Thanks to an iPhone 6 and the Internet, the “uncle” of Chinese farmers became a social network star 82,000 followers

Thanks to technology and live broadcast platforms, many Chinese farmers have changed their lives and become true social media stars.

On the hill among the orange orchards on the outskirts of Zhangjiajie, Zhong Haihui went from a farmer to a Chinese livestream star. In 2017, neighbors were bewildered to see him wearing a cowboy hat, standing on a large rock, talking for hours in front of a smartphone about his home fruit.

2 years later, the 40-year-old farmer witnessed many “colleagues” participating in the live broadcast to promote and sell products to millions of customers nationwide. In the interview, Mr. Zhong recalled when he was just starting out, everything was awkward but different now.

Mr. Zhong was one of the first farmers in Hunan to sell fruit through livestream, reaching customers everywhere through Kuaishou video sharing platform and Alibaba’s Taobao e-commerce application.

He has more energy when chatting with followers on the Internet. He called himself “uncle”, also called his audience “how bao” (grandchildren) – a common word in the world of livestream Taobao – to create friendliness.

He used to say, “Welcome new children. Please subscribe if not. Follow me and keep up with the delicious food ”throughout the video. Not only promoting fruit on the farm, he also introduces the surrounding landscape.

Within seconds, hundreds of people joined him on his videos. He and Xiaoqiang, a 21-year-old partner, answered every question that appeared on the phone, mostly about the fruits sold during the day or when they returned from the holiday sale. When he said he had to turn off the phone for a few minutes, the audience begged him to go online a bit more.

Previously, Mr. Zhong worked at a gas station and in a factory. In 2011, he opened a store on Taobao, selling local agricultural products, but the revenue was not satisfactory until 2017 when he started the livestream.

This is all thanks to the large applications in China that support many services to help users stick with the platform. They can shop from Kuaishou similar to buying on Taobao, while Taobao also allows livestreaming on the web.

Although there are no official statistics on the number of farmers doing livestreams, both Taobao and Kuaishou are constantly attracting people to do business on their platforms. Taobao aims to have 1,000 farmers livestream in 100 counties this year, helping each person have an income of about 10,000 yuan monthly.

Kuaishow estimates the platform has more than 1 million rural users, selling products through both short videos and livestreams. They earned a total of 19 billion yuan in 2018.

China witnessed a booming livestream in 2016 with a 180% increase to 20.8 billion yuan from a year earlier. Service providers also earn billions of yuan from charging with streamers.

Another factor that contributes to helping farmers sell via livestream is the fear of food safety and hygiene in China, which makes many people want to see directly where the food they consume is sold.

Mr. Zhong stood on the ledge to livestream because this was the only point with a stable network connection

Zhong said he was expanding his activities on Taobao through cooperation with orchards across the country. He plans to livestream more with these partners and transport fruits directly from their farms. He also wants to become an online travel guide for Zhangjiajie.

However, China’s livestream market began to cool down due to strict management policies and users lost interest in the stars. In 2018, the total number of users broadcasting online here decreased by 6% to 396.8 million while other online service categories grew. For example, the number of technology taxi service users increased by 40.9%.

When people are no longer interested in streamers who only sing and dance, they turn to another object, which is the farmers. Big city audiences were fascinated with the village life, which was broadcast live online.

In the beginning, Kuaishou was controversial because of all the silly videos, but now, that has changed. Rural girls post cooking videos on the mountain, families living in the Sichuan Plateau publish photos of dinner on a cliff or men in small towns post videos of the Avengers movies. Many people open booths on Kuaishou to sell specialties.

Mr. Zhong’s channel has more than 82,000 followers, but this is not an easy number to achieve, especially for those who are not familiar with appearing on camera or familiar with Internet culture. He and his partner had to research, spend more time watching other streamers and reviewing their own broadcast. They had to discuss what to do for the next broadcast, even after midnight.

Returning home after livestreaming for 10 hours, he said he did not want to say another word. “I am at a loss for words,” “star” shared social networks.