Editor’s Note: This article is from WeChat WeChat official account "China-Venture" (ID:China-Venture). Author: Xue Ying, published by 36Kr with authorization.

The commercialization of UP owners is the moat between bilibili and its competitor PK. The status quo is that some people have millions of fans who don’t know how to realize it, and some waist UP main suppliers are soft.
Between bilibili and Watermelon Video, the smell of smoke in the battle for UP is getting more and more choking.
Teacher Li Yongle, who was acclaimed by bilibili, recently appeared in People magazine. More interestingly, bilibili was not mentioned in almost the whole article, and the poster at the bottom of the article revealed the mystery: Watermelon video search for Teacher Li Yongle.

On July 26th, Li Yongle announced in the latest video that watermelon has become his exclusive content publishing platform. Li Yongle is not the first and won’t be the last one who has been poached by watermelon in bilibili.
On June 14th, the UP master "Wizarding Finance", who was once famous in bilibili, officially announced that he had left bilibili to join the watermelon video. In addition, UP owners such as Wen Yifei’s Brain Hole Finance, Moon Catching Theory, Science and Technology Yuan Ren and Mommy Theory have also been found in watermelon videos.

Not only did he dig himself, but Watermelon Video also appointed MCN to dig people. The MCN organization Fengmaniu Media, which holds 25% of the shares of Watermelon Video, has signed UP bilibili’s former "Catch the Sea Group", fishermen Afeng, Laosi Catch the Sea, Yuge Brothers and other UP owners.
The secret of watermelon video poaching is mainly two words: money. It is understood that Wizarding Finance has got an exclusive signing fee of 10 million yuan for two years, and the signing fee of teacher Li Yongle is also tens of millions. There are still a number of UP owners who are becoming the targets of watermelon video hunting. They are entangled in the attractive signing conditions given by watermelon and the community atmosphere in bilibili, and there are not a few who choose watermelon video to offer attractive conditions.
"The UP video you are concerned about has been updated", which has become a shadow around bilibili. In the face of competing poaching, bilibili also launched a counterattack.
Bilibili also spent a lot of money to get back the famous game UP owner "Aochang". According to 36Kr, the value of the contract is as high as 40 million yuan. Although bilibili officials denied this price, some people familiar with the matter revealed that the agreement between the two parties includes video release and business orders, and each part has guaranteed income, involving 8 million yuan a year.
As bilibili gradually enters the mainstream battlefield, it is one of the core tasks for bilibili to protect the UP owners who have grown up in their own ecology. In his speech on the 11th anniversary of bilibili, Rui Chen mentioned three missions of bilibili, one of which was to "build a stage for creators to display their talents". Today, this goal has become more urgent.
Retaining the UP Lord is directly related to the moat of bilibili. Unlike Ai Youteng, which buys copyright at a high price, thanks to the good community atmosphere in bilibili, there are many spontaneous content creators in bilibili, which makes bilibili spend no money, or relatively little money in exchange for considerable traffic.
But once this foundation is shaken, bilibili lacks active and spontaneous UP owners or can’t keep the UP owners who have grown up, then the high-quality native content that the platform is proud of will also be impacted. The end result is that the ROI of bilibili becomes higher.
In other words, if this battle is defeated, the content ecology will no longer prosper; Success, the sustainability of bilibili community will be guaranteed, and under the attack of Tik Tok and Aauto Quicker, we can stabilize our own camp.
How did bilibili win the defensive battle of UP master?
It is not enough to rely solely on the community atmosphere to generate electricity for love. In the long run, it is still necessary to complete the closed loop of UP main growth path and commercialization path. So, what’s the current living situation of UP owners in bilibili?
At present, making money by one’s own ability, diversified ways to make money and great differences in realizing efficiency are the key words of the present situation of UP owners in bilibili.

In a video about commercialization, the UP owner "Lao Jiang Giant Reliable" mentioned that an UP owner with more than 1 million fans privately asked him about how to talk about cooperation with Party A and other basic issues.
"He has already achieved this level, but at that time he still had no idea about how to commercialize. I think this is really a very outrageous thing, which will not happen under WeChat WeChat official account." Lao Jiang said.
Some people have millions of fans who don’t know how to realize it, and some waist UP main suppliers are soft.
A person familiar with the matter told China Investment Network that a tech finance UP owner with a fan of about 150,000 can receive the opportunity to cooperate with a big factory, and the business income can reach 100,000 a day.
At present, the mainstream ways to realize UP in bilibili are platform revenue, charging rewards, live broadcast, advertising, e-commerce, knowledge payment, platform signing, and selling around.
Compared with Youtube’s revenue from patch advertising, and different from content creators, bilibili promised users not to insert advertisements early, which made the platform lose the most stable and direct revenue source that can be subsidized to UP owners.
During the epidemic period, the platform income brought by the UP owner "Xu Da sao" who publicized his first-phase video with a broadcast volume of 10 million was only 4,855.31 yuan, and the survival status of the UP owner once caused a heated discussion.
Since then, bilibili officials have adjusted the revenue rules, and China Investment Network has learned that an UP owner has more than 4 million broadcasts, and after opening the incentive plan, he has gained more than 7,000 yuan in platform revenue, and the platform revenue per 10,000 yuan is around 15 yuan.
It is obviously difficult to support a full-time UP living by relying solely on platform revenue, let alone a content team.
Charging is an online reward on bilibili. Users can choose to input "Battery Quantity" to the UP owner in his personal space or video page. After charging is completed, the user’s ID will appear on the relevant page. Every ten batteries represent one dollar, and the UP owner can take them out, but bilibili will charge 30% of the channel service fee.
Rewarding by charging has encouraged the creative enthusiasm of UP owners, and to some extent, it has supplemented the source of income, but for most UP owners, it can only be regarded as "pocket money".
In addition, live broadcast is also a form promoted by bilibili, which allows UP owners to share cakes. Bilibili’s live broadcast is diversified, including video of knowledge sharing, radio and study room, in addition to face value and games. However, some UP owners told China Investment Network that the efficiency of live broadcast, whether it is realizing or adding powder, is not high and can only be used as a supplement to income.
Informed sources told China Investment Network that advertising is the main source of income for bilibili’s middle waist and head UP owners, which is commonly known as Qiafan in bilibili.
The common ways to receive advertisements are patch, implantation, customization, oral broadcast, dynamic forwarding and so on.
Implanted advertisements are generally soft and wide, and UP owners don’t explicitly say that this is an advertisement in the video. Patch advertisements are similar to Youtube’s opening and closing advertisements, and e-commerce brand owners choose this method to put in more.
Patch advertisements are mainly hard and wide, and there is no problem of "deceiving" the audience. However, due to the low correlation between patch advertisements and videos themselves, some users will also be disgusted.
Customization is also a mainstream type of business list in bilibili. The whole video of UP owners is for customer service, both in soft and hard formats. UP owners who have the ability to make creativity are especially loved by brand owners, such as cool breeze of UP owners.
In the oral broadcast of similar variety shows, it shows that the sponsor of the show is mainly the head UP.
Dynamic forwarding is similar to the gameplay in the Weibo system, in which the UP forwards the advertising content of the partner, which can earn income.
An UP owner told China Investment Network to find him to dynamically forward all painting courses, beauty brands, digital products, etc., and some small UP owners wanted him to forward his own videos.
At present, there is a lot of opacity in the pricing of all kinds of advertisements, which is influenced by many factors such as the number of UP main fans, UP main resources, brand parties, negotiation ability of both parties and so on. Informed sources told China Investment Network that the price of the same order of UP product placement may be several times different.
In addition, the UP owner has to balance the issues of personal endorsement and channel tonality, and advertisements can not be picked up if they want. If they are not properly operated, they will easily be labeled as "just rotten rice".
"Generally, as long as the fans break 5000, they can receive advertisements," said the UP owner "Big Cat in Beijing" in the video. "I have received many invitations for advertisements, but I didn’t receive them. I haven’t fully thought about the positioning of the channel and what I want to make it look like in the future. In addition, even if this product is very good, if the proportion of advertisements is more, it will change a little. "

"In fact, before the opening of the incentive plan in bilibili, some early UP owners discovered many ways of realizing money other than advertising, and the types were more diverse than generally recognized." The UP owner "Big Candle" told China Investment Network, "We should not define the proposition as how many cash-out models there are. There are so many business models in the world, and it is imaginative to add video in any one of them."
So, how much did the UP owner earn?
As an UPP owner with 600,000 fans, "Lao Jiang Jureliable" revealed that he had earned less than 150,000 yuan from July last year to now. The account entry mainly started in the second half of the year. The official income from bilibili was less than 35,000, the live broadcast income was between 40,000 and 50,000, the advertising income was over 50,000, and some income was realized by professionalism and influence.
Although I didn’t earn much last year, "Lao Jiang Giant Reliable" said that I was satisfied, because I was concentrating on making content last year. After finding out the commercialization path, under the premise of balancing quality and realization, he expects to have confidence in the income of more than 400,000 yuan in the next year.
UP FUN Technology also disclosed that its annual income was more than 180,000 when the number of fans was 280,000. Most of the income came from the profit of self-operated Taobao stores, some from the traffic sharing of platforms, and the rest from business cooperation of various platforms.
Bilibili’s head upmaster "witty Dang Mei" also revealed his income. When he was on the order of 3 million fans, he said: "When your parents saw that you earned more than most of your peers, this incident came naturally." Dang Mei said that if she keeps her net income in 2019, "I can buy a two-bedroom apartment in Pudong after five or six years", but her net income must be more than that now, since her fans have doubled.
Generally speaking, the commercialization path of content creators in bilibili needs to be improved. Bilibili launched the "Fireworks Platform" in July, which is equivalent to Tik Tok’s "Star Map". It is intended to connect UP owners and brands, provide UP owners with functions such as system quotation reference, order flow management, platform security settlement, and provide brand owners with services such as intelligent recommendation, data display and project collaborative management. The platform will charge customers a 5% service fee, but will not charge the UP owner.
At the same time, another realization path "reward plan" is also being promoted. The "reward plan" is mainly the mode of e-commerce with goods. The video and live broadcast rooms can be connected with Taobao, and click to enter the product details page.
A brand told China Investment Network that the commission rate of UP owners is between 20% and 50%, and the cooperation between bilibili and Taobao is not surprising. bilibili needs to explore its own e-commerce path, and Taobao also needs to seize the platform where young people gather.
With these measures, can bilibili protect its own UP master?
The UP owner "Big Candle" told China Investment Network that he thought that all UP owners who have a certain level of fans in bilibili, especially those whose fans have passed the threshold of 100,000, will know in their hearts that bilibili will be their main battlefield in the next three to five years or even longer. While ByteDance is in the early stage of listing, it needs to package a bigger and more beautiful story. When the price of watermelon video is five times or even ten times more, of course, some people are tempted to go to "bonus hunter", but they may also "come back in a short time".
"The community comes first, which is also attached great importance to by bilibili staff. To some extent, bilibili is the only place in China at present. "
"Big Candle" thinks that there will be more KOLs like "Luo Xiang" in bilibili in the future. "Many people outside the station think that bilibili’s core competitiveness is mass production of online celebrity UP owners, and UP owners are a bit like low-profile stars. However, I think that the imagination of video UP owners will be greater than that of stars in the future, because video UP owners can integrate resources more comprehensively in the industrial chain by relying on new media forms. From the perspective of investment, if this generation of UP owners continues to grow, many UP owners will be more capable of transforming into a business operator than stars in the future. "
He also revealed to China Investment Network that he has been promoting related entrepreneurial projects and intends to cooperate with more college teachers to build an Internet folk think tank composed of college experts. The project has already received financing. "This is the only project invested by Shanghai Jiaotong University Innovation Fund so far this year," he said.
Science and technology are accelerating, but the speed of the public’s mastery of this may not be realized. At present, the proportion of people who are willing to read a long article of ten thousand words to understand the cutting-edge trends is very low. More knowledge workers should convey information to the public in their favorite way. "Papers should be written on the land of the motherland," said Big Candle.
Gao Zhang Capital, which has invested in the Planet Institute, the True Story Project and Sansheng, has also targeted the ecology of bilibili.
Fan Weifeng, a partner of Gaochang Capital, revealed in an interview with the "devil investor" of UP owner: "As far as I know, there are many people whose annual income is tens of millions. I think the future space will be bigger and bigger. With the expansion of bilibili and the more mainstream of bilibili."
Although optimists paint the future of bilibili UP as optimistic, the reality still reveals coolness.
"Sir_ Lu _", the main cloth of UP in the game area, announced his withdrawal from bilibili in a video at the beginning of this year. In one year, his bilibili fans achieved 260,000, but his annual income was only 100,000 yuan, with a net loss of 1 million yuan.

"To tell you the truth, my family is actually very rich, and I am the so-called rich second generation," he said in the video. After his parents bought him a house of 17 million yuan, he began to feel pressure. In order to make the account quickly, he began to rub hot spots and do something he didn’t like, and later found that he lost his initial heart.
"Sir_ Lu _" gave UP the career of taking UP as a home. Although he later updated the video, he chose a simpler way: to generate electricity for love.
"Sir_ Lu _" is lucky. While generating electricity for bilibili with love, there are family businesses to inherit.
However, "Sir_ Lu _" is very few after all. How big bilibili can make the cake and how much he can share with the content creators is still a major test for bilibili.
