NOVGO.NET Chapter 21: Shop Selection
By the end of the video, Zhao Min finally understood why the other person had suddenly contacted her.
She shook her head, gave the video a like, and then closed it.
The same thing was happening to countless people.
After all, the vast majority of yesterday’s 100 lucky winners were ordinary people.
Although these people used TikTok frequently, they usually only browsed content, not posted it.
Now, to get their hands on the 1,000-yuan cash prize, everyone immediately enlisted the help of their friends, classmates, and relatives.
Some people even sent messages to contacts they hadn’t spoken to in years.
The goal was to not let a single opportunity for success slip by.
And so, unbeknownst to Li Xiao and before the paid promoters he hired had even started working, a massive campaign of people begging for likes on their social media feeds and in chat apps was already in full swing.
"Brother Wen, could you help me out and like my video? Thanks so much!"
"Hey, Class Rep, did you see the new video I posted on TikTok? Could you give it a like and maybe leave a comment?"
"Hey, brother-in-law, help me out with a like. Yeah, that’s the one—the link I posted on my feed!"
...
While eating, Li Xiao opened his TikTok dashboard again.
He saw that the latest video he’d posted had finally passed review.
His previous videos that had been reported and taken down were gradually being reinstated.
’The remaining videos should be unbanned soon, too,’ he figured.
As for the live-streaming function he was most concerned about, it had been restored as well.
He looked at the live button, which had turned from a solid gray back to red.
He let out a long sigh of relief.
’Thank goodness. The manual review team at TikTok is pretty efficient.’
Only three hours had passed since he submitted his appeal. The turnaround was incredibly fast.
What he didn’t know was that, under normal circumstances, it would take two to three days to review so many flagged videos from a small-time streamer like him. And restoring his live-streaming function immediately would have been out of the question.
The reason his account was restored so quickly, of course, wasn’t because the manual review team was particularly diligent.
The main reason he was unbanned so quickly was that he had given out a lot of cash prizes in his stream over the last two days.
He had also spent cold, hard cash to boost his videos with paid traffic.
The platform’s big data algorithm had already flagged his account as a high-quality one.
Naturally, the platform didn’t want to see an account get banned when its owner was willing to spend his own money on promotion and give perks to other users.
For every day a high-quality account like that was banned, the platform was losing several thousand yuan.
After confirming that all the reports against his videos were malicious, the customer service team quickly restored his account.
After the pleasant surprise wore off, Li Xiao quickly noticed that something was off with the stats on his latest video.
He had been in class earlier, so he hadn’t been watching his dashboard.
As anyone who has ever posted a video knows, you can’t use paid promotion while a video is under review.
This meant his latest video hadn’t gotten a boost from his wallet.
All of its stats were from organic traffic.
He glanced at the post time. Only an hour had passed since the video went live.
100,000 views, 800 likes, 200 comments, 12 shares.
?????
Question marks practically appeared over his head.
’What’s going on?’
’How did this unremarkable clarification video suddenly blow up???’
Curious, he opened the comment section.
"I heard the streamer’s wonton noodles are amazing. I’m here for it!"
"My ex sent me a message, and I thought she wanted to get back together. I’d already picked out names for our kids. Then I opened it, and it was just a link asking for a like!"
"My condolences, dude above me! But I gotta ask, is that Yun Ji place really that bad?"
"A hundred people rated it on a ten-point scale, and the total score difference was over 100 points. The gap is pretty obvious, isn’t it?"
"I had Yun Ji for lunch today. It wasn’t that bad, so now I’m really curious just how delicious the streamer’s wonton noodles are!"
"Streamer, when’s the next giveaway?! I haven’t had your wonton noodles for just half a day and I’m already getting withdrawals, feels like ants are crawling all over me!"
...
Reading the comments, Li Xiao finally understood why this video, which he hadn’t spent any money promoting, was starting to take off.
It seemed his little ploy from before was working.
These people had all clicked through from the links in the videos posted by the 100 lucky winners.
A small smile played on Li Xiao’s lips. ’This is just the warm-up.’
’Wait until the paid promoters I hired get to work tonight. That’s when the real show begins.’
’They want to play dirty with me? We’ll see if they can handle the consequences!’
Even though the video was already gaining traction, Li Xiao had no intention of abandoning his ’money power’.
’A two-pronged approach was the only way to maximize the effect.’
Of course, the most important reason was that he wasn’t short on cash at all.
Even after just paying tens of thousands of yuan in promoter fees, he still had over 100,000 left—more than enough for him to splurge for a long time.
Since his live-streaming function was back, it was time to put tonight’s stream on the agenda.
His popularity was in a rapid growth phase; he couldn’t afford to slack off now.
He quickly polished off the char siu rice in front of him and opened his search engine, looking for any trending restaurants that could be the subject of tonight’s stream.
However, he wasn’t planning to do another exposé.
After all, his channel was never meant to be just for exposés.
His first stream about Yun Ji Wonton Noodles could already be considered a food exposé.
If his second stream was also an exposé,
then his audience would likely pigeonhole him as an exposé streamer.
That kind of fixed impression might attract a number of fans who enjoyed watching food exposés, but it would alienate an even larger number of fans who simply loved food.
He didn’t want to let his channel’s focus become too narrow. While exposing bad food was important, promoting genuinely good food was just as essential.
As he scrolled through the results, one restaurant’s name caught his eye.
Celestial Treasure Restaurant.
The name caught his attention because the previous owner of his body had been there a few times. The food was delicious, the prices were low, and it was a very down-to-earth kind of place.
Recalling the taste from his memories, Li Xiao felt certain that this time, he wouldn’t be stepping on any landmines.
He glanced at the location. Perfect. It was only ten kilometers from Zhongshan University.
As long as he avoided the evening rush hour, it was only a 20-minute taxi ride away.
However, as he recalled more details, his brow furrowed.
The portions at this place were all very generous.
If he went alone, he could probably only order one main dish, which wouldn’t make for great stream content. But if he ordered too much, he would likely waste food.
He turned to glance at his roommate beside him and immediately had a solution.
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