On social media, some bloggers have turned their lenses towards factories, pioneering a new content track—factory exploration. Factory exploration videos allow more people to see the "behind-the-scenes" stories of Chinese manufacturing, providing a unique footnote for Chinese manufacturing brands. These videos not only bring financial value to manufacturing enterprises but also offer more inspiration for the shaping of Chinese manufacturing brands.

Video New Track

Through factory exploration videos, people can observe a company's production environment, understand the production process of a product, listen to the entrepreneurial stories of business leaders, and fully experience the charm of Chinese manufacturing.

Unlike "全民探店" (全民探店), entering the factory exploration track requires overcoming certain barriers. Journalists have found that factory exploration bloggers often have several characteristics: First, they have accumulated factory resources. Bloggers' previous careers or social circles, such as e-commerce operations or association organizations, often give them an advantage in contacting factories. Second, they usually live and work long-term in areas where manufacturing is concentrated, such as Zhongshan in Guangdong and Yiwu in Zhejiang. Convenient geographical conditions and abundant factory resources ensure their continuous creation. Third, they have the characteristic of operating multiple businesses. Since the profit model of factory exploration videos is still immature, some bloggers do not take factory exploration as their main business but use it as a means and method to accumulate followers and expand influence, assisting the development of their main business.

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" This smart toilet lid not only monitors blood pressure and oxygen levels but also generates health condition inspection reports in real-time." In a video introducing a smart toilet lid, huge automated mechanical arms methodically complete the trimming and assembly processes of the toilet lid. Blogger Feng Fei walks between production lines, introducing the factory's production technology and capacity. This video posted on his Douyin account received more than 3,000 likes and over 2,000 comments.

Feng Fei has been living and working in Zhongshan, Guangdong, for a long time. In 2020, Zhongshan City established a live e-commerce association, and Feng Fei was elected as the president. "About 70% of our association members are manufacturing enterprises. At first, we established this association to serve members and help them open up live e-commerce sales channels." Feng Fei introduced that at the beginning of the association's establishment, they visited member enterprises one by one to understand their needs, and during this process, they came up with the idea of helping enterprises shoot videos for promotion.

"I didn't expect that after we made a few, the response was quite good, so we decided to continue doing it, and the exploration targets are no longer limited to association members." Feng Fei said that before shooting a factory, he would first go to the factory to have a look and communicate with the business leader to understand the general production process. During the formal shooting, in addition to the basic situation introduction, he would also play the role of a questioner, asking some questions that ordinary users are interested in, and sometimes he would test some products and explore some enterprise stories.

It is understood that the exploration targets of factory exploration bloggers involve all fields of manufacturing, including consumer goods such as home decoration and garment manufacturing, as well as high-tech industries and equipment manufacturing such as electronic equipment and industrial equipment. Different bloggers will focus on different exploration fields. Zhao Xueli's factory exploration account is currently focused on consumer goods manufacturing factories in Yiwu, Zhejiang. Zhao Xueli once worked for an e-commerce platform, responsible for connecting customers with the source factories in Yiwu. This experience allowed her to accumulate some factory resources, laying the foundation for later factory exploration videos. "We are now mainly doing two aspects of business, one is to help enterprises promote and display through factory exploration videos. The second is to provide consulting services for enterprises and build new media teams to enhance their online sales capabilities." Zhao Xueli said.

Creating Value for Enterprises

In the era of mobile internet, social media has become the main platform for consumers to understand product information, and some enterprises are exploring new ways to showcase products and expand sales channels. Against this backdrop, factory exploration videos that fit the current information reading habits and preferences of people allow manufacturing enterprises to be seen by more people.Peng Haibo runs a garment processing factory in Yiwu, and not long ago, he accepted a visit from a blogger. Peng Haibo stated, "Short videos have become an important way of spreading information. Many short video platforms have high user stickiness. Companies need to adapt to this trend and use short videos to promote their products, further expanding the company's influence."

Blogger Li Junjie once filmed a factory visit video for a motorcycle company, which achieved good dissemination on his factory visit account and was recognized by the factory. "Whenever there are events or exhibitions, companies will play this video. They believe that this video has introduced the entire production process and representative products in detail and can be used as a promotional video," Li Junjie said.

The influence of factory visit videos also extends to offline transactions. "We once visited a gift box packaging factory. On one occasion, they participated in an offline exhibition, and several customers, who had seen our factory visit video before, had a good understanding of the products, leading to high efficiency in docking," Zhao Xueli said.

For manufacturing companies, the role of factory visit videos is not only to increase exposure and promote brands but also to actually facilitate some transactions. "Once we filmed a transparent tape factory, and this type of tape has silent and other functions. After the video was released, many people privately messaged in the background seeking cooperation. After we passed this information to the factory, it also led to some orders," Feng Fei said.

What opportunities factory visit videos can bring to the manufacturing industry can be seen from the composition of the factory visit bloggers' followers. Some bloggers reported that their follower groups are mainly divided into several categories: one category is the downstream customers of the source factories, such as some dealers, e-commerce hosts, etc., which is also the group with the highest proportion of followers; another category is service providers for the manufacturing industry, such as warehousing logistics, consulting services, financial insurance, etc.; there is also a category of raw material companies upstream of the factory. When these groups have cooperation needs, some factory visit bloggers will act as a link between the upstream and downstream of the industry chain, connecting enterprises. In addition, the followers of factory visit bloggers also include some source factories that hope to get factory visit opportunities, individual consumers, and enthusiasts interested in the manufacturing industry.

Industry experts said that China has many excellent manufacturing companies, which often have been working in a field for many years, actively developing and designing, polishing product quality, and optimizing product prices. However, due to poor channels, many people cannot see them. Some companies can only do OEM for international brands, and factory visit videos allow these excellent companies and products to be seen by more people.

Feng Fei has thought about how factory visit videos can help some companies that focus on making good products to break through in the competitive market environment: "When the brand has no competitiveness, some companies can only choose to compromise on price. We hope to use the form of factory visit videos to present some factories' material selection, production processes to consumers, and tell consumers the real value of the products. This is not only conducive to the brand building of companies but also to boosting consumers' confidence in Chinese manufacturing."

Rational view of dissemination effects

Manufacturing is the foundation of the country and the basis of a strong country. Promoting high-quality development of the manufacturing industry and continuously enhancing competitiveness, brand building is an indispensable part. From this perspective, factory visit videos play an active role in the promotion and shaping of manufacturing industry brands.

Although factory visit videos have attracted some attention on social media, compared with other content that is closer to the daily consumption of the public, their attractiveness and influence are still very limited. Most of the factory visit blogger accounts have followers ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, and there are also many factory visit videos with average dissemination, not all content can achieve the ideal dissemination effect.Experts believe that even the most viral videos will eventually cool down in popularity. Factory tour videos are merely a means to help businesses with publicity and expanding sales channels. As platforms and channels continue to evolve, from the initial platform-based e-commerce to later live-streaming e-commerce, new platforms and channels will always emerge. For businesses, what is more important is to grasp the constants behind the changes.

Perhaps the more significant role of factory tour videos is to change the perception of some entrepreneurs, encouraging them to actively embrace new channels and take control into their own hands. "It is impossible for a single video to remain continuously popular; factory tour videos are more like an opportunity to change the mindset of business leaders, making them understand how to market in the internet age, and thus building their own new media marketing teams," said Feng Fei.

Some business leaders have a rational attitude towards factory tour videos. They do not expect these videos to bring in a significant number of actual orders but rather see them as a window to showcase their businesses. By promoting their production environment, manufacturing processes, and standardized management, they help shape the corporate image and enhance brand influence. Many businesses recognize that in the face of product homogenization and channel transformation, the traditional OEM model and offline marketing methods are unsustainable. Only by actively embracing change and strengthening their own brands can they follow a path of sustainable development. To this end, some companies have established their own new media marketing teams and have begun a series of proactive attempts to shape their own brands.

Wei Chen is the person in charge of a machine tool tri-color lamp manufacturing company in Shenzhen. According to him, the company has already set up official accounts on various social media platforms. In the future, the company's online publicity department will focus on short video production, using well-crafted content to let more people get to know the company. "Our products do not have a broad consumer base like fast-moving consumer goods; we only have a relatively fixed circle of clients. Therefore, we cooperate with factory tour bloggers, not pursuing a sensational effect, but on one hand, to promote ourselves and enhance brand reputation; on the other hand, to leverage the influence of the bloggers to attract traffic to our official accounts. Only by continuously increasing exposure and expanding influence can clients with needs think of us and find us," said Wei Chen.