With 102 million DAU, 341 million MAU, an average daily usage time of up to 105 minutes, 10 million users logging in for over 360 days a year, and 20 million users attending every month, it's hard to imagine these numbers come from a content community that is already 15 years old.

This resilient vitality that transcends cycles has made Bilibili "the only one" in Chen Rui's words: the only Chinese internet platform that has maintained rapid growth for 15 consecutive years.

Generally speaking, the vitality of a content community comes from the digital assets沉淀 that users accumulate after entering, whether it's social relationships or hobbies. When these assets are sufficient, it's difficult to break down the walls of the content community from the outside.

The problems with pioneers like Tianya and Acfun did not stem from the outside, but from an imbalance between users and commercialization within. Therefore, the content communities that survive today basically rely on the same iron rule: extreme appeasement to users and extreme caution with commercialization.

However, the trend began to change gradually last year, starting with Kuaishou achieving full-year profitability, followed by Xiaohongshu earning 500 million USD earlier this year. During the recent 618 shopping festival, Bilibili and Zhihu also became guests of honor on e-commerce platforms.

Content communities seem to have resolved the contradiction between users and commercialization overnight, achieving a certain balance between community tone and earning money. Among them, the most typical example is Bilibili, which is steadily moving towards its goals.

So, how did they achieve this? Is there a methodology?

1

Content Community Sample

Commercialization of content communities was once very difficult, as the platform mechanism and user experience initially aimed to protect and create a community atmosphere. In 2018, Kuaishou's commercialization team privately increased the volume of information stream advertisements to 70%, only to receive public criticism from Cheng Yixiao.

Such issues have been faced to some extent by content communities.

In the initial stage, community atmosphere and commercialization were indeed contradictory. At this stage, the community atmosphere represents user experience, while commercialization sacrifices experience at the cost of reducing user loyalty.

In this regard, Bilibili is an exception. As a video platform, Bilibili has never placed the easiest-to-earn advertisements on videos, preserving the last piece of pure land on the internet. This has kept its user loyalty high. At the 15th anniversary celebration, Chen Rui revealed that 68% of users who started using Bilibili in 2009 are still active on the platform.

However, high loyalty is a double-edged sword, meaning that whenever Bilibili needs to make phased breakthroughs, it must consider the balance between old and new users, ensuring that the community atmosphere continues unharmed.

But what exactly is community atmosphere? Simply put, it's the difference that users perceive between their platform and others. Just like the slow-motion shots in Wong Kar-wai's movies, they have a unique personal style.

How does Bilibili maintain its community atmosphere? Partly through loyalty, as users grow and their opinions and hobbies change, their habits formed in the community remain unchanged and can even influence new users.

Community mechanisms also play a role, stemming from Bilibili's adherence to the entire community culture. For example, there is strict supervision and punishment for low-quality content. Another example is the high-threshold answering mechanism and membership system that has been in place since the beginning, which brings high-quality community activity through user segmentation.

There is also the choice of an appropriate commercialization model and adherence to the promise of never placing advertisements on videos.

The direct result of preserving the community atmosphere is that users' value orientation towards content within the platform gradually converges: tolerance, rigor, and loyalty.

Bilibili users can accept content with low production costs, no stars, and no IPs, but they will not accept creators who just go through the motions. At the same time, the content environment created by such an atmosphere has also made users form stronger stickiness and loyalty. In short, high-quality original content is increasingly appreciated and promoted.

2

Commercialization Nurtured by the Atmosphere

Under these circumstances, although Bilibili's commercialization started late and had setbacks, it was itself a process of continuous exploration and improvement.

After breaking through the circle, Bilibili has essentially entered an uncharted territory. Whether domestic or foreign, there are no fully comparable products, even for short videos.

Kuaishou was still in heavy losses in 2022 but escaped the ICU in 2023, essentially finding a clearer sense of direction, focusing on core, differentiated audiences, and using e-commerce as the main engine for commercialization.

This sense of direction is what content communities have collectively learned in the past one or two years.

Put simply, content communities need to truly recognize their strengths and find suitable commercialization methods. For example, Bilibili is better at attracting commercialization through the tone and audience of its community content, and the same is true for Xiaohongshu.

A typical case is that both platforms are doing e-commerce, with the difference being that Bilibili adopts an open-loop strategy, while Xiaohongshu uses a closed-loop one.

If you look closely at this year's 618, there are two points worth studying in Bilibili's "open-loop" strategy. First, the "new customer rate," which Bilibili officially reported as bringing over 50% new customers to the industry, making it one of the largest sources of new e-commerce customers. Second, the conversion ability of UP main's recommendations, such as the UP main "Wild Computer Builder" with 470,000 followers, whose single 618 computer configuration recommendation video led to transactions exceeding 10 million.

These two points illustrate that Bilibili's open-loop e-commerce logic differs from general traffic diversion. Instead, it is based on the community foundation (UP main + fan users) to first enhance and release user value, achieving a natural transition from content consumption to material consumption.

This is the closed-loop ecosystem that traffic platforms, especially community platforms, have long dreamed of, where the main site (creators and users), e-commerce (or other transactional businesses), and commercialization (traffic monetization businesses) drive each other.

Today, the core support for Bilibili to use e-commerce as one of its components is the accumulated user growth and replacement dividends over a long period of time.

User growth refers to the strong user stickiness shaped by the community atmosphere. Not only do users grow on Bilibili, but their consumption power also increases, and the corresponding consumption brands gradually diversify. The simplest example is that many users who started using Bilibili in 2009 are now 35 years old and may already be parents. Their consumption needs are not just anime and games but also include baby products, home furnishings, or cars.

Replacement is the same concept. The direct benefit of breaking through the circle is user diversification, which also means consumption diversification. For Bilibili, consumption diversification represents more possibilities for profit models. If Bilibili had not broken through the circle, there would not have been tens of millions of users following AI and cars on Bilibili today, and Bilibili would not have earned money from AI manufacturers and new energy vehicles.

Over 80 million users watch AI-related videos on Bilibili every month. Among those interested in AI, more than 60% are post-2000s. Young people's interest in new energy vehicles is also reflected on Bilibili. In the first quarter, both the user base and video views in the automotive section grew by over 50% year-on-year, with an average of over 73 million users studying cars on Bilibili every month, driving daily video views in the automotive section to over 80 million.

This has made Bilibili a core discussion forum for new energy vehicles, with nearly 200 related videos receiving over one million views in the first quarter. This prosperity has naturally attracted automotive UP main's, such as "Speedy Gear," who has over 2.8 million followers on Bilibili. Not only does it rely on creative videos to showcase automakers' commercial orders, but it has also successfully gained the love of young fans, gaining over 600,000 new followers in a year.

3

Conclusion

Regarding Bilibili, the reason why we talk about user value rather than traffic value is that the essence of this issue lies in Bilibili's unique ecological niche as a content platform that adheres to its community atmosphere over a long period of time.

In history, Bilibili has repeatedly proven itself adept at community operations, understanding young people, and supporting content creators through a decentralized traffic allocation mechanism. These practices have made Bilibili's consistently emphasized community tone become a muscle memory for users consuming content on the platform.

Put simply, when a user consumes implanted advertisement content on a short video platform, they may immediately swipe away or skip the advertisement. However, on Bilibili, they may watch it in depth with a mindset of learning and understanding more, as Bilibili's content logic deeply influences consumption mindset.

Moreover, as Bilibili breaks through the circle, its user base expands rapidly, but without damaging the original content tone. It has even opened up more commercialization possibilities for Bilibili.

On any platform, the foundation of commercialization is users and products, such as e-commerce platforms. Pinduoduo's early social fission quickly expanded its user base and then attracted white-label and agricultural products to expand its product pool. After that, the "Billion Subsidy" program was launched, entering the inner city from the outskirts and completing phased accumulation of high-quality users and brand merchants.

During Pinduoduo's expansion, one of the few principles it adhered to was maintaining consumer experience, with features like only refunds and pay after use originating from Pinduoduo.

Therefore, when a Pinduoduo user can buy both an iPhone and a trash bag on the platform, Pinduoduo has essentially broken the user's inherent impression of itself while also developing user value: both the iPhone and the trash bag are real user needs. Previously, users would buy them on different platforms, but now they can complete both transactions on Pinduoduo.

In comparison, Bilibili's breaking through the circle has similar aspects.

For Bilibili, only games could be monetized in the past, but now live streaming, e-commerce, influencer marketing, advertising, content cooperation, etc., can all be monetized, representing diversified revenue. For users, they used to only consume anime and manga content, but now they also watch documentaries and variety shows. Like Pinduoduo, different needs can now be satisfied on the same platform.

What's remarkable is that commercialization after breaking through the circle is built on the preservation of the community atmosphere. In other words, users still recognize Bilibili and its commercialization.

Disclaimer: This article is written based on publicly available information or information provided by interviewees, but Decode and the article author do not guarantee the completeness or accuracy of such information. Under no circumstances do the information or opinions expressed in this article constitute investment advice for anyone.