With so many people in China wanting to become social media celebrities, schools are springing up to teach them. What do you need to learn to become a social media celebrity?
With the alarm clock ringing, Jing who always stays up late wakes up from bed with difficulty. She picks up the mirror on the bedside table and begins to practice smiling and vocalizing.
Jing a social media celebrity with 1.7 million followers and is also a signed celebrity in Shell Video. Shell Video is a famous MCN organization that focuses on short video creation and social media celebrity training.
“Hello everyone, I’m your friend Jing, welcome back to my channel,” is a simple sentence that she has been practicing over and over with for more than a decade.
“The agent told me that having a sweet and resonant voice can improve my recognition in many social media celebrities,” said Jing.
After the practice, Jing quickly put on a T-shirt and legging and started a 30-minute jog on the treadmill. “I gain weight very easily, so I need to stay in shape through exercise and diet,” explains Jing. A boiled egg, a cup of skim milk and two slices of whole-wheat toast that look dry are her breakfast.
As a social media celebrity trainee, daily practice is essential. To be a successful social media celebrity, young people should not only master these skills, but also need to learn how to use these skills to attract more audiences. To some extent, the number of followers determines whether a person can succeed in social media celebrity.
The main reason for the increase in the number of social media celebrity is the rise in the number of followers. In 2018, the number of social media celebrity with more than 100,000 followers continued to grow, up 51% from 2017. Furthermore, super celebrity which has more than 1 million followers reached 23%. Then, more and more people have discovered business opportunities. So, social media celebrity training schools in China have sprung up in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Additionally, some universities have started to set up special social media celebrity training courses.
Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College is the first school in China to create social media celebrity training courses. It is located in Yiwu, the “commodity capital” and the famous international trade city. This is a beautiful landscape garden-style traditional university with an area of more than 1,000 acres and a building area of 296,000 square meters. At present, there are about 9,600 Chinese and foreign students.
The campus is full of students who are taking photos or shooting videos. Some of them are modeling for e-commerce companies, while others are shooting advertisements for their own e-stores. In addition, during the theory class, students will walk through the lush campus and gradually enter the modern teaching building, waiting for the teacher in the classroom. “The attendance rate of this class is almost 100%,” said Hongmei Jin, Professor of Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College.
Hongmei Jin is a Professor of Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College. It is hard to associate with social media celebrity training class with her serious appearance. But, she is indeed the first person to create this course.
“The courses of these students are different from other majors. They mainly study more than a dozen courses such as body dance, costume performance, make-up and social etiquette. These courses can help them to express themselves confidently in front of the camera,” said Jin.
At the beginning, this course was started to cultivate e-commerce models. Later, with the rapid development of society and the aspiration of contemporary young people for social media celebrity, it gradually evolved into social media celebrity training course. It not only attracts new students, but also attracts students from other majors, such as hotel management, real estate and e-commerce. These students will graduate in three years and receive a college degree.
Moreover, the employment rate of students who graduated from this major is very high. Meanwhile, this college also set up “social media celebrity” studio, and cooperated with various enterprises outside the school to jointly cultivate “social media celebrity” talents.
In China, there are thousands of young people who are eager to become famous through social media platform. However, these enthusiastic young people are carried away by desire, they can only see the perfect state of social media celebrity and their extraordinary income. In addition, there is a proverb in China “one minute on the stage, ten years of hard work off the stage” which means that if people want to become a social media celebrity that attracts the attention of the audience, it is necessary to have a variety of skills and practice.
Mutou Xiao looks very young with simple makeup, but she has been working in the field of social media training for three years, and now she is a director of content operations for Shell Video. Over the past three years, she has been dealing with a variety of young people, and has had a deep understanding of their changing aspirations and psychological.
“More young people want to become social media celebrity, because most of them believe that the job of social media celebrity is easy and decent. When people talk about social media celebrities, everyone’s first reaction should be “she is good-looking, easy to work and earn a lot of money”. Moreover, most of social media celebrity present followers with an idealized life state,” explains Mutou. “However, it takes a lot of skill learning and hard work to become a successful web celebrity,” said Mutou.
Xin Wang, a native of Yiwu, graduated from social media celebrity training class this year. Now, she is already famous in the local area and has accumulated a certain number of followers online.
“When I entered the university, I had not good conditions in all aspects, such as my dress style was not fashionable enough, and I didn’t make up. Moreover, before I chose this course, I thought that I just needed to wear good-looking clothes to pose and take pictures,” said Xin.
However, fame is full of challenges and difficulties.
Xiaotong Luo has a lot of experience in training. Moreover, it is amazing that he was a university lecturer before starting his own social media celebrity training company. “Currently, most social media celebrity training companies will develop a growth plans according to the characteristics of each social media celebrity, such as beauty celebrity, electronic sports celebrity, sales celebrity and chat celebrity. Furthermore, each type of social media celebrity has its own specific training courses,” explains Xiaotong. “And then, they also have to carry out training in performance, make-up, broadcast, physical, catwalk, studio shooting and content creation,” said Xiaotong.
A formal training company must be equipped with professional teachers to teach knowledge.
“We hired professional etiquette teachers to train their behavior from a sitting position. During the training, they need to relearn how to walk and sit. In addition, most young people have to relearn mandarin and correct the pronunciation of some words, ” explains Xiaotong. “There are professional art teachers to teach them to dance and sing. Singing and dancing are very important for a social media celebrity, because these skills not only can activate the atmosphere, but also show the personal charm of them,” said Xiaotong.
In 2016, the title “social media celebrity training process is like a factory assembly line” appeared frequently on the Internet. Actually, most training companies use the same methods to train young people.
First of all, they recruit young people who want to be famous online through various channels, and then start skills training. Finally, everyone can graduate within the specified time, such as, three months or six months. Social media celebrity, which brings benefits to the company during the training period, has the opportunity to establish a cooperative relationship with the training company after graduation. On the contrary, they need to find a job platform by themselves.
“The training process is really hard, but I enjoy it. Since I took the training, I feel that I have changed in all aspects, such as the way I walk and the way I talk. And I also feel that I am getting more and more confidence. Now, I have received many part-time jobs in print advertising, and I also broadcast live on social media platforms in my spare time, thus accumulating many followers,” said Xin.
In addition to these acting skills, they also need to learn the ability to plan content.
The training company will teach them courses about content planning. Since many young people know nothing about this, they start with the simplest and most basic content. For example, what are the compositions of the stories, how to organize a story and how to express the story can attract the audience. In addition, the training company will change the teaching content at any time according to the current audience’s preferences.
“However, content planning cannot only rely on the company’s creative team, but also continue to innovate. Because the content taught by teachers in class is limited and belongs to the academic, social media celebrity needs to use their own time to practice. Currently, the number of people who want to become famous online is always more than the staff of social media celebrity training company, because these people not only include young people who are being trained, but also include everyone in the community,” said Xiaotong.
Therefore, in order to stand out in many social media celebrity, an outstanding work is necessary. In fact, followers can only see that a social media celebrity gets millions of thumb up, but they cannot see that behind the millions of thumb up is a constantly revised plan. Moreover, a good work should not only take into account its effect, but also consider the audience’s preferences.
“A popular content like a delicious cake, everyone wants to have a taste, this means that as long as a popular content theme appears on the social media platform, there will be countless people to imitate and remake. So, it is not enough to rely on the company’s creative team. I often spend a lot of time reading and watching movies, trying to find inspiration from them to help me create new story content,” said Jing.
Secondly, they also need to have a strong resistance to pressure.
During the training, these young people will learn how to balance their mentality and relieve their psychological stress. These two skills are very important for young people who want to become online. Firstly, the entry requirements for social media celebrities are not high. As long as there are a computer and the Internet, everyone has the opportunity to become a social media celebrity. So, more and more people are beginning to join the industry. Secondly, with the rapid development of the Internet, social media celebrity industry must constantly update and change to keep up with the speed of China’s development, Therefore, in order to succeed, they must keep learning. Thirdly, the audience’s preferences are constantly changing. To retain the audience, they must accept the undulating attention and maintain a stable attitude.
Yang Wang, the manager of Nanjing BaiHang entertainment training company. It is common to to hear young people talk about their boring training life, or to respect their opinions and allow them to leave the company.
“We have a lot of Internet celebrities leaving the company because of various pressure. Some people are very popular at the beginning, and then they get less attention. Actually, this is a very common situation, but they cannot accept it. There are still some people who think that the training process is too hard, they can’t bear it, ” said Yang.
Young people who have been diligently studying and practicing these necessary skills can be found on the campus of Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College and in the social media celebrity training companies. Maybe they are social media celebrities, which already have a certain number of followers or they are a “rookie” who just comes into contact with the industry, while they all need to have various skills and keep practicing.
