Top “fitness blogger” Liu Genghong

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Author | Zhang Lin Editor | Cao Yang

Source: Burning Dimension

Perhaps Liu Genghong himself did not expect that one day he would become the top of the fitness industry.

During the epidemic at home, in order to appeal to everyone not to forget to exercise, Liu Genghong started a live broadcast and took everyone to “cloud fitness” with his lover. With the halo of a star coach, he quickly attracted a group of fans, but because he was not familiar with the rules of the live broadcast room, he made netizens “laugh and cry”.

Because of his “too good figure” and “too tight clothes”, Liu Genghong’s live broadcast room was banned twice by the platform for violations. But Liu Genghong, who was “more frustrated and braver”, stubbornly put on a down jacket and continued the live broadcast. Unexpectedly, after talking about Jay Chou who was sick in the live broadcast and wishing him good health, Liu Genghong was judged by the platform to be involved in medical health in the live broadcast room after fans swiped his blessings and was banned for the third time.

The three live broadcast rooms were blocked, making Liu Genghong “blessed in disguise” to mention many hot searches and completely out of the circle. Not only did it attract a large number of melon eaters to flock to the live broadcast room, many stars represented by Zhong Liti and his wife and Chen Haomin’s family also began to check in one after another.

As of the press release of Ranjing Finance, Liu Genghong’s official Douyin account has more than 22 million fans, and it has risen to more than 10 million in 7 days. The number of fans is approaching half of Li Jiaqi’s, making it one of the most popular live broadcast rooms recently. According to the new data, from April 14th to 20th, within 7 days, Liu Genghong’s fans on the entire platform soared from 6.208 million to 18.86 million, an increase of more than 200%.

According to Cicada’s data, in the past 30 days, Liu Genghong’s live broadcast has accumulated more than 100 million views, setting the latest record for Douyin live broadcast in 2022. The maximum number of single live broadcasts reached 44.767 million, and the maximum playback volume of a single video exceeded 58.413 million, the highest in a single day. The number of fans rose to 5.363 million.

In addition to Douyin, searching for “Liu Genghong” in Xiaohongshu, there are more than 30,000 related notes, including nearly 10,000 notes related to “Liu Genghong Live”, Liu Genghong has become a blogger with millions of fans of Xiaohongshu. According to Chan’s mother’s data: Liu Genghong’s Little Red Book added 106w of followers in 30 days, and the number of notes and likes increased by 58.5w.

In fact, as early as 2020, “cloud fitness” has already started to catch fire. After staying at home due to the impact of the epidemic, people’s fitness methods have shifted from the gym and outdoor exercise to the home scene. With Kuaishou and Douyin on, there is no shortage of popular videos such as hand-carrying laundry detergent to practice arm strength, leaning against a chair and doing squats.

The user’s demand for high-quality and professional fitness content has further stimulated the enthusiasm of sports and fitness creators for popular science, and also increased their income. The Douyin Sports Fitness Report (hereinafter referred to as the “Report”) shows that in 2021, fitness anchors will increase their followers by 208% year-on-year, and live broadcast revenue will increase by 141% year-on-year. The number of Douyin sports and fitness videos increased by 134% year-on-year, and the number of creators increased by 39% year-on-year.

In addition to bloggers and talents, traditional gyms have already moved offline fitness to online. According to incomplete statistics from Ranjing Finance, One trillion Wade, Welsh, Super Gorilla, Leke, etc. have all opened free live courses on Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, and video accounts. The fitness platform Keep also launched live broadcasts in the first half of 2020, and used popular stars to attract users to the live broadcast room.

Yang Ming, a practitioner in the fitness industry, told Ranjing Finance that the popularity of fitness live broadcasts, on the one hand, the improvement of living standards and the impact of the epidemic have gradually increased people’s fitness awareness. On the other hand, the diversity of platforms makes it more convenient for everyone to obtain professional fitness knowledge. While the time cost and budget cost for consumers to obtain professional fitness knowledge are reduced, practitioners have more room for development and more profits.

However, there are only a few fitness bloggers who are out of the circle, and more small and medium-sized bloggers are still doing their best to increase their fans, and how to balance content and monetization to become a fitness blogger and fitness chain organization. A common problem with fitness apps.

Internet analyst Zhang Shule told Ranjing Finance that whether it is content creators, platforms or offline institutions, it is currently impossible to achieve a long tail similar to e-commerce through virtual online interaction, and more is only for offline drainage or health care. The product is in stock, and the selection is not rich.

Zhang Shule emphasized that to break through this limitation, technical support is needed, that is, similar to somatosensory sports games and VR technology, etc., to form a subversive and immersive fitness experience.

“If not, its function is more just a ‘mirror’, and it is not fundamentally different from the daily fitness program on TV in the past.”

Fitness live broadcast is on fire

“Li Jiaqi called me Meimei, and Liu Genghong told me to persevere. One emptied my wallet and the other emptied my body.”

Liu Genghong, who was given the title of “Li Jiaqi in the fitness industry” by fans due to slogans such as “come on, go, mermaid line, vest line, practice”, “waist fat, let it fall off”, was also created by netizens with Li Jiaqi. The combination of “people and wealth”.

An Qi, a girl born in the 1980s, originally came to the live broadcast room as a melon eater. Now, she has also changed from “lying and watching” to “following practice”, and has become a real “Liu Genghong girl”. “Summer is coming soon, and the meat can’t hide anymore. The gym is closed again during this time. If you can go to a celebrity’s private fitness class at home, you must follow it.”

Unlike An Qi, Gina, a post-90s girl, is a member of the army who insists on “lying and watching”. Gina told Ran Caijing that she has no habit of exercising, she just eats melons and finds joy in Liu Genghong’s live broadcast room. “For a while, it was enthusiastic encouragement for fans, and for a while it played the ‘fitness battle song’ – Jay Chou’s “Compendium of Materia Medica”, and for a while it was madly throwing dog food with his wife…”

As Gina said, Rancai saw in Liu Genghong’s live broadcast that it was not surprising to dance Jay Chou’s “Compendium of Materia Medica” a dozen times a night, which directly led to PTSD in some netizens, “I wanted to get up when I heard “Compendium of Materia Medica” Take a thigh shot”, some fans ridiculed “pull Jay Chou to lose weight”, and some netizens threatened to remove Jay Chou because they were too tired from fitness.

Regardless of whether netizens enter Liu Genghong’s live broadcast room or jump or not, the result is that Liu Genghong is on fire by jumping on live broadcasts.

On April 19, 3 of the top 10 topics on the Douyin Entertainment Hot List were related to Liu Genghong. They are #stars are learning dance gymnastics with Liu Genghong#, #How many Liu Genghong girls are there in the whole network#, and #Liu Genghong corrects fitness homework online#. On April 20, #Liu GenghongBoy was also blown out # on the Douyin challenge list Top4.

In fact, Liu Genghong is only one of the bloggers who came out of the fitness live broadcast circle.

Data from the Douchacha platform shows that from April to July 2021, Douyin blogger “Liu Fang Body Etiquette” gained more than 5.5 million followers through live broadcast, and “Qiyue Body Aerobic Exercise” gained nearly 100 followers on Douyin in 30 days. Ten thousand.

Ranjing Finance has learned that Liu Fang, who has customized the image of a “high-end” and “professional” tutor, teaches weight loss gymnastics with simple movements. During the process, he will also teach users some techniques for women’s shaping, anti-wrinkle, and improving temperament. With a low learning threshold and relatively professional public welfare courses, Liu Fang has accumulated a group of loyal fans and achieved “as long as it is live broadcast, it must be ranked in the top 10 of the live broadcast hot list”.

Another weight loss blogger who has been out of the circle recently is Kuaishou’s “Mao Ning Counterattack”. On April 1, a video of “Hundred Days of Counterattack Challenge to Lose Weight” suddenly became popular on Kuaishou. The blogger in the video said that in order to encourage fans to lose weight, she gained 150 pounds, and then she shaved off her long hair. , while making a weight loss vow to lead fans to “start all over again and start from the heart”. With “shaven head determination”, “Mao Ning’s Counterattack” gained nearly 700,000 fans in 7 days.

Just at the beginning of this year, Pamela, a fitness expert known as “human AI”, also completed her live broadcast debut in front of Chinese fans on Keep.

In addition to fitness bloggers, chain gyms are also normalizing fitness live broadcasts. And Keep, who signed Pamela, also put the live broadcast entry directly on the homepage recommendation section in April 2021, and introduced an all-day live broadcast from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., covering yoga, exercise classes, and training. Four types of courses, including Ouyang Nana, Hulan, Yoko Ramu and other stars have been invited to the Keep live broadcast room.

Differential drainage

However, despite the efforts of gyms and fitness bloggers to run live studios, their online viewership numbers vary widely.

At 8 p.m. on April 19, Ranjing Finance observed that the number of online viewers in the one trillion Wade Douyin live broadcast room was only 169, and the number of online viewers in the live broadcast room of Leke Sports was about 114, while the number of online viewers in the live broadcast room of “Mao Ning Counterattack” at the same time period up to 60,000+.

The reason is that a senior live broadcast observer told Ranjing Finance that the influence of enterprises and brands needs to be taken into account when the gym is broadcast live, or it is just to move the fitness channel from offline to online, but the content is boring compared to fitness bloggers. Boring a lot. As an individual, fitness bloggers are more responsible for “traffic”. In order to obtain more traffic, it can be said that they have used “everything”.

Yang Ming expressed a similar view on this.

Yang Ming said that compared with two years ago, the number of live broadcast platforms and bloggers who started live broadcasts has increased, but the number of users watching live broadcasts has basically reached the ceiling. Whether it can attract fans depends on the ability of bloggers. “Live broadcasts have high requirements on bloggers. They not only require professional business skills, but also know how to communicate and know how to throw stalks. Most bloggers who are serious about training and popular science have a hard time making a splash.”

Needless to say, differentiation has long been one of the keys to fans.

Taking Liu Genghong as an example, his fitness live broadcast is not only related to his own star effect, but also because of his differentiated live broadcast style of “husband and wife fitness”. Ranjingcai saw in Liu Genghong’s live broadcast that during the training process, Liu Genghong’s lover, like many ordinary girls, would be lazy, complain, paddle, and get tired to the point that his facial features were distorted, and it was easy to “train” in front of the screen. Netizens have emotional projections.

An Qi said to Ranjing Finance, “The lead coaches in other live broadcast rooms are very professional. I jumped down in front of the mobile phone, but they were like machines that would not get tired. Liu Genghong’s wife’s empathy gave me company. It is very important to keep fit. ‘Coach Liu’ will also adjust the rhythm because of this, just like the real-time feedback after the offline get out of class.”

The popularity of “Mao Ning’s Counterattack” is also due to the differentiated “personality”. “Obesity”, “bald head”, “beautiful”, several contradictory labels appear on one person at the same time, forming a profound “memory point” for netizens, and his ceremonial behavior of “shaved head” also Earned enough attention for her.

Ranjing Caijing observed that “Mao Ning’s Counterattack” has two live broadcasts every day at 2:00 noon and 7:00 p.m. It will constantly remind users to “join the fan group” during the course of the exercise and during intermittent breaks, and emphasize not to bring goods. However, according to Feigua data, “Mao Ning’s Counterattack” tried to cash in with goods in the early live broadcasts. The products revolved around enzymes, chewable tablets and other weight-loss aids known as “hey eating without getting fat”.

Change is pending verification

Although it is difficult to speculate why “Mao Ning’s Counterattack”, which once had the experience of bringing goods, declared that it did not carry goods, “realization” is the fundamental purpose of almost all bloggers, including fitness bloggers.

Zhang Shule told Ranjing Finance that fitness live broadcasts are not new and will not become a real outlet. In essence, its live broadcast and effect need to be proportional, and the effect of fitness live broadcast is not much different from short video tutorials or paid tutorials on various sports and fitness applications, but the experience of individual users is very different. Therefore, the track is not wide, and there are very few people who can run on the fitness live broadcast. Compared with bloggers under other vertical tracks, it is relatively difficult to realize.

As mentioned by Zhang Shule, insiders said that, overall, content platform stores, live streaming, fitness courses and brand advertising are the four main modes of monetization for fitness bloggers.

Among them, “Liu Fang’s Body Etiquette” relies on live broadcast to bring goods, and the monthly sales once reached 9,000w. Ranjing Finance learned that in the daily live broadcast, Liu Fang sometimes has 1-5 product links, and the links include self-produced products and products sold in cooperation with brands. In addition, special exhibitions with goods will be held from time to time.

And the UP master “Saturday Ye”, who has nearly 8 million fans at station B, realizes the monetization method of brand advertising. According to public information, in addition to launching a cooperation model with the domestic underwear brand “NEIWAI”, “Saturday Wild” also launched a new personal sports brand at the end of 2021.

Yang Ming told Ranjing Finance that in the field of weight loss and fitness, there are still a few head anchors with strong monetization ability like “Saturday Ye” and “Liu Fang’s Body Etiquette”, and more bloggers just earn popularity.

As Yang Ming said, Kath data mentioned that Liu Genghong had tried to bring goods on Douyin live broadcast before, but the data that the highest sales in a single game did not exceed one million is extremely unsatisfactory. It was not until a fitness live broadcast on February 18, when the number of viewers reached 24.7W, that he found his “traffic password”. After the fitness live broadcast, Liu Genghong once again tried to bring goods. For example, in the live broadcast on March 9, it recommended two fitness-related beverage products, but the sales brought by millions of views were less than 300,000 yuan.

The difficulty of realizing it is not only the pain point faced by fitness bloggers and talents.

In 2020, due to the impact of the epidemic, gymnasiums, which have become more difficult to survive offline, quickly moved their fitness courses online. Among them, the super orangutan test water online paid private teaching courses, and the launch of “super orangutan squatting at home – 14-day ‘accompany’ training camp”, priced at 399 yuan. In the same year, Leke also launched the “28-antenna Live Fat Reduction Camp”. Subsequently, Keep launched the “Home Fitness Guide” live online course.

However, the coach cannot see the students, so they cannot correct the wrong actions, the students cannot achieve the desired results, and the desire to buy members is naturally low. These are still the biggest problems faced by these fitness institutions in online live broadcasts.

In order to bring a better fitness experience to members, fitness institutions have switched from open live broadcasts to invitation-style live broadcasts, and controlled the number of people online in each live broadcast class to bring members a better experience.

Among them, Super Orangutan will launch four series of online courses on yoga, relaxation, fat burning, and shaping in 2021, and members will be invited by coaches; Leke also continues to make efforts online, successively launching “Leke LIVE” and “Leke”. Practice with you” two online products.

Deng Xichuan, the person in charge of Lekai business, said to the public that each class of “Leke Practice” will not exceed 16 people, and a coach will provide online training and life guidance services to ensure that the coach can fully take care of every student, and the students can enjoy Cost-effective “shared private education” service.

At the same time, Keep also launched live courses in June 2020. Live coaches will interact with users on details such as exercise intensity and training postures in a timely manner, further enriching the online fitness experience.

But in fact, when free fitness resources are readily available on the Internet, young people are relatively less willing to pay for online fitness. According to the Keep prospectus, in 2020 and 2021, the average monthly active users of Keep will be about 29.7 million and 34.4 million, respectively. At the same time, Keep’s subscription members reached 3.3 million, an increase of more than 3 times compared to 800,000 in 2019. But during the same period, the average monthly paying users was only 365,000, which is only one-tenth of the subscription members.

Zhang Shule told Ranjing Finance that for senior fitness professionals, there is little difference between online personal training or online training and offline experience. However, if it is a fitness novice, it will be relatively difficult to control the norms of some movements.

Zhang Shule added that online layout, for offline fitness chains that have been unable to break through urban areas and are greatly restricted by distance and venues, they have human resources and mature tutorials. If you move online, you can reap the long tail. Through online services, we can divert more professional and offline value-added services with equipment requirements.

At the same time, Zhang Shule also bluntly stated that if the fitness organization only provides some basic fitness content during the live broadcast, whether it is a popular product (the product with the most general value/quality relationship ratio in the market), or some peculiar fitness activities to attract attention Paradigm, it is difficult to truly form user stickiness and desire to pay. In the end, it often just becomes an “alarm clock” for users to check in and brush their presence through social interaction.

References:

“Douyin gained nearly 1 million followers in 2 days by live dancing, what did he do right? “, source: new list;

“Pushing paid courses, selling cards on live broadcasts, and moving from free to monetization of fitness live broadcasts”, source: Yicai Business Data Center;

“The number of views exceeded 45 million, and the number of fans increased by 680,000 in 7 days! Fitness live broadcast is becoming a new traffic outlet? “, source: Feigua Kuaishu.

*The title image and some of the accompanying images are from Visual China.

*Yang Ming, An Qi, and Gina are all pseudonyms in the text

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