Short-video Apps like Douyin(抖音), Kuaishou(快手) become News Sources for Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak in China
Chinese authorities have put Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province in quarantine,due to the coronavirus.
As the city goes into lock down, short-video apps like Douyin(抖音) and Kuaishou(快手) have become important channels for outsiders to know what’s happening on the ground.
On Byte Dance’s Douyin(抖音), the platform with 400 million daily active users, topics related to Wuhan are among the most searched items,among them the keywords “scientist Zhong Nanshan,” a key figure in China’s response to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) crisis in 2003, or“Wuhan’s lock down.”
Douyin(抖音) also offers a live-update section recording the number of infected patients, based on official announcements. So far, 633 people have contracted the virus according to the latest figures, and 17 patients have died. The app also shows a geographical map with the reported cases.
News clips, latest announcements, and recorded videos about citizens buying groceries, masks, or showing support to the medical staff, are filling the platform. It leads to more and more Daily Active Users of these short-video apps. At the same time, users ’trust in the platforms will gradually increase since more state-owned media outlets and state-approved sources, like People’s Daily, Hubei Daily and China Central Television (CCTV) are entering.
For the future 3-5 years, Douyin will become the strongest promotion platform because:
• It has huge Data Base, without any advertising costs, the video will be distributed to 10,000 users immediately after uploading.
• The higher the score of a video, the more it can have more viewings. It can finally be opened to 400 million daily users.
• Each video can be linked to Taobao e-store to let users consume immediately.
