Pivoting Strategies and Preparing For my Move Back to the U.S.: February Growth, Insights and Income Report

February has been a huge transition month as I am making some huge life changes and pivoting my strategy. So what exactly is going on? Well, 1. I’m focusing on developing a long-term a career as a live-streamer and influencer, and 2. I’m moving back to U.S. in late March!

This month I was focusing on the Yizhibo and Huajiao platforms, with my main focus being on Yizhibo. I only live streamed 10 times on Momo which was a huge departure from before when I was doing Momo 2x a day. I wasn’t earning as much on Momo anymore and I don’t think Momo fits my long term strategy as most brands don’t tend to cooperate with that platform. Since I do have a large following on Momo I am trying to slowly bring them over to other platforms, but I have to be careful about that because I could get shut down if I’m obviously directing users away from Momo.

I have been live streaming on Yizhibo for about 1 and a half hours in the morning and 1 hour in the evening. In the evening I have been doing English lessons which some of my followers really seem to like. I don’t plan on continuing the English lessons after I return to the U.S. as I will have plenty of other content then, but for now it’s a good way for viewers to get accustomed to evening live streams and to me speaking in English. During my morning live streams, I have been focusing on content related to my move back to the U.S., for example talking about my hometown and finding an apartment. I also try to encourage discussion about American lifestyle and travel. Doing this has built up excitement and anticipation for my future live streaming in the U.S. and many followers are really looking forward to the new content!

The earnings are much lower here than other platforms but the viewers on Yizhibo are higher. The male/female ratio is more equal and people are genuinely interested in learning about the U.S. and generally are less focused on flirting with me. Because my long term strategy is to continue developing myself as a travel and lifestyle influencer and rely less on gifting, I have been willing to take a cut in earnings this month to focus on developing my audience on Yizhibo. Hopefully after returning to the U.S. the numbers will grow even more quickly.

Huajiao has been growing at a pretty fast rate this month as well. The viewership is much smaller, but, interestingly enough, there do seem to be a quite a few viewers who are based in the U.S. Huajiao feels a lot like Momo in the sense that there are more males and more people trying to flirt with me. Now you’re probably thinking, why are you still trying to develop an audience on Huajiao then? Well a couple of reasons, 1. Brands do work with Huajiao more so than they do with Momo, 2. Live streaming on Huajiao eanrs more than Yizhibo so it’s helping me continue to bring in an income from livestreaming until I can get more steady sponsorships coming in, 3. There has been a lot of news recently about foreigners being banned from livestreaming in China and, while I have not been influenced by it yet, I need to be safe. So developing audiences on multiple platforms can’t hurt.

Well that was quite the overview, let’s take a look at the numbers:

Yizhibo:

New Followers: 22,000

Total Number of Followers: 36,000

Average viewers: 235,900

Average number of simultaneous viewers: 17,259

Earnings before tax: 1,788.7 rmb ($ 260.18 USD)

Huajiao:

New Followers: 8,361

Total Number of Followers: 10,435

Average viewers for live stream: 10,245

Earnings before tax: 5404.91rmb ($ 786.83 USD)

Momo:

New Followers: 2,539

Total Number of Followers: 295,050

Average viewers: 11,475

Earnings before tax: 2583.04 rmb ($ 375.96 USD)

Besides trying to develop followings on multiple live streaming platforms, to minimize risk I’m also encouraging my followers to follow me on Weibo and on a fans Wechat account that I’ve created. Similar to influencers in the U.S. who try to get their followers on an email list because it’s an owned platform, I’m trying to push followers to those two places so that I know that I can reach them no matter what happens with restrictions on live streaming. Furthermore, this allows me to share more photo and video content with my followers and connect with them even when they don’t come to watch live streaming. I currently have 26,437 Weibo followers and over the past 10 days since I opened it I have had over 1150 people add my fans Wechat account.

The biggest shift that will be happening in March is a dramatic shift in content. Instead of merely discussing the U.S. with my viewers, I plan on sharing, reality show style, my move back to the U.S. and my new life in America. I also plan on including much more travel related content and I already have several trips planned and I’m working on adding more.

It’s a bit nerve-wracking building an audience in what I feel is an unstable environment, however, as long as I continue diversifying and developing real relationships with my audience I’m confident it should be fine. While transition periods can be tough, this an exciting time and I’m excited to see what the future holds!