As well-known domestic Internet celebrities and institutions such as "Make a Friend", Dongfang Selection and Crazy Brother Yang have set their sights on the international market, everyone has explored the potential of overseas markets. However, it remains to be seen whether the successful model at home can be replicated overseas, and whether it will be easy to make money in the international market.
In April 2023, Crazy Brother Yang mentioned the idea of earning money from foreigners in a live broadcast, and in less than a year, this goal has been achieved. Two months ago, Three Sheep Network cooperated with Singaporean local talent @shop with SASAX to complete the first live broadcast, which not only refreshed the historical GMV of the anchor, but also set a new record in Singapore in the TikTok e-commerce sector, and the live broadcast room topped the local ranking in Singapore.
Although the official did not disclose the total amount of goods, shortly after the end of the first live broadcast, the official account of Three Sheep TikTok announced that the next stop would be to Malaysia. As a leading figure in the domestic Internet celebrity industry, Brother Xiao Yang has always attracted much attention. Recently, on the one hand, his declining performance in bringing goods has sparked discussions, and on the other hand, his first victory in the overseas market has also sounded the clarion call for him to enter overseas.
While the three sheep were busy preparing to go to Malaysia, there were also rumors that Dongfang Selection was going to cooperate with TikTok in overseas markets. According to people familiar with the matter, the news is accurate. Prior to this, institutions such as Make a Friend and Qianxun Culture behind Wei Ya have taken the lead in exploring overseas markets.
For the huge potential of overseas markets, many people know that the first generation of Internet celebrity Li Ziqi, she has 18.3 million followers on YouTube, and her monthly income is still as high as 780,000 yuan after a year of stopping. Now it has been nearly three years since Li Ziqi stopped, and domestic Internet celebrities have also begun to expand overseas. But can successful models be replicated overseas? Is it really that easy to make money overseas?
In November 2023, Crazy Brother Yang revealed in the live broadcast that all employees will be relocated to the new building. Located in the core area of Hefei High-tech Zone, the 50,000-square-meter office building is known as the "Three Sheep Global Headquarters". Although the building was known as the "global headquarters" at the time, three sheep had actually begun to prepare for their overseas expansion before moving in.
In order to quickly enter the overseas market and accumulate traffic, Three Sheep established its overseas MCN agency Three Sheep Network in July 2023, and once again adopted the "slice distribution" as a drainage tool. On the domestic platform, live slicing has become a common way for anchors to play, and this operation has helped Xiao Yang quickly build a matrix and bring considerable high income. Now, Three Sheep has copied this kind of good play to the overseas market that is still a blue ocean. Three months after the distribution, Three Sheep IP achieved growth from 0 to 2 million followers in Southeast Asia.
In fact, the three sheep's overseas march has a bit of a sense of necessity. Despite the large number of fans of Brother Xiao Yang, according to Douyin 7Judging from the number of 500 million monthly active users, 1 out of every 7 active Douyin players is his fan, and his ability to bring goods is amazing. However, with the advent of the stock era, it is difficult for both the number of fans and the growth of GMV to reach new highs. And because of Crazy Brother Yang's strong personal style, it is difficult for him to open up new fan groups and cultivate diversified spending power.
It is not only Brother Xiao Yang who is aware of this problem, Dongfang Selection, who has stood on the cusp of the storm many times recently, has also begun to actively promote the plan to go to sea. Not long ago, Dongfang Selection has successively listed a number of TikTok-related positions on the official website and recruitment**, including Dongfang Selection TikTok overseas store operation, Dongfang Selection Content Operation Manager (TikTok), etc., with a monthly salary of between 20,000-40,000 yuan. In response, Yu Minhong, the helmsman of Dongfang Selection, said: "You may have seen on the Internet that we are recruiting TikTok operation personnel, but in fact, we are just testing the waters. ”
After all, domestic e-commerce live broadcast has entered the stock market, and in order to cope with various uncertainties such as traffic decline, the overseas market has gradually become a new battlefield for big anchors.
Different streamers have different ways of playing. Although Brother Xiao Yang's "voice" of going to sea is high, among the anchors, the one who went to sea earlier was "Make a Friend" under the leadership of Luo Yonghao. As early as 2021, Make a Friend tried to extend its tentacles overseas, incubating local companies in Indonesia, and then establishing an American company. In 2022, they set up two main departments: the Overseas Business Department and the Overseas E-commerce Academy. These two departments cover the three main overseas businesses: marketing, talent distribution and overseas operation.
Although major anchors and MCN agencies are optimistic about TikTok and try to "do the business done on Douyin on TikTok again", in the face of the uncontrollable global market, it is not easy to replicate domestic experience and do live broadcasts on TikTok. According to the statistics of the Fastmoss Research Institute, 80% of the e-commerce sales on TikTok are linked by influencers, and only 20% are live streaming and **. Especially if you leave the Southeast Asian market and enter the U.S. market, the acceptance of live streaming will be lower. In addition, live broadcast agencies will also face localization problems such as cross-border efficiency management.
With the saturation of domestic e-commerce, more people regard TikTok as the next outlet, and many small and medium-sized players have entered the game. But from the perspective of revenue and conversion, a seller on TikTok told "Leopard Change": "After doing it for a year and a half, only the number of people in the live broadcast room has not been converted, and the average number of ** people is less than 60"; There are also sellers who complain: "The ones who make money are the training institutions that ask for tuition." ”
It can be seen that whether it is a head anchor or TikTok, it will inevitably take time to break through the habits and culture of overseas locals. However, the pioneers may also boost the commercialization of TikTok, and the two will form a synergy to accelerate the process of Chinese e-commerce going overseas.