals and store personnel. “Look at where the private domain customer service guides people. The words are all about popular science, and the backside is all about business.” The person said.
How are Byte’s medical ambitions beating?
Behind the frequent placement in medical and health care is the ambition that ByteDance cannot hide.
This point may have been planted since the founder Zhang Yiming filled out his application for the college entrance examination. In 2018, Zhang Yiming revealed in a conversation with Qian Yingyi, Dean of the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University, that when he filled out his university volunteer application, his favorite major was biology.
When “retiring” in 2021, Zhang Yiming said in an email to all employees that the impact of virtual reality, life sciences, and scientific computing on human life has dawned, and we need to break through the inertia of business to explore.
According to iResearch, the scale of my country’s Internet healthcare market will exceed 70 billion yuan in 2022 and approach 90 billion yuan in 2023. Corresponding to this is the huge growth potential of the Internet medical vertical content market. It is estimated that the market size will reach 6.9 billion yuan in 2023, of which the C-end revenue is expected to account for 60%, entering a mature period of commercial realization. By 2025, the potential realization scale of the content ecology centered on medical vertical content will reach 30 billion yuan.
In 2020, Byte has already begun to build its own medical map. Unlike Ali and JD.com, which started as an e-commerce company and entered the medical field by relying on drug retail, the early Byte did not have e-commerce genes, so it relied more on content platforms such as Toutiao and Douyin, starting from information distribution and health information tracks Layout, and then turn to the subdivided diagnosis and treatment field.
“Leopard Change” based on incomplete statistics from public informationJudging from the operation mode of Byte in e-commerce and life services, MCN organizations, celebrities or experts are usually allowed to drive the content ecology first, and after the usage habits of the B-side and C-side are developed, they are then grafted into the mature cash that has been verified by the industry channel.
“Leopard Change” searched for a certain pain-relief plaster on Douyin. Although there were no product links on Douyin’s “Video” and “Live Streaming” channels, in the “Commodity” channel and Douyin’s top home page “Tiktok Mall”, There are third-party small shops selling this pain relief plaster, and the price of 16 stickers is about 340 yuan. When searching for the same patch on Taobao, the flagship store of a pharmaceutical company and Ali Health Pharmacy rank in the forefront, and the price of 16 patches is around 195 yuan.
It can be seen that although Douyin has obvious traffic advantages, it has not yet been converted into drug sales. Whether it is the platform ecology, the importance of pharmaceutical companies, user buying habits or the price of drugs, there is a big gap with mature e-commerce platforms.
For many industries, making money is often directly proportional to traffic, but medicine and medical care are very special and sensitive. Big traffic and high popularity are sometimes not a good thing. The real money-making model is often kept secret. Regulatory action.
In March 2021, some media questioned the proliferation of “miracle doctors” and “miracle medicine” on the short video platform, which caused the short video platform to strengthen management. In the first quarter of 2021, Douyin removed nearly 700,000 short medical and health videos that violated regulations. Kuaishou also discovered through monitoring that a large number of authentication accounts submitted by the three MCN institutions in Tianjin, Henan, and Beijing contained false materials, and canceled the authentication of 183 accounts submitted by the three institutions.
Compliance and policies are always the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of medical players, and a little carelessness may ruin all previous efforts. Some people in the industry said that certified doctors have not yet made money selling health care products. Under the current situation, certified doctors can only do medical science popularization. The platform cracks down on private diversions to third-party institutions for medical treatment, and many diversion accounts cannot continue.
From the perspective of the interests of all parties, the Rising Star Program of the medical MCN organization is usually in charge of the various vertical operation teams of Douyin, focusing more on assessing topics, the number and popularity of bloggers, and sharing with the e-commerce team in charge of GMV and the Aurora department in charge of the big health business. Belonging to different lines, it remains to be seen whether they can form a joint force in the future.
From the perspective of medical IP incubation, medical and health science popularization has its social value, but due to the temptation to realize it, under the cloak of light, it is inevitable that some people will go astray. Therefore, it is even more necessary for practitioners to return to the original heart of doctors.
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