At six o'clock in the evening of April 28, a lively auction was being held in the 360 headquarters building.
A 2015 Maybach S600 was priced at 9.9 million yuan by a man in a red polo shirt.
Just a few minutes ago, it started at just 600 yuan, and a few minutes later, it was worth nearly 10 times its market price.
Then, another man in a red polo shirt took the gavel from the auctioneer's hand, tapped it and settled it.
The person who made the final decision was the new "top stream" of the rim - Zhou Hongyi, the founder of the 360 Group, who struggled to climb onto the roof of the car at the Beijing Auto Show and was called the only car model in the audience by netizens. "I'm stunned, the market price is less than 1 million, and I expect it to be almost doubled or tripled," Zhou Hongyi said at the scene.
In any case, the power of traffic is showing in Zhou Hongyi.
According to Feigua data, on the Douyin platform alone, 10.175 million people watched the one-hour live broadcast of "Selling Maybach and Embracing Domestic New Energy", and Zhou Hongyi also gained 149,000 new fans.
Becoming an Internet celebrity in the short video era is one of the key goals pursued by Zhou Hongyi this year, with a small goal of 10 million fans first, and the current progress bar has reached nearly 60%.
Zhou Hongyi on the roof of the car. Photo/Visual China
Work hard to be an "Internet celebrity"
Since the beginning of this year, Zhou Hongyi, who has been silent for a long time, has become active in the rivers and lakes again.
First, at the 2023 Fengma Niu Year-end Show Roundtable Forum on January 5, the confrontation between Zhou Hongyi and Cheng Qian, the manager of "Cheng Qian's Circle of Friends", caused an uproar. Public opinion is almost one-sided on Zhou Hongyi's side, and all kinds of deficiencies in front of Cheng have been repeatedly picked up, and the former "red-clothed cannon" has become a decent representative.
A week later, Zhou Hongyi held the first lecture of the "Red Clothes Open Class" - a speech class, and Cheng Qian, who was dressed in red, sat below, and under the witness of 4.28 million Douyin viewers, the turmoil came to an end.
However, Zhou Hongyi's new "circle of fans" has just begun.
He earnestly studied how to become an Internet celebrity, such as going to Dongfang to select Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui to learn about the Internet celebrity economy, frequently updating videos on his social media platforms, talking about AGI (general artificial intelligence) beliefs, taking a new AI public class after the "Li Yizhou incident", sharing life such as rock climbing, running, music, etc., and commenting on news events such as vicious juvenile crime under school bullying in Handan.
In the activities and live broadcasts he participated in, Zhou Hongyi would also repeatedly ask for attention to his Douyin account with a little ridicule.
Not only that, Zhou Hongyi also issued calls on various occasions similar to "If possible, I think entrepreneurs should become Internet celebrities", in his own words, "talk about the Internet celebrity economy when you meet people".
According to Lei Binyi, founder and CEO of Wuwu Media, he revealed at the 2024 China Business Mulan Annual Conference a few days ago that the 360 team contacted Wuwu Media half a year ago to communicate that Zhou Hongyi wanted to do personal IP;
In this regard, China News Weekly asked 360 Group for confirmation, but has not received a response as of press time.
It can be seen that before April, although Zhou Hongyi has been on the road to Internet celebrity for a long time, there is always something away from being completely out of the circle.
Until the end of March, the launch of Xiaomi SU7 was a great success, and Zhou Hongyi seemed to have strengthened his understanding of Internet celebrities again through Lei Jun. As an investor in Nezha Automobile, he asked his executives to learn more from Lei Jun in the latter's live broadcast activities; later, he mentioned Lei Jun more and more times, and liked to mention the appointment of "President of Lei Jun Behavior Research Association" issued by netizens.
Subsequently, Zhou Hongyi's videos about cars became more and more. But at that time, no one may have imagined that half of the traffic in the automobile circle would be divided by this Internet old man who did not have a driver's license.
It all started when Zhou Hongyi announced that he would sell the Maybach that had been with him for nine years and replace it with a new energy intelligent networked car. Unexpectedly, the comment area of this Weibo has become a team building place for all new and old forces to advertise, and the 360 headquarters has also been turned into a wild small auto show host by players from all walks of life.
The pouring traffic came in, and Zhou Hongyi not only caught it, but also created more climaxes.
On the one hand, he took the opportunity of the 30th anniversary of the development of China's Internet to post a number of videos of gathering with Zhang Chaoyang, Ma Huateng, Lei Jun, etc., and staged a wave of memories for netizens;
Recently, some of Zhou Hongyi's updated videos. Picture/screenshot from Douyin
By the evening of the 28th, Zhou Hongyi's Maybach stirred up another storm in the second-hand car circle. In the past 10 days, his topic has continued to be full, and the hot search has continued.
In the matter of becoming an Internet celebrity entrepreneur, Zhou Hongyi got what he wanted, although he said in the live broadcast that he had not yet understood the traffic password, but it did not prevent him from becoming a technology boss who is very good at playing traffic in the hearts of netizens.
As of press time, Zhou Hongyi's Douyin account has 5.908 million followers, and the progress of the KPI of increasing followers has been completed by nearly 60%.
Can the evaporated more than 400 billion be recovered?
There have been many speculations about why Zhou Hongyi has to be an Internet celebrity. For example, 360 company wants to live broadcast goods, and 360's software and hardware products need to be put on the car.
The former was publicly denied by Zhou Hongyi. "First of all, 360 doesn't have any plans for live streaming, and the end of the universe is not just live streaming," he responded.
In Zhou Hongyi's view, the way users receive information in the short video era has changed. "People's minds have been formatted and nothing else can be received. Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs need to maintain a dialogue with users, gain the right to speak, and gain influence, not necessarily to sell products to be Internet celebrities. ”
In this context, the existence of "god-level Internet celebrities" like Lei Jun and Yu Chengdong made Zhou Hongyi see the practical significance of learning to "speak for 360 and save billions of advertising dollars for the company".
Indeed, in the years when Zhou Hongyi was silent, 360 had been lonely for too long.
At the beginning of 2018, 360 returned to A-shares through backdoor, and as a leading enterprise in the field of computer network security, its market value once climbed to a peak of 500 billion yuan. However, the good times did not last long, and 360 soon fell from its peak, and its market value even fell below 50 billion yuan at one point.
In the past two months, although the 360 stock price has shown signs of rising from the trough, as of press time, its market value is only less than 62 billion yuan.
360 is no longer the giant that can "punch BAT and kick TMD".
The core reason behind this is that since 2018, 360 has missed a series of opportunities in the mobile Internet era, and the company's performance has been sluggish repeatedly.
According to its financial report, last year, 360's revenue was 9.055 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.89%, and the net profit still lost 492 million yuan after an increase of 77.65%. Among them, the revenue of Internet advertising and service business was 4.521 billion yuan, down 4.00% year-on-year, the revenue of smart hardware business was 1.570 billion yuan, down 16.80% year-on-year, and the revenue of security and other business was 1.765 billion yuan, down 1.48% year-on-year.
By the first quarter of this year, its revenue fell 12.53% from the same period last year, 1.719 billion yuan, and the net loss was 110 million yuan. The slogan "All in AI" is loud, but the results have not yet been reflected in the results.
If you want to return to the center of the Internet, 360 is of course lacking more than just traffic, but this is an opportunity. Zhou Hongyi's road to Internet celebrity may be this opportunity.
In the opinion of economist Pan and Lin, if entrepreneurs want to start a new business or open a new business, the traffic brought by becoming an Internet celebrity can provide a good starting point for them. "For example, Lei Jun, from Jinshan to Xiaomi, from Xiaomi mobile phones to Xiaomi cars, the marketing is all in person, and they are all doing well, which shows that the traffic of entrepreneurs can be turned into real sales. ”
"By becoming an influencer, entrepreneurs can further enhance their personal and business visibility, enhance their brand influence, and attract more potential customers. At the same time, influencer identity also helps entrepreneurs better communicate with young users, understand market demand, and promote product innovation and optimization. Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, also said.
In recent years, the cases of CEOs such as Yu Minhong, Liang Jianzhang, and Luo Yonghao who saved themselves and turned the tables have also brought a lot of references to Zhou Hongyi to complete the counterattack by being an Internet celebrity.
As a former figure, Zhou Hongyi certainly has the foundation to become an Internet celebrity entrepreneur, combining the views of many interviewees, his distinctive personal style, strong expression ability and industry accumulation, coupled with his current good use of social media, he is destined to be out of the circle.
The next biggest problem is how to convert Zhou Hongyi's traffic into the commercial value of 360.
Bringing goods is of course the most straightforward. Although 360's business focus has shifted to the security field of ToB, there are still many ToC businesses, such as the sales of smart door locks, doorbells, home cameras and other hardware.
Although Zhou Hongyi denied the exploration of 360 live broadcast with goods, China News Weekly noticed that the live broadcast of the auction of Maybach, 360's official flagship store also started the live broadcast from a peripheral perspective, although there was no anchor to explain the goods, but it did not prevent the goods hanging in the live broadcast room from taking the opportunity to sell a small wave.
In addition, considering that Luo Yonghao's live broadcast room can sell Alibaba cloud services, it is not impossible for some to B services to go to the live broadcast room.
However, Zhan Junhao, founder of Fujian Great Aim Brand Positioning Consulting, pointed out that a prerequisite for online celebrity entrepreneurs to bring actual benefits is that entrepreneurs need to clarify their brand positioning and target customer groups in order to attract and convert traffic more accurately.
At the same time, he also pointed out that entrepreneurs become Internet celebrities, and risks and opportunities coexist. "Once an entrepreneur goes astray on the road of Internet celebrity, it may damage his personal image and company reputation, and even cause negative public opinion. In addition, excessive focus on personal image can distract entrepreneurs from the company's energy and affect the company's normal operations. ”
From this point of view, it will take more time to observe what opportunities Zhou Hongyi's huge traffic can bring to 360, and it is still unknown what surprises 360 can bring to people in business.
However, it is foreseeable that given that Zhou Hongyi has not yet chosen his new car, his personal traffic myth may continue.
Author: Shi Hanxu
Editor: Yu Yuan