A week before the Spring Festival, the year of the Dog, this year’s annual Internet red envelope war has begun. Internet giants such as Alipay, wechat, Kuaishou and Xiaomi have come up with new “big tricks” to attract users with various forms of red envelopes.

With massive user participation and huge capital input, the red envelope war has become a national carnival with Chinese characteristics, and is gradually becoming a “new custom”.

However, under the surface of the “red envelope war”, the technological innovation based on the abundance of Internet tools and users’ desire for new experiences is worth paying special attention to.

This year’s Internet red envelope war, there are several new keywords.

A, short video red envelope New Year to create a new way

In the past few years, short video has not only served as entertainment and information dissemination, but also gradually become a new social tool with great energy. With a solid user base, novel and interesting gameplay, and strong communication power, a new generation of unicorn companies such as Kuaishou has been gradually created.

It is reported that kuaishou has more than 100 million daily active users, and more than 10 million new videos uploaded spontaneously by kuaishou users every day. The average daily usage time of kuaishou users is over 60 minutes. This makes Kuaishou has the capital to play the advantages of short video this social tool, thus creating a new way to pay New Year’s greetings in short video this year.

As the name implies, the red envelope is combined with the short video to form a more interesting social content. According to kuaishou’s activities, it will release a total of hundreds of millions of yuan in four days from February 14 to 17, there are tens of thousands of red envelopes as high as 8,888 yuan, the average day of red envelopes over 100 million yuan. It is not difficult to see that in today’s red envelope war bonus to 100 million yuan as a unit, Kuaishou is also catching a fashion trend.

So why did the short video red envelope greetings become the key word of this year’s red envelope wars?

Because WeChat, QQ, alipay, elder people based on the first generation of Internet social networking tools such as the properties of the stay on the text, even if is a concentration of wufu, WeChat Lucky Money is mainly in written form to send a red envelope, and a short video for this new social tools obviously more interesting than text images, for users is a kind of novel red envelope way; Second, the user base of Kuaishou determines that the new way of greeting New Year with short video red envelopes will become a new fashion and trend, and with the expansion of its influence, it can ferment as a hot topic for the whole people like wechat red envelopes and Alipay.

Second, return to the essence of red envelope to convey humanistic affection

In the traditional sense, paper red envelopes are a brief social behavior during the Spring Festival, which is reflected by greeting, blessing and other New Year’s greetings. With the advent of Internet social networking tools, cash has become electronic money and red envelopes have moved online. People have started handing out red envelopes with lucky numbers in apps such as wechat and Alipay, such as this year’s “Yiziqianjin” red envelope on Alipay and the previous one on wechat for New Year’s greetings.

Therefore, as the red envelope moves from offline to online, it becomes more convenient and faster, allowing people to enjoy a better experience of giving red envelopes. But just like this, the red envelope on social platforms, whether it is a New Year call, is essentially just a simple click. In a sense, it can hardly even create the feel of a traditional paper red envelope.

But this year, hongbao seems to be more about the process than the result. For example, Alipay added environmental protection and public welfare themes such as Ant Manor and Ant Forest to the activities of collecting five blessings, while QQ red envelopes also added step-counting to bundle more interesting things into a single social behavior such as red envelopes.

This kind of rich procedural content gameplay is actually the decentralization of red envelopes. Compared with the previous red envelope gameplay, it removes the “how much money” as the center, so that users can enjoy more fun, making the red envelope acquisition become a game, rather than a simple number in the stereotype.

Of course, the short video red envelope New Year greetings created by Kuaishou is also a way to achieve the decentralized effect of red envelopes by enriching the content and weakening the results. Short videos can distract users’ attention from the content, rather than focusing on the amount of money.

Third, red envelope reform, social iteration

The diversification of the carrier is actually a trend of the development of red envelopes in recent years. This diversification is mainly reflected in two aspects, one is the diversification of red envelope forms, the other is the diversification of science and technology components.

In recent years, new Internet tools such as short video and live broadcast have become so popular that groups of entrepreneurs have mushroomed in, creating a golden age for these industries. Short video and live broadcast have inevitably become social channels, so red envelopes have a wider habitat, from simple digital red envelopes to short video, live broadcast and other dynamic red envelopes, the diversification of carriers make red envelopes can also become a new attractive game.

At the same time, the continuous development of science and technology and the public science and technology hardware upgrade, let the red envelope fully integrated into the technology, technology can not only display the red envelope, but also undertake the important task of increasing the value of the red envelope. For example, AR red envelopes have emerged in recent years, QQ, Alipay and so on.

The change of red envelope is also the change of social communication

From a few key words can be seen, whether kuaishou short video red envelope happy New Year, or QQ Alipay and other new launched environmental protection public welfare red envelope, this year’s red envelope play in the rich form of display and content becomes extremely interesting. But if you think about it, red envelopes and New Year greetings in the traditional Spring Festival mean blessings, which can be understood as a social behavior under a special node.

The fact that hongbao is becoming more interesting and innovative is a sign that a social revolution led by hongbao is coming.

Just as red envelopes swept through Chinese social circles on wechat, a new revolution may be needed. On the one hand, mobile phones and social software have increased social barriers. No matter the distance, they have erected an invisible door between people, making people gradually get used to or give up face-to-face communication. On the other hand, social interaction is becoming more and more formalistic, such as Spring Festival greetings, New Year’s greetings, red envelopes and so on. When people copy each other’s wishes tacitly, some things become invisible.

But the innovation of hongbao social also makes us realize that the forgotten reality of social is coming back. Take Kuaishou’s short video red envelope New Year greeting, for example, which has changed social networking in at least two ways. One is that short video content allows people to see each other, bringing people back to face-to-face communication. The second is to incorporate red packets into short videos to create a social incentive effect.

Combined with other innovative red envelope gameplay, this year’s social networking may usher in three changes. First, more depth. As mentioned above, compared with traditional social platforms, the emergence of tools such as short videos and live broadcasts makes social networking more real and interesting. Therefore, new forms such as the short video red envelope New Year’s greetings are clearly able to frame social behavior under the outline of longer, more communication, and deeper emotional communication.

Second, it has more temperature. In fact, this temperature is more human in social situations than in face-to-face interactions. Short videos, live streaming and other tools are a plus for social networking. And this bonus is also a technological thing, it helps people to solve the problem of distance and communication, even if the distance is far, a short video happy New Year red envelope can solve all the problems.

Third, higher openness. This year, Alipay launched the “five blessings to” gesture collection method, not to mention alipay’s social heart is still dead, this is already a great innovation for itself. Because it has a face to face social function, more than the chat box let a person much more intimate. This KIND of AR social communication is similar to short video. It puts people in a more open environment, improves the freedom of social interaction, makes the tool itself play a greater social value, and becomes a channel to maintain people’s communication ability.

Short video red envelope new gameplay leads the return of social culture

Before cell phones and the Internet, people’s holiday greetings and socializing were full of emotion. However, the development of technology has changed our lives, and social interaction is just like a desk with “38th parallel”. We restrain each other. You do not cross the line, and I do not cross the line. As a result, the cool and quick sense of technology becomes cold, making itself a social barrier and blocking people’s most primitive emotional output.

Fortunately, we see the hope of social warming from this year’s innovation of red envelope play. The reason why Kuaishou’s short video red envelope greeting is so popular, and why Alipay and QQ are adding more social connections to red envelopes, is that the social tools themselves have potential worth exploring.

The reason why short video can become a new social weapon is that it allows people to dare to express themselves, so its own fun has set off an irresistible social trend, and Kuaishou added the incentive means of red envelope, and selected on the Spring Festival, can stimulate people’s social desire.

The Spring Festival is one of the most representative traditional festivals, symbolizing new beginnings, boundless blessings and rising emotions. Red envelopes and New Year greetings are the best wishes, but we should pay more attention to the way and method of expression, so that the taste of the Spring Festival fully reflected.

Nowadays, with the addition of short video and live broadcast, traditional cultural customs such as red envelopes and New Year’s greetings have become more approachable. What’s more, the new social channels of red envelopes not only bring back the sense of ceremony and the spirit of the New Year, but also make technology a powerful aid in boosting traditional culture. After a whirlwind, the new hongbao method based on short videos and other social tools will reshape the flexibility and extension of the social chain, and lead a long-term return of social culture.

Liu Kuang, meditation on the Internet, wechat official account: Liukuang110