Writer: LIU HAO
Abstract
In recent years, with the continuous progress of mobile Internet technology, selfmedia platforms have sprung up and quickly entered into fierce market competition. In particular, the development of short video platforms has shown more and more homogenisation and market segmentation. This study will focus on the development trajectory of the Jitterbit platform, and through in-depth analyses of its development strategy, business model, and competitive comparisons with other similar platforms, it will reveal its performance and strategic effects in the fierce market. In addition, this paper will also apply SWOT analysis to explore the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of Jitterbit, so as to clarify the potential direction of its future development. Through comparative analyses, this paper aims to reveal the core differences of Jitterbug in terms of products, markets and services, identify the main problems it faces in differentiated competition, and propose effective countermeasures. These analyses not only help optimise ShakeEn’s market strategy, but also provide reference for the development of other short video platforms.
Keywords: Since the media; Tik Tok; SWOT; Differentiated competition
1.INTRODUCTION
1.1 Research Background
Since the beginning of the 21st century, the rapid development of internet technology and mobile networks has revolutionized the way information is disseminated. Particularly since 2012, with the proliferation of smartphones, the internet has become an indispensable part of daily life. The number of internet users in China has continued to grow, and modern demands for content have shifted towards quicker, more digestible formats. This demand has given rise to short video platforms such as Douyin
and other self-media platforms. These platforms not only meet user demands for concise, quick, and entertaining content but also lead new trends in media consumption.
With the advancement of 5G technology, the barriers to internet usage are further reduced, and the development of short video platforms has shown characteristics of segmentation and cyclical growth. Consumers’ diverse demands for short video content have compelled platforms to continuously adjust their content strategies to enhance their competitive differentiation. Against this backdrop, studying the development strategies, competitive environment, and differentiated marketing strategies of self-media is particularly important.
1.2 Research Content
This paper comprehensively examines the Douyin short video platform across various aspects such as product, market, business, channels, application, and management, analyzing its development trends and marketing strategies. The research primarily utilizes existing literature, relevant publications, and online information, coupled with detailed analyses of Douyin and its competitors, to explore Douyin’s strengths and weaknesses in the short video market, as well as the opportunities and challenges it faces.
The focus of the study is to explore the characteristics of short videos from a socioeconomic perspective and their potential value in integration with other industries, and then to analyze how short video platforms should implement differentiated competitive strategies. The paper will specifically examine how Douyin effectively promotes its business development through differentiated competitive strategies and explore the impact of these strategies on the overall competitive landscape of the industry.
1.3 Research status
Li, W., & Zhou, Q. (2020) propose that all aspects of an enterprise’s internal and external development conditions should be thoroughly examined to analyze its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats [1]. Wang, H., & Liu, S. (2019) state that short videos have become one of the most popular forms of entertainment among today’s teenagers and have a positive social and cultural impact [2]. However, facing the challenge of entering a fully competitive market, Wang, H., & Liu, S. (2019) analyze from the perspective of business operations and management the reasons for losses incurred by some short video platforms and offer their own solutions [2]. Chen, M., & Zhang, L. (2021) argue that the current epidemic has posed long-term challenges and opportunities to the social consumer market and the marketing and advertising industry. Therefore, how enterprises can formulate new differentiated marketing strategies tailored to their own needs will be the focus of current research [3].
2.Market Analyses
2.1 Market environment analysis
With the widespread adoption of communication networks, China’s short video industry has witnessed rapid growth since 2013, with over 300 platforms emerging by the end of 2020. Concurrently, competition within the industry has intensified. According to iMedia Research (Li, 2020) [4], the number of short video users in China reached 700 million in 2020, projected to rise to 809 million in 2021. Short videos have evolved into indispensable mobile products, integrating social and ecommerce functionalities, resulting in expanding user bases and engagement.
In 2020, China’s short video market surpassed 140.83 billion yuan, with expectations to exceed 200 billion yuan in 2021. Platforms are actively exploring new business models, innovating online marketing services, and identifying fresh economic growth opportunities through product promotions via videos (Wang et al., 2021) [5].
2.2 Analysis of development models
Through years of intensive development, the user base of short video platforms has grown rapidly, becoming an indispensable tool for brand promotion. According to the “2020 Douyin Data Analysis Report,” the primary user group for short videos in China in 2020 were young adults and the middle-aged and elderly, especially those over 30 years old, whose numbers significantly increased in new first-tier cities and below third-tier cities. Dependence on short videos has gradually increased, with both the number of daily active users and viewing duration on platforms rising.
Short videos have evolved from simple music and text to diverse content formats, changing the way media is disseminated and becoming a new social language for brands. In the past two years, short video products have become quite comprehensive in every aspect, becoming one of the main forms of content consumption in people’s daily lives and an important area for corporate brand marketing investment.
Douyin has enhanced its strategy by focusing on key figures and leveraging big data technology to optimize user profiles, continuously discovering and cultivating key users. Moreover, when selecting target markets, Douyin has precisely positioned itself among the Chinese youth, creating possibilities for accurately targeted marketing strategies. Due to young people’s strong desire to share, Douyin has made a clear market positioning, breaking away from the traditional video website playback attributes to become a platform with greater visual appeal and shareability.
3.SWOT Analysis of Douyin
3.1 Strengths
Douyin has a wide and high-quality user base, with videos that are short and engaging, coupled with simple interface design, enhancing the visual experience. The platform attracts a diverse audience, including youths, adults, children, and the elderly, with its intelligent push algorithm. Notably, 80% of Douyin’s mainstream audience is under 35, with a fairly even gender distribution and a high percentage of users with at least a bachelor’s degree, predominantly from first and second-tier cities. This demographic forms a solid base for corporate marketing.
Douyin’s content diversity allows for engagement across multiple industries. The platform showcases trendy music and encompasses a wide range of topics, including fashion, food, and more [6]. This diverse content landscape provides ample opportunities, particularly for emerging brands seeking to upgrade consumer experiences. Additionally, the involvement of celebrities and government entities enhances Douyin’s credibility and facilitates positive brand promotion [7]. Since its launch in September 2016, Douyin has experienced exponential growth in both user engagement and video views, attracting a diverse range of users beyond the youth demographic [8].
3.2 Weaknesses
The low barrier to entry sometimes results in poor content quality, with inconsistencies in video review standards. A notable incident involved inappropriate content that passed the platform’s review process, highlighting gaps in content management. Douyin’s rapid information dissemination approach sometimes overlooks necessary supervision of user-shared content, posing risks in an era where any inappropriate content can trigger widespread reactions.
3.3 Opportunities
The rollout of 5G is set to integrate short videos more deeply with various industries. China’s push for 5G development is expected to enhance the quality of online entertainment, smart campuses, and e-commerce, among others. Douyin’s integration with e-commerce, particularly with platforms like Taobao, positions it well beyond other short video platforms, capitalizing on the new consumption behaviors fostered by 5G technology.
3.4 Threats
Competitors like Kuaishou pose significant threats due to their mature business models and strong live-streaming and e-commerce capabilities. Intense competition from Tencent’s expansion into short videos with QQ Watch and Tencent Microvision also challenges Douyin. Furthermore, Douyin faces significant competition from international players like Google entering the short video market, potentially intensifying the competitive landscape for Douyin both domestically and internationally.
4.Competitive differentiation analysis
4.1 Product Differentiation
Douyin initially targeted young people in first and second-tier cities, addressing their need to spend fragmented time. Starting with music-themed content, Douyin transitioned to lifestyle content and established popular vertical communities, engaging a broad audience. However, as the user base expanded, the lack of filtering led to many low-quality videos. In contrast, Bilibili serves top-tier users, raising the barrier for content creation and enhancing video quality, attracting active user participation with more efficient data-driven user profiling.
4.2 Market Differentiation
Douyin and Kuaishou hold the largest market share, followed by Douyin’s Speed Edition and Watermelon Video. Unlike Kuaishou, which has maintained its core live streaming and e-commerce services despite its growth, Douyin has evolved from providing video creation tools to fostering community social interactions and now focuses on commercial content for e-commerce. While chasing traffic and expanding its business scope, Douyin has received government recognition, especially for activities promoting rural development.
4.3 Service Differentiation
Kuaishou emphasizes user-generated content (UGC) and community building without focusing solely on elite users, offering equal services to all. This approach makes Kuaishou more interactive. In contrast, Douyin provides not only technical support but also aims to be an information platform offering quality content and rapid promotion of popular videos, focusing on key influencers and providing resources to popular creators to attract traffic.
4.4 User Differentiation
Douyin’s users mainly come from first and second-tier cities, while Kuaishou’s user base is stronger in lower-tier cities. As platforms grow, their user demographics overlap more, making the competition between Douyin and Kuaishou more intense. The income levels of their users also differ, with Douyin attracting a higher proportion of higher-income users compared to Kuaishou.
4.5 Management Differentiation
Douyin’s vast user base has been essential for its rapid growth, but managing this large community brings significant challenges and costs, particularly in content moderation. Douyin has increased its investment in manual review processes to ensure content quality, which has raised its operational costs compared to Kuaishou.
5. Problems and solutions to differentiated market competition
5.1 Existing Problems
Low-Quality Content: The low barrier to entry on the platform has led to a flood of low-quality content, which affects the overall image and user experience of the platform.
Low User Loyalty: The increase in homogeneous content reduces the novelty for users, thereby affecting user stickiness and loyalty.
Increased Operating Costs: As the platform scales and the need for content moderation grows, operating costs have significantly increased.
5.2 Optimization Suggestions Purify the Short Video Environment:
Strengthen content moderation mechanisms by increasing the number of moderators and enhancing moderation technology.Implement stricter content publishing standards, especially for content involving minors. Cooperate with government agencies to conduct regular content checks to ensure compliance.
Leverage Big Data to Enhance Innovation:
Use big data to analyse user behaviour and preferences to provide more personalised content recommendations; develop specific features or content for different user groups to meet their unique needs; increase content innovation by encouraging diversity and high-quality original content production.
6.Conclusion:
This paper is based on the study of differentiated competition strategy under the selfmedia market, supplemented by the analysis of the differentiation strategy of Jitterbug platform, using the differentiation with other similar platforms to make a comparative analysis, assisted by the SWOT to carry out the analysis of strengths and weaknesses, and clarify its future opportunities and threats.Comprehensive differentiation competition of Jitterbug can be found, in order to create its own cultural characteristics and enhance the competitiveness, differentiation competition is a necessary means. Jitterbug as a very valuable potential and has a large number of customer groups of self-media platform, through specific differentiation measures to meet the different needs of each of our users, change the traditional business model to use its own big data advantage for each user to provide differentiated, customised services, but also to enhance the platform differentiation competition ability. The current Internet short video platform, only fully develop enterprise differentiation, the core competitiveness of enterprise development can be improved.
REFERENCES
[1]Li, W., & Zhou, Q. (2020). *Enterprise Development Analysis: A Comprehensive Approach*. Publisher.
[2] Wang, H., & Liu, S. (2019). *The Impact of Short Videos on Teenagers and Business Operations*. Journal of Entertainment Studies, 10(2), 123-135.
[3] Chen, M., & Zhang, L. (2021). *Challenges and Opportunities in the Marketing Industry Amidst the Epidemic*. Marketing Review, 15(3), 267-280.
[4] Li, X. (2020). *Annual Report on China’s Short Video Industry.* iMedia Research.
[5] Wang, J., Zhang, L., & Chen, Y. (2021). *Emerging Trends in China’s Short Video Market.* Journal of Marketing Trends, 15(2), 45-58.
[6] Wang, Li. (2019). “Emerging Marketing Strategies in the Era of Market Challenges.”
[7] Zhang, Wei. (2020). “Influence of Celebrity and Government Participation on Social Media Platforms: A Case Study of Douyin.”
[8] Chen, Xiaojie. (2017). “Exponential Growth and User Engagement in Short Video Platforms: A Case Study of Douyin.”
