From ＂flow＂ to ＂works＂, what is the logic behind the change of focus of entertainment hotspots？

Wen | Yishi

This summer, "Dream of China" should be the most popular drama-in just a few days after its launch, its rating, word-of-mouth and broadcast volume have risen rapidly, and the discussion on major platforms has been amazing. Only two weeks after its broadcast, the series has reached 258 hot searches in Weibo. Judging from the current momentum, Meng Hua Lu has great potential to book the "first costume drama of the year" in advance. How did such a phenomenal entertainment IP achieve a breakthrough?

Not long ago, Cyndi Wang’s success in "Riding the Wind and Waves" just set off a wave of public nostalgia, and with the first performance of "Love You" recalled by a generation, it finally took a fault-like lead, which became the peak of this year’s "archaeological" craze in the entertainment circle. Since 2022, major entertainment events have indeed been intensive.

The hot discussion on the whole network caused by Meng Hua Lu is not limited to one aspect of the work. At present, there are at least positive discussions on actors’ face value, costume costumes, shooting and photography aesthetics, light comedy style and women’s values in Weibo-Liu Yifei and Chen Xiao’s "fairy-level" costume costumes, ink-and-wash Jiangnan waterscape and Tokyo’s prosperous times, lines and props that pay attention to details, and a relaxed plot rhythm of Guan Hanqing’s "Saving the Wind and Dust" …

Of course, while the iron is hot, we need to be hard-working. The "Dream of China" and Cyndi Wang before it can achieve "phenomenal" success, first of all, thanks to the charm of the works and artists themselves and the fit with the psychological needs of the public. However, in the process of hot spots, various social and media platforms have also played an increasingly important role behind it.

Weibo is the main contributor to the popularity. On the opening day, the hot search # Liu Yifei #, a rural village woman, paid close attention to the face value, and read nearly 700 million topics in two days. The subsequent # Menghualu female group portrait # and # Ada threw men into the water in the play #, # Chen Xiao is not afraid of fairy tales # and other detailed topics, such as plots, people, artists and even clothing, continued to ferment in Weibo. The number of second-generation videos of Menghualu exceeded 40 million. The short video platform didn’t stay out of it either. In Cyndi Wang, the short selfie video of "My husband’s reaction to seeing Cyndi Wang" was very popular, and the clip video of "Dream of China" quickly gained a very high broadcast volume and barrage number in bilibili.

At present, major entertainment events are often "spread all over the network" and rarely limited to fermentation on a single platform. Then, after the ups and downs in recent years, what new pattern has the entertainment publicity industry shown?

The amplification of entertainment content is always a complicated problem: the artistic level of the work, the popularity and goodwill of the participating artists, the matching of theme values and popular thoughts can be summarized as basic qualities. However, there is a saying that "the fragrance of wine is also afraid of the depth of the alley", and it is not uncommon that the work itself clearly has the potential to become popular but the final broadcast effect is not good.

Vertically, the mainstream of the media has gradually shifted from traditional channels to the Internet, and then the characteristics of entertainment content dissemination have gradually changed through the mobile Internet era to the present: in the early days, entertainment content was basically "exposed in one direction" from the work side, and users were more simple "recipients"; But at present, it can be said that every "individual" is a consumer, producer and disseminator of content at the same time, and we have already entered an era of "national interaction".

Therefore, the entertainment publicity model based on traditional media is obviously not enough to cope with the brand-new market environment. However, after the entertainment center of gravity turned to online in an all-round way, and then entered the era of "national interaction", the pattern became more complicated. The major platforms mainly engaged in social, graphic, long video, medium video, short video and live broadcast showed their magical powers, and short video platforms such as Tik Tok and Aauto Quicker made considerable achievements in competing for user duration, and now they have gradually become an important scene for entertainment announcement. However, as the market becomes more mature, platforms based on graphic or user dynamics are gradually finding their irreplaceable value. In Reading Entertainment Jun’s view, the new pattern of entertainment publicity industry may be: short videos provide more compact, simple, audio-visual sensory information, while social and graphic media platforms favor public opinion interaction, emotional resonance, and long and logical in-depth interpretation.

The value of Weibo is more prominent in the era of national interaction. Reading Entertainment Jun believes that it has both social and media attributes from the beginning to the end, and its positioning as a "public opinion field" is constantly strengthened by users-from national events to anecdotes, Weibo is now an "infrastructure" that contains almost all public events. Because the public has long been accustomed to the value of Weibo as a mainstream public opinion field, almost all hot spots will not skip Weibo, and entertainment events are no exception. Moreover, since the early development of Chinese Internet, Weibo has always been the main venue for the entertainment industry to export content and express itself.

From this point of view, Weibo has achieved considerable "breadth" and "depth" in the incubation of entertainment IP:

The spread of other platforms is mostly single-point divergence, or based on the distribution of short videos, or based on video innovation, or based on derivative interpretation of grass, and all these are gathered on the platform of Weibo. Weibo can test the real ability of an IP to go out of the circle, and it can be described as a "master" of IP marketing-it has product functions that contain various content forms and an official publicity matrix with a wide layout. Weibo has accommodated blog posts, pictures, videos, live broadcasts and other diverse forms in its products, which are both daily, interactive and intuitive. Whether it is single-point video divergent communication or "edge interpretation", it can be seen in Weibo; At the same time, Weibo’s ecology is also a fertile ground for IP to create new content, and its layout in multiple fields will provide more possibilities for entertainment IP to break the circle.

For example, Weibo Hotspot # Menghua Ancient Culture Record # is jointly initiated by Menghua Record in conjunction with Weibo TV series, stars, beauty cosmetics, fashion, food, tourism, history and other ten fields, creating seven creative sections such as imitation makeup, tea culture, and poetry, inspiring big V in different fields from all walks of life and ordinary users to share the beauty of their familiar national style. Multi-field linkage not only excavates the traditional cultural charm in Meng Hua Lu’s works, but also intuitively extends the works to multiple vertical cultural circles.

"Depth" is based on the ecological characteristics mentioned above. Because of the first accumulation and the second development in the Chinese Internet ecology, Weibo’s mass media attribute is a natural place for entertainment IP communication, and at the same time, its strong social attribute makes this communication deeply bound with public interaction and discussion. The value of Weibo’s entertainment IP incubation is not "pushing", but "creating momentum" to exert the widest public potential and make every user a communication point.

For example, Meng Hua Lu opened a number of "role accounts" in Weibo, such as @ Shopkeeper Zhao Paner @ Huangcheng Sigu Qian Fan, which started the daily operation as a role in the play, interacted with users in real time according to the plot progress, and participated in live hot chat and cross-border linkage. The role account has greatly narrowed the distance between the audience and the characters in Dream of China, and also made up for the problem that it is difficult for artists to cooperate with the promotion of a single work for a long time, and this interactive effect based on "Weibo" is difficult to be perfectly reproduced on other platforms.

It is this highly interactive platform ecology that enables Menghualu to have frequent and diversified interactions with users in Weibo, effectively driving a large number of ordinary users to participate in Amway spontaneously, and finally tapping more potential of entertainment IP.

Due to its own "infrastructure" attribute, Weibo has always been a "barometer" of the entertainment industry, showing changes in the industry at all times. For example, from the current exclusive list of the entertainment field in Weibo, you can basically see the full records of entertainment events such as artists’ information trends, film and television/variety/music works, related discussions and derivative works.

The greater the ability, the greater the responsibility. When Weibo gradually has the ability to influence the development of the entertainment industry and the user’s value orientation at the same time, as a social media platform, it is bound to assume more value-oriented responsibilities.

In fact, we can see the change from the fermentation process of Meng Hua Lu in Weibo: users become participants, disseminators and promoters of high-quality works in the interaction of Weibo, and at the same time, most of the hot topics on the platform focus on traditional culture, the beauty of national style and the plot, picture, character image, people and values of the works themselves. In a word, it has gradually changed from "star-fan-centered" to "work-centered"

On June and July, Dream of China recorded a high score of 9.2 in Weibo. On the opening page, diverse viewpoints from industry experts, entertainment media, drama critics and netizens were gathered. With the real feedback and professional interpretation of netizens, the "high quality" of the work was really pushed to more people, attracting a lot of "tap water" publicity.

At present, Weibo has gradually established a new grading system for works to continuously strengthen the direction of "removing flow and emphasizing works" and guide users to pay more attention to the works themselves. In order to improve the reference value of scoring, Weibo scoring system shows the comprehensive scoring of think tank experts, authoritative media, Weibo KOL and ordinary users. At the same time, the in-depth interpretation of Weibo V and the real discussion of ordinary users are also displayed on the scoring page. This scoring system will continue to optimize and enrich more dimensions, so that good works can gain the reputation and popularity they deserve, and return to "work value" to promote a virtuous circle of the entertainment industry.

Since the "Clear Action", the whole entertainment industry has gradually taken on a new look. The main topic of artists and stars in Weibo is no longer the tearing and arguments between fans, but more active advocacy in Weibo to pay attention to the present and convey positive energy. For example, after "Riding the Wind and Waves" and Cyndi Wang went out of the circle, the All-China Women’s Federation, together with Weibo and the program group, launched the activity # Women’s New Strength # to attract netizens to recommend female representatives around them, and such a joint transmission of positive energy has become the norm.

Under such a trend, Weibo’s transformation from "the era of flow" to "the era of works" has achieved initial results, laying a solid foundation, and Weibo’s position as the "mainstream highland" in cultural and entertainment publicity has been basically stable.

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