Interview and Writing | Gemee Liu Tianlin

Content Master Plan | Online audio is an indispensable part of the Internet content consumption map in Guo Nan.

after p>213, the competition pattern of domestic mobile audio platforms such as Dragonfly FM, Himalayan and Litchi has basically taken shape, and the mobile audio industry has ushered in the grand scene of millions of anchors and trillions of voices.

since p>216, knowledge-based paid audio has revolutionized the digital publishing industry in another form, and there are also various questions besides the myth of making wealth.

In 219, Apple Podcast and Spotify have direct competition in the field of podcasting, and the domestic online audio audience has also shown obvious trends of youthfulness, high knowledge, high quality and white-collar.

On the other hand, smart speakers, car networking, wearable hardware ... Internet of Things technology connects people and machines, and will naturally connect to content. From the case of smart speakers, it can be seen that the first opportunity brought by the Internet of Things will be in the audio field.

Muddy Water interviewed the head creators, platform parties and participants in the field of online audio, and reported and explored the innovative strength and development trend in the field of mobile audio.

In June this year, Cheng Yi put on a new mask. The new mask weakened the five senses, and the pure white skeleton integrated structure showed a more fashionable sense.

(Founder of "Cheng Yi Radio")

The upgrade of the mask image is also in line with the changes of Cheng Yi himself in the past two years:

From a solo anchor to an entrepreneur, Cheng Yi has formed a team focusing on emotional audio and text, and the content of "Cheng Yi Radio" has been spread more widely.

With female fans as the main audience, Cheng Yi is also doing more things-recording programs, writing books, exercising, broadcasting live, recording radio dramas and even publishing several songs every day.

In p>214, Cheng began to upload programs on major audio platforms. Up to now, the audio programs of "Cheng No.1 Radio" have been updated for more than 1,2 times. In five years, except for some special circumstances, Cheng No.1 updated his audio programs almost every day: "I never thought I would stick to it for so long. At that time, I recorded the programs out of my hobbies, and the more audiences I got. Many listeners left me messages saying that I couldn't sleep without listening to my voice every day, which made me feel that I had a responsibility. " Cheng Yi said that it has become a habit to record the audience every day.

The program of "Chengyi Radio" takes emotion as the core, including bedtime companionship, emotion, horoscope story, etc. The style of warm healing system has attracted 3 million fans, 9% of whom are women, and the whole network has played more than 5 billion times. In April 217, "Chengyi Radio" received millions of RMB angel round financing from Charm Power, Zhenshun and other funds. Later, Cheng Yicheng set up a company and moved his office to Beijing. At the same time, with "Chengyi Radio" as the main IP, Chengyi's company began to sign contracts and build an anchor matrix to produce audio content with more diversified themes and richer forms.

In February, 218, Chengyi Radio received a Pre-A round of financing from lithography capital of 1 million yuan, and in August, it received a round of investment from Sequoia Capital and Meihua Venture Capital.

Since p>218, Cheng started to go to campus, and offline speech activities have entered hundreds of colleges and universities, with third-and fourth-tier cities as the focus.

Cheng Yi recalled that when he was just in college, he also encountered some emotional problems and didn't know how to deal with them. "When you encounter these emotional problems, someone can give you guidance and answers, and you can interact with him at any time. On the way to growth, I think this is a wonderful thing. " Cheng Yi said that offline activities can build a closer trust relationship with fans, thus conveying the positive influence of "Cheng Yi's voice" on fans to a greater extent.

1. Talking about the companionship of sound

"The sexuality of young people is an emotional problem"

After graduating from college, Cheng Yi has been doing broadcasting in radio stations, doing emotional programs at night. At the beginning of 214, Cheng first came into contact with Internet radio stations. "At that time, I was very interested in being a radio station, and my feelings were rich. Out of my personal hobbies, I wanted to record my own exclusive radio station on the Internet, which is now Cheng Yi Radio Station." Coincidentally, "Cheng Yi Radio" caught up with the popularity of emotional radio and became the head anchor in the field of emotional audio. At present, the cumulative broadcast volume of "Chengyi Radio" on mainstream audio platforms such as Dragonfly FM, Himalayan and Netease Cloud Music has exceeded 5 billion, and the broadcast volume of a single program has exceeded 1 million. "Our audience is mainly 15 to 25 years old, 9% are women and 1% are men." Cheng Yi introduced that now, including "Cheng Yi Radio", the main content of Cheng Yi Company's output is to face young women and female college students.

The younger audience of Internet audio is a major feature that distinguishes it from traditional radio stations. Cheng Yi said that for emotional radio stations, the audience's age is different, and the problems encountered are different:

"I used to be a traditional radio station, and most of the audience were driving. For example, women in their thirties and forties can't say that the boys I am chasing don't like me. What should I do? The audience of Internet radio stations is very young, and it is also very convenient to listen on mobile phones. Many troubles after and 95 are that the boys they like don't like themselves and don't know what to do? "

Cheng Yi believes that the main sexual problems among young audiences are the emotional problems between men and women, and the second is the study and life goals.

In traditional radio stations, late-night emotional programs have always been a very good type of listening situation and audience feedback, such as "Night Flight in China", "Accompanied by Dawn" and "The Night Sky is Not Lonely", which have recorded the Chinese emotional reality of an era and a region. Famous emotional anchors such as Qingyin, Wanfeng and Hu Xiaomei have influenced millions of people with different broadcasting styles with distinctive personalities and direct feelings.

In the preface to the program "A Thousand Miles of Night" first broadcast by Yao Ke, he said in a magnetic and gentle voice: Share your joy, listen to your heart, your mood is understood, and your mind is unguarded at night.

Cheng Yi's voice is a typical magnetic and gentle male voice. In his understanding, emotional audio content is very similar to early emotional magazines, and it will be more real and close to life with the blessing of sound.

"In the process of listening, the audience can learn how to deal with emotional problems and hear some positive stories, which makes me feel very meaningful."

Cheng Yi introduced that in the future planning, their team will build and improve an emotional voice community serving young women based on sound.

"Our position is always young women."

One type of content often serves a person's needs in stages. Cheng Yi believes that as far as emotional needs are concerned, young and emotionally confused audiences have always existed.

"Old people go to new people", Cheng Yi sees it this way: Everyone has youthful memories and nostalgia, but our content will change a little bit, and we are also providing more kinds of content besides emotions.

"When users grow up, maybe emotion is not their first priority. It doesn't matter. We have other contents, intellectual and spiritual, and we will provide them."

2. Challenges and Prospects of Teamwork

"My energy alone is limited"

Looking back on the two years since I got my first investment in 217, Cheng Yi himself has changed a lot:

"I started as a content creator, then I contacted capital and financing, then I managed a company and formed a team, and I was in business management myself. But I am lucky to find some very suitable partners, and the whole team is very cooperative. "

Radio Cheng Yi receives 2, private messages from users every day. Many users regard their programs as tree holes and talk about their emotional problems. "I really want to help them solve their emotional problems, but my energy alone is limited."

Cheng Yi said that a large number of private messages show users' trust in them, and now the overall planning and direction of the team is to solve the emotional problems of young women more and more effectively.

At present, Cheng Yi's company has signed more than 5 anchors.

7% of these anchors have working experience in traditional radio stations, and they want to generate some value through their own voices on the Internet. After signing a contract with Cheng Yi's company, these anchors will carry out independent and specialized shaping and operation.

"These anchors who have experience in traditional radio and emotional programs will be more professional in listening to others and solving emotional problems."

Most of the remaining 3% are broadcast hosts, and some excellent anchors, Cheng Yi's company will cooperate in the form of investment. For example, "Chen Mo Radio" means that Cheng Yi provides some funds to support him to grow in his own city.

After the establishment of the team and company, Cheng Yi mentioned that the audience is no longer limited to an emotional program, but they have more yuan and richer content.

"We still have some talk shows about college students and campus, some programs in the psychiatric clinic to answer the emotional problems that listeners encounter every day, and some bedtime stories and interviews with artists. In fact, the whole program is still around college students, but the content is richer."

Cheng Yi introduced that they have an online copywriting team of about 2 people, mostly college students and high school students, so the overall content will be closer to daily life.

At present, the popularity of consumer Internet of Things products represented by smart speakers is increasing, and intelligent hardware has brought new channels and new possibilities for audio content. "Chengyi Radio" had some content cooperation with smart speakers such as Tmall Elf before, including audio content procurement and customized exclusive content.

Next, Cheng Yi's team will also launch a "Cheng Yi Er Yuan Image", which is also developing in the direction of intelligent hardware.

He introduced that this product will cooperate with professional intelligent hardware companies, and it will have two main functions: first, as a tree hole, users can directly tell them what emotional problems they have, and at the same time, this product can answer some emotional questions; The other is as a channel for new audio content, which will include some new and exclusive audio stories.

3. Commercialization with audio as the core

"Emotional Voice Community for Young Women"

Cheng Yi introduced that at present, the primary goal of the whole company's development is to be an emotional voice community for young women, and there are two main aspects of planning:

First, the growth of users, such as continuing to give lectures in 1 colleges and universities this year, and recruiting new users in the university campus. In this plan, Cheng Yi will give a speech at more than 3 universities, with universities in third-and fourth-tier cities as the focus.

The second is to cultivate their own anchors. An emotional voice community is bound to provide users with emotional answering services, which requires a lot of high-quality anchors to provide such services.

In addition to recording programs, Cheng Yi also does live audio broadcasting. He thinks that live audio broadcasting can make more interaction and contact with the audience, improve the user's stickiness, and by the way, he can earn some rewards for live broadcasting.

In terms of user interaction, Cheng Yi has also done a lot of cross-border cooperation with singers, writers and artists.

("Cheng Yi Radio Station" × Mikey)

For example, Cheng Yi's team planned many collaborations with different styles such as folk songs, rock and rap, and presented them in novel forms similar to "Radio and Song", such as Cheng Yi's cooperation with the landlord's cat, Mikey and other singers. Cheng Yi believes that users who listen to the same content will still be tired every day, but the diversification of program content and form is a new choice.

"If you don't want to listen to emotions, we also have talk shows and other types of content. We signed more than 5 anchors, just to enrich our content and create some different types of radio stations to meet the diversified needs of users.

For example, in the psychiatric clinic, when users encounter emotional problems, they send private messages to tell us, and we tell them in the form of answers, listen to their voices and spend lonely nights with them. "

Team Cheng Yi currently has a small internal test program, which allows users to freely express their emotional problems. Previously, users could only communicate with Cheng Yi through Netease Cloud Music, qq Music, Dragonfly FM and other audio platforms, which were scattered. Cheng Yi thought that with such a special platform, plus more than 5 anchors they signed, they could better accompany them, listen to their voices and solve their problems. According to Cheng Yi, at present, the company's revenue is mainly divided into three parts:

The first one is that at present, they have set up the anchor business school "Xiyou College" with radio stations, which is positioned as a pan-entertainment cultural education and training platform with audio anchors as the mainstay;

the second is to pay for content and emotional consultation, which is a paid service for everyone.

The third type is advertising e-commerce, but Cheng Yi said that the advertising market of online audio is still immature.

(the first signing ceremony of grapefruit college)

At present, the business of grapefruit college has the best growth prospect. Cheng Yi said that this business is a complete closed loop: on the one hand, students pay for training here in Cheng Yi, and after training, they can sign up for their company to do emotional consultation, anchor live broadcast and other work, which can train talents very effectively and digest them in the company to form a growing team.

4. Sound is a slow business

"Keep in line with users"

On October 17th, Cheng Yixin's book "You are the Eyes of the Rest of My Life" came out, which was his third book and quickly topped the list of Dangdang's youth literature. This book was basically written by him on a business trip. After reviewing the changes in the two years since the establishment of the company, Cheng Yi, who is nearly 3 years old, has more feelings.

Recently, Cheng Yi's latest single "New Love" and "Memories about Zhengzhou" was also launched on Netease Cloud Music. At the same time, he was also selected into the 219 Forbes China Elite Under 3 list.

In the past two years, while recording programs, starting a company, writing, singing and exercising, he has provided more content to the audience, and at the same time, he has become richer himself. Regarding the publication of books, Cheng Yi said that this is a way to let more people know about the industry and Cheng Yi: "Some people read books but don't listen to the radio. I think it is a kind of communication for others to learn about" Cheng Yi Radio "from books, and it is also another kind of companionship for those in need."

(Book Review of "All eyes are on you for the rest of my life")

When it comes to the long-term emotional connection with the audience, Cheng Yi thinks there are two main reasons:

First, the content has accumulated over time. Cheng Yi started recording programs in 14 years and insisted on updating them every day for five years; Second, listening to emotional stories every day, users are emotionally involved, especially in the process of companionship, and the emotional connection with radio stations will be slowly cultivated from the heart.

In the past two years, "Cheng Yi Radio" has developed from a program to a more team and diversified direction. Cheng Yi, who was previously called "Cheng Pang" by friends, has also become a fitness expert and put on a more fashionable white custom mask.

"I think the sound should be mysterious. Listening to Cheng Yi's voice is more important than seeing Cheng Yi himself." Cheng Yi also said that the team also