Online creator conference looks at new focus

The seventh Toutiao Annual Creators Conference was held online in Beijing on Dec 20. Chen Xi, president of Toutiao proposed that high-quality and diversified content aimed at various age groups will become the new focus of the platform. Chen says they have always been committed to allowing users to see a bigger world. Toutiao is one of China's most popular content discovery and creation platform where users explore news and content through personalized recommendations.

To encourage the creation of high-quality content, one of the next priorities for them, Chen announced the "Content Appraisal Officer" initiative. The plan is to invite 1 million users who are experts in various industries to jointly evaluate the quality of content. Content acknowledged by these professional users will be given more exposure and creators can receive fivefold revenue sharing at maximum.

Toutiao will also launch a special project to better support the knowledge-based content in the form of documentaries, museums, poems, electronic publications, audiobooks and open courses.

Xu Yilong, deputy editor-in-chief of Toutiao says they have seen such knowledge-based content scale up on their platform. More than 13,000 new posts about poems are published every month with viewerships exceeding 35 million.

Song Baozhen, head of the Drama Research Institute of the Chinese National Academy of Arts says the popularization of art requires professional support. After the academy officially settled in Toutiao in January, the first interpretation video about the Chinese literary classic Dream of Red Mansions has received more than 100,000 views.

"This makes us realize that works in the original academic circle can also be accessed through the platform, entering thousands of households," Song says.

In addition, Toutiao will increase the investment in diversified content categories appreciated by various age groups. Their research shows that users born after 1980 consume much more short-form videos on their Weitoutiao account than other age groups.

Zang Qian, director of creator operations at Toutiao says there will be a "New Vitality" initiative focusing on such content. The platform expects to boost additional 200 million views for content categories such as technology, games, automobiles, food and photography, and offers about 360 million yuan ($56.5 million) cash resources to cultivate creators in these genres.

In 2021, 8 million users are expected to earn an income through Toutiao, an increase of 48 percent from last year. The total income of creators grew by 32 percent year-on-year.

"We hope that through this initiative, more good content with outstanding information or aesthetic experience will be presented to our users," Chen says.

Some creators highlighted the critical role of authenticity and professionalism in content creation, and some talked about their story of being a creator on Toutiao.

One of the speakers, William Brown, professor at the School of Management, Xiamen University, shared his indissoluble bond of friendship with China.

He came to China in 1987, and during the past 33 years, he was pleased to see the great improvements on people's livelihood in China. When he first traveled around China with his family in 1994, it took him three months to finish the whole journey, while in 2019, Brown spent 32 days making the second round trip over the same route. The rapid and thorough changes in China within simply 25 years "moved me deeply", Brown says.

Brown tries to share his affections for China from an external perspective with more people. After publishing more than 20 books and filmed over 400 episodes of TV programs, Brown joined Toutiao last October and became an online content creator for the first time. Now he has garnered around 330,000 followers. Some of his videos received millions of views within a few days, which looked incredible to him.

"It is with your attention and support that I can be more motivated to share with you more of what I see and feel. There is an old Chinese saying that 'stones from another mountain can be used to polish one's jade'. As a foreigner, I can feel more clearly the actual benefits that China's development has brought to the people. I also want to share this simple touch with a wider audience," he says.

Brown says he has participated in this year's annual selection of the top 100 works. He chose the video clip he created in June, A Chinese Story Starts from Quanzhou, in which he introduced how this ancient port called Zaitun city by the then Arab merchants inspired writers to create magical stories like Aladdin.

Brown says he will continue to tell stories of the common people he meets in China, and in his own words "hearts, then head", to enhance the mutual understanding through the emotional connections.

Popular science creator Wang Jie says the author's depth of understanding of science is the "tao" of popular science video creation, which determines the "ceiling" of the work; and the professionalism of the video is "technique", which determines the relationship between the work and the "ceiling". Roy and Sue, a couple filming travelogs believes that only by slowing down on the details can they generate unique ideas and touches. The creative sharing will be more real, deeper and valuable.