Zhao Cheng's carefully dressed up "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia" Weibo homepage. The "awesome blogger" Zhao Cheng is a "post-90s".
Nanjing boy Zhao Cheng started playing with Weibo last year on a whim, and unexpectedly gradually gained influence. His carefully crafted Weibo "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia" has, in less than a year, amassed over 600,000 followers, ranking among Sina Weibo's top 100 grassroots bloggers. Female fans have bestowed him with the elegant nickname "Awkward Lord." As one of the youngest bloggers in Sina Weibo's top 100 grassroots bloggers, this gentleman is actually an ordinary high school graduate from Nanjing No. 12 Middle School, also an art student. Due to poor performance in this year's college entrance exam, he is now worried about filling out his college application.
Yesterday, at the age of nineteen, standing at 1.84 meters tall, wearing black-rimmed glasses, and exuding a refined demeanor, "Awkward Lord" sat before the reporter. This formerly extremely introverted big boy, whose personality was changed by Weibo, talked for two hours, revealing maturity beyond his years.
How did he get over 600,000 followers?
"I opened my Weibo account on March 27th last year, initially called 'Mr. Almost', purely following the trend... then I kept replying to people's comments, reaching over 5,000 followers by July," Zhao Cheng said. It was during summer vacation with nothing else to do, so he buried himself in studying the "awesome blogs" that had tens or even hundreds of thousands of followers, picking up many tricks along the way. "I just wanted to try raising this child."
To grow a Weibo account means attracting more followers, how did he manage it?
Riding on Big Names: Increased Followers by 350,000 in 5 Months
Changing to an official and popular name is one of the tricks to growing a Weibo account. In July last year, Zhao Cheng changed his name to "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia", making it closer to the content of his Weibo. Being an art student, he also selected a set of very cute and funny female child expressions as background images, and chose a profile picture very similar to himself, which were loved by his followers.
"This was just the beginning. To quickly gain real followers, you must find a strong support that pays attention to you." Zhao Cheng noticed that grassroots Weibos at the time began to divide into territories, expanding rapidly. He targeted the top few grassroots Weibos, constantly submitting articles, hoping to catch the attention of these "awesome bloggers."
"I was somewhat desperate, submitting the same article to several awesome bloggers." Zhao Cheng said, fortunately, during that period, these "awesome bloggers" were also in their rapid growth phase, needing high-quality articles. His submissions were interesting enough to greatly meet this demand, gaining the attention of several "awesome bloggers" by the end of August, who continuously forwarded his posts. Each time they were forwarded, the "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia" Weibo would appear on several "awesome bloggers", naturally catching the attention of their followers. They thought this Weibo was good and worth following, thus more and more followers of "awesome bloggers" also followed "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia".
In early September last year, professional Weibo writers were still scarce, thanks to the crazy forwarding by "awesome bloggers", Sina Weibo was often filled with Zhao Cheng's original works, with forwards often exceeding ten thousand people, frequently entering the top three of Weibo forward rankings, and rapidly expanding influence on Weibo.
"Correspondingly, followers exploded, usually adding three to five thousand people a day, with a maximum of nearly ten thousand in a single day. After persistently submitting articles for five months, my followers grew to 350,000." Talking about that golden period, Zhao Cheng could hardly hide his excitement.
By the Spring Festival this year, "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia" had over 350,000 followers. "Under normal circumstances, once a Weibo reaches over 300,000 followers, as long as they are genuine, it has a certain influence, not inferior to a medium-sized evening newspaper." Zhao Cheng said.
Mentorship: Another Growth Spurt of Over 200,000 Followers in 4 Months
At this point, Zhao Cheng acutely discovered a bottleneck: the number of new followers was clearly decreasing, only about a thousand a day, and only increasing by two to three hundred thousand a month. For an ordinary Weibo, this was already quite impressive, but for Zhao Cheng who aimed for growth, it was clearly "not enough."
"Riding on big names is ultimately not sustainable. To maintain the vitality of Weibo, the growth method should be transformed." Zhao Cheng pondered, the few "awesome bloggers" he usually relied on had relatively fixed follower groups, and their attention to "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia" was limited to this extent. Could he switch arenas?
Staring at the Sina Weibo grassroots ranking, after consideration, Zhao Cheng identified several corporate Weibos as partners. "These Weibos are similar to mine, with 200,000 to 400,000 followers. Corporate development needs to leverage the influence of Weibo, and I need their followers. Quickly reaching a consensus, they post what I forward, and what I post, they also forward, thereby attracting each other's followers' attention."
This is what Zhao Cheng referred to as "mentorship." At this point, he almost stopped submitting articles to those major "awesome bloggers."
As a corporate Weibo, its content is relatively traditional, and followers seeing the amusing, somewhat unconventional "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia" are easily attracted. During this period, "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia" experienced another rapid growth phase, increasing by nearly 200,000 followers between April and May this year. However, the growth in followers of the corporate Weibos accompanying him was far less than his.
Ultimately, what attracts followers is the content. During that time, Zhao Cheng produced numerous excellent works, with multiple Weibos having forwards exceeding ten thousand. On April 17th, he posted a Weibo: After tallying all episodes of "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf," Big Big Wolf was hit 9,544 times by Red Wolf's frying pan, tricked 2,347 times by Pleasant Goat, chased 769 times by piranhas, electrocuted 1,755 times, devised 2,788 methods to catch goats, traveled 19,658 times, covering a distance that could circle the Earth 954 times, and still hasn't caught a single goat, yet he hasn't given up...
This Weibo alone was forwarded over ten thousand times on "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia," including by "Weibo Queen" Yao Chen, who commented, "To be human, be like Big Big Wolf." "I've been forwarded three times by her, it's too lucky!"
After the excitement subsided, Zhao Cheng maturely summarized: "You must seize hot topics at the first opportunity. I often surf the internet for various interesting materials, and once I see them, I resolutely forward them, definitely succeeding."
Strategic Transition: Limited Personal Power Requires Teamwork
In June, busy with college entrance exam preparation, Zhao Cheng neglected "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia" several times, not posting for a day or two. Although followers still exceeded 600,000, he told reporters that for the past year, he has been doing it alone, often until deep into the night, feeling overwhelmed. "You need to be responsible to your followers; the content must suit their tastes, quality cannot fluctuate significantly, and it must remain largely original."
To take care of this "child," Zhao Cheng, during the second semester of his senior year in high school, devoted a significant portion of his time to it, sometimes even during class. "Daily content must not repeat, requiring continuous search for fresh materials. While others play games, go shopping, participate in class activities, or chat online, I sift through materials. Besides finding jokes, sometimes I rewrite them, and more importantly, I add pictures to enhance appeal, almost every post includes one, which consumes a lot of energy."
"The most important thing is controlling risks." Zhao Cheng said, while Weibo content emphasizes fun, it must be true, not hearsay, not vulgar, not pornographic, and absolutely no political boundary-pushing. "With over 600,000 followers spread across the country and even overseas, the influence is at least no less than half of Jiangsu TV."
With such considerations, Zhao Cheng, determined to expand "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia," began contemplating new operations. "By the end of the year, my followers will exceed one million. The pressure is not small, but after starting university, there will be more time available, though it can't rely on individual efforts, a team must be organized with division of labor and coordination." Zhao Cheng found through research that most of the "awesome bloggers" in Sina Weibo's grassroots category are operated by a team. With future competition intensifying, personal power cannot compete with group strength.
What worries him is that writing for Weibo requires skilled writers, marketing knowledge, awareness to seize topics, and ability to timely plan around hotspots. These talents are scarce, and these days he has been looking for suitable candidates without much success, hoping to encounter like-minded classmates in university.
This Big Boy
Planned Several Weibo Highlights
Although most netizens play Weibo, they are unfamiliar with its operations. Zhao Cheng is different; this is his arena, gradually becoming adept at its rules, navigating freely. Chatting with him, the reporter found that this graduating senior is clever and ingenious, often surprising.
For example, since May, Sina Weibo has had at least three classic and universally known highlights, all originating from "Awkward Lord."
The Big Adventure Game on Youth Day Evening
At 10:22 PM on May 4th, Zhao Cheng posted a Weibo: "An adventure game seen on Tieba: write down your mobile phone number and see if anyone will say goodnight to you. If you want to play, play. If someone doesn't like it, they don't have to look. Start the game, just leave your mobile phone number and see if anyone will say goodnight to you every day." He also left a rarely used mobile phone number.
This game was indeed adventurous, its risk being the public disclosure of a mobile phone number to strangers. This seems unimaginable to traditionally minded Chinese people. But Zhao Cheng, deeply understanding the psychology of post-80s and post-90s youth, firmly believed that this slightly rebellious Weibo would become wildly popular.
Indeed, within less than a minute of posting the Weibo, Zhao Cheng received his first text message: "Goodnight!" Just as he was surprised, the first call came in—an international long-distance call! When Zhao Cheng answered, it turned out to be a South Korean girl. She told Zhao Cheng that the game was fun, so she made a call just to play, then said "Goodnight." That night, over a thousand text messages and five to six hundred calls completely overwhelmed Zhao Cheng's mobile phone.
"This game was really well done! Before sleeping, receiving greetings from many strangers made me feel that, in this tense and busy society, human emotions are still warm." Upon receiving such a text message from a stranger, Zhao Cheng felt exceptionally warm at that moment.
The next day, a young man in Nanjing specially called Zhao Cheng to say "thank you." He said that the previous evening, he received six calls and over sixty text messages from strangers, making him feel that there were still so many strangers who cared about him, giving him more confidence in life.
Afterwards, statistics showed that this adventure game had over 12,600 participants on "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia" alone, mutually leaving mobile phone numbers; taking into account the forwards by other "awesome bloggers," the number was incalculable.
Turning "520" Into a "Confession Day"
May 20th is the netizens' "Internet Valentine's Day." For this day, Zhao Cheng offered a classic two-step plan for his followers, each step achieving great success.
Step one: Preheating. At exactly 11 PM on May 9th, Zhao Cheng posted a Weibo on "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia": "On May 20th, at 1:14 PM, who will say to me—I love you! This is a game, dare you forward it to your Weibo? See who will say I love you! See who remembers May 20th, 1:14 PM, who will remember to say—I love you, whether friends, lovers, classmates, red faces, blue faces, confidants, buddies, brothers… Whoever dares to leave 'I love you,' whoever cares about you!"
Result: This Weibo was forwarded over 30,000 times on "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia," immediately becoming a hot topic on Sina Weibo.
Step two was the real move! On May 19th, Zhao Cheng posted another Weibo: "On May 20th, whoever confesses to me, I will accept!" The highlight of this Weibo was the accompanying picture: a cute cat raising its right fist, seemingly declaring its determination. Without a doubt, this Weibo was forwarded over 38,000 times.
Later, Zhao Cheng calculated that these two Weibos were forwarded 70,000 times on "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia" alone, over 30,000 times on "Cold Joke Selection" and other "awesome bloggers," with total forwards exceeding 100,000, successfully occupying the top spot on the Weibo hot forwards list. "That day, as soon as you opened Weibo, it was flooded with forwards of mine."
With his own efforts, Zhao Cheng turned "Internet Valentine's Day" into "Confession Day." Taking advantage of the momentum, Zhao Cheng posted another Weibo on May 21st, the content being: "I still love this kind of '520'…" Accompanying the post was a picture composed of the digits from 50 yuan, 20 yuan, and 100 yuan Renminbi, forming "520." Result: Fans immersed in the previous day's "Confession Day" forwarded it over 20,000 times again, re-entering the top three of Sina Weibo's hot forwards list.
"I Am Crazy About Music" Ignites Nostalgia Among Teenagers
Nostalgia is a common theme on Weibo. Zhao Cheng also took advantage of it. However, "Unlike most adults reminiscing about the past, most of my followers are post-80s and post-90s, where does their nostalgia lie?" He chose animation series watched by the majority of his peers.
At 6:10 PM on June 21st, a Weibo appeared on "Awkward Moment Encyclopedia": "Ye Feng, Cong Rong, Chu Tian Ge, Mai Yun Jie, Gai Shi Ai, Zhu Li Li, Dong Dong, Shuang Qi & Shuang Qi, Mei Jun Yan, Cold Teacher, Lang Teacher, OPEN Band, 'My Stage,' 'Dreams Are Sweet,' 'Heartfelt Communication,' 'Embrace Miracles,' 'All-Powerful,' 'Wind Rushing By'... That year's 'I Am Crazy About Music,' that year's dreams, that year's us... Do you all remember? Truly miss the youth of that time... http://t.cn/hRaoQ" Behind it, he included links to the animation and a cartoon image favored by teenagers. The entire Weibo looked beautiful.
Fans immediately embraced it enthusiastically. "Gu Sheng Sheng" said: "Chu Tian Ge and Mai Yun Jie~ Thinking about it now makes me blush >< I super like Mai Yun Jie~" Fan "Tian Yin 17" then said: "I watched it in elementary school, and I super liked it, always thinking it was the best anime made in China."
Most commenters were middle and high school students, lamenting and reminiscing about the wonderful memories "I Am Crazy About Music" left from their elementary school and childhood days. Unexpectedly, fan "Yang Long yl" voluntarily revealed: "I am the blond guy in the live-action version! Missing those pure times..."
This Weibo was forwarded 29,800 times, with nearly 4,000 comments, climbing to the second place on Sina Weibo's hot forwards list that day.
Operating Independently, Refusing "Recruitment"
Unsatisfactory College Entrance Exam Results, Unsure How to Fill Out Application
"You are playing Weibo, and Weibo is playing you. Weibo decorates your life, and you decorate others' dreams." Devoted to building his Weibo platform, Zhao Cheng has gained some understanding of the Weibo world. He told reporters that currently, about half of the top 100 grassroots Weibos on Sina Weibo have been "recruited," belonging to the "Fujian clique," "Beijing clique," and "Yangzhou clique," and he is also facing a choice.
Zhao Cheng has interacted with most of the top 100 grassroots Weibo bloggers on Sina Weibo, knowing many of them very well, and has his own views on their destinies. He does not wish to be "recruited," "The upper echelons of the three cliques have approached me with recruitment intentions." However, Zhao Cheng feels that although it would lead to greater scale, it would turn him into someone else's money-making machine, losing the initial ideal, rather opting to be a "sole proprietor" living freely.
Of course, making money is also something Zhao Cheng considers. But for now, he values the content greatly, mostly rejecting advertisers who approach him, "Can't alienate the hearts of the followers because of advertisements." Only under conditions that do not affect the overall style and quality of Weibo does he accept soft advertisements, earning about 20,000 yuan per month, sufficient for his basic needs. "If I let loose, it would definitely be more than this number, but the followers would also flow away, losing the fundamental basis for survival, which is not cost-effective."
Regarding whether to give interviews, Zhao Cheng's parents remained silent. "They let me decide for myself. Previously, they thought I was neglecting my studies for Weibo, now they support me, but they don't understand exactly what I'm doing." During the two-hour interaction, the reporter found that although Zhao Cheng is a high school graduate, he pays great attention to his image, being particular about photo angles and caring about whether his hairstyle is slightly low on one side, revealing a bit of peculiarity.
Don't think that "Awkward Lord" Zhao Cheng chats cheerfully with reporters; last year, he was still a shy and introverted big boy, "I didn't talk in class, didn't communicate with classmates, and didn't tell them about playing Weibo, now only a few classmates know." However, managing Weibo requires communication with people, dealing face-to-face with strangers, meeting other bloggers from afar, forcing Zhao Cheng to step out and speak up. Now, classmates all say he has changed, and some can't believe it.
"Actually, it's nothing special, the key to changing character is taking those few steps, then confidence follows." Zhao Cheng said, his character changed due to Weibo, during which he met many celebrities, Xiao Shen Yang, Ruby Lin, and Jinming Li, all of whom are his fans, especially Li Jinming, who became famous for playing Mei Jia in "Love Apartment," occasionally exchanging ideas with him, "The current Weibo profile picture she uses was suggested by me, and I helped her choose it."
At the end of the interview, Zhao Cheng told reporters that he participated in this year's Jiangsu college entrance exam, but the results were unsatisfactory, and he is currently worried about how to fill out his application.
Reported by Journalist Yu Yingjie. Comments welcome. My Twitter recommendations | Today's Twitter Hot Topics (Editor: SN026)