Yesterday around six or seven in the evening, I posted a two-minute video on Channels. When I woke up early this morning and checked the creator dashboard, it had already passed 500 views. The system sent me a message saying the video had been recommended and had received over 500 views in total, and that consistent posting and creating can help more people discover you. I usually get messages like this right before bed, or when I wake up the next morning.

I go through this process once every day. I wait until the day’s trending topic comes out in the afternoon or evening before getting started, then publish around six or seven, or seven or eight. It takes half an hour, at most an hour, costs nothing, and I don’t have to pay for computing power myself. I’ve been doing this for over a year, and today I want to write it all down properly because quite a lot of people have been asking.

Let me start with the most valuable part. It’s not the equipment or editing techniques—it’s knowing which software to use. A lot of people make videos for a while and get stuck because they don’t know what the software is called. That’s what I figured out. I won’t name it in the article. Honestly, this is something I learned over more than a year of using it. I’ve put it and the whole workflow together in a tutorial. If you’re willing to give it a try, just get in touch.

There are more complicated ways too. I’ve tried them, and the results might be just a little better—or sometimes not as good as this setup. After more than a year, I’ve come to believe one thing: only simple things can be done every day. And if you can do it every day, then you’ve got something to build on.

My daily routine is pretty consistent. When a hot topic comes up, I pick a subject first—either discuss the trending topic itself or something related to it. Those posts really do get more attention and better view counts. And you can always connect a trending topic to the products or services you want to sell; everything is connected somehow. Once I’ve picked a subject, I use my own “Mouthpiece Wordsmith” to write the copy. It’s now on the WorkBuddy Expert Marketplace, and it writes in a humorous, natural way that people like to share. Choosing the topic and writing the copy are the two things I’m least willing to cut corners on.

Once the copy is ready, I feed it into video-making software. The digital avatar and my voice are already set up, so there’s no need to set up a microphone or record audio, and no painstakingly editing out pauses line by line. That saves me from the most tedious work. Lately, I’ve also started collecting photos and video clips and putting them in together. The software figures out which image goes with which line and which clip should follow which scene. It’s even more accurate than when I search manually—I was pretty surprised.

The video renders in the background. It takes anywhere from a few minutes to twenty, depending on how busy things are. I don’t actually know which company’s model powers it, and I don’t really need to. The finished video is just as good as the leading generative models out there, and in some ways it’s better than what I could make myself. What surprised me most was the music: it picks a different track for each theme. I hadn’t expected that at all.

While the video is rendering, I make the cover. I use one of my own photos, apply a template, and the photo gets swapped in automatically. Then I change the text to that day’s topic. If I’m quick, it only takes a few minutes. Sometimes I’m still browsing templates when the video is already done. I can spend ages choosing a template—that’s a habit I still haven’t kicked.

Once the cover and video are saved to my phone, they’re ready to post. I post to WeChat Channels first, then to DY, KS, XHS, and WB. I can also adapt the spoken-video script into an image-and-text post for XHS. Sometimes those do even better than the videos. It’s a lot better than scrambling to think of something to post on the spot. Make it once, use it several times—the more I do the math, the more worthwhile it feels.

Here’s another feature I’ve been having fun with lately: the software also comes with quite a few templates, especially useful for selling products. There are templates for cosmetics, air conditioners, toiletries, and even ones where you appear alongside celebrities. Upload a picture of your product or yourself, and it replaces the image in the template with yours. I’m pretty happy with the results.

I’ve posted two of them. One showed me alongside Tim Cook, Elon Musk, and Jensen Huang. It got 5637 views:

In the other, a customer asked how long I’d been in this line of work. I just uploaded a photo of myself, and it was ready in under ten minutes. It got 1155 views:

When I said it doesn’t cost anything, I meant the daily spoken-video post. These templates do cost extra for computing power, but they’re much cheaper than similar software elsewhere. I did a rough comparison, and they save at least 90%. The cost is totally manageable. If you want to make short videos or promote your products and services, this option is actually more straightforward.

There’s another type of template I haven’t tried myself, but I think it’s worth mentioning. Besides the photo-based ones, there are bilingual Chinese-English templates. Enter your Chinese copy, and it translates it into English automatically, with subtitles in both languages. You can also switch to Russian, Japanese, Korean, and other languages. Even the spoken voice changes to match the language. I haven’t tried this one myself—I’ve only ever used Chinese—so I can’t vouch for how well it works. Also, making a foreign-language version requires buying an additional service. It doesn’t cost much, and like the other option, it’s far cheaper than similar software elsewhere. If you want to reach overseas markets, or already post short videos on international platforms, this adds barely any extra steps: just change the copy and you can make another video. It’s just as simple.

The videos I’ve posted recently have all been recommended. After getting past 500 views, they kept climbing—to one thousand, two thousand, five thousand, and even over ten thousand:

My top video got 111,000 views, 1156 likes, 606 shares, 308 “Worth a Look” reactions, and 47 comments:

There are plenty of others with a few dozen likes. On other platforms, my top video got 100,000 views; others got 40,000 or 50,000, and a few thousand is more common. Of course, some videos don’t get much traffic either—I won’t pretend otherwise.
There’s one important caveat: all the numbers above came from organic reach—no paid promotion, no boosting, not a penny spent. In theory, once a post gets recommended, you should buy some WeChat Beans to push it further. I’ve never paid to promote a post, so these numbers could actually go quite a bit higher. If you have a budget and a real product or service, try putting a little money behind a video as soon as it gets recommended. Your views, likes, and comments will probably look even better than mine. Boosting only buys exposure, though—the video still has to be something people want to watch to the end.

I don’t want to overpromise: this won’t turn you into a big influencer. I’m not one myself. It’s for ordinary people who want to build an audience. Post once a day, and the numbers can add up over time. The more you make, the better your instincts get, and the more likely you are to hit on a viral post. I can’t say exactly when that’ll happen, but you really do get a feel for it.

I’m a little hooked now. I make one every day, and when I miss a day, it feels like something’s missing. It doesn’t cost anything, and it takes half an hour, so it’s not exactly a matter of discipline. The reason I can keep going has more to do with the little bit of feedback it gives me every day.

If you have a product or service, posting once a day is a way to put it in front of people. If one of your videos really takes off, it could bring in genuine inquiries and sales. And you don’t need to have a product to enjoy making videos. We’re in the short-video era now; a quick video often gets more traffic than a plain article. People naturally want to express themselves and share things. Getting a little positive feedback every day can lift your mood, and who knows—you might come up with a new idea that leads to something else. I can’t promise that’ll happen, but setting aside half an hour a day to think about what you want to make can’t hurt.

I’ve put together a tutorial based on the workflow I’ve used for over a year, including how I choose topics, build up a library of material, and the instincts that are hard to put into writing. If you’re interested, get in touch. You can start using it as soon as you get it. Some things really are hard to explain in a document—for example, what kinds of topics I avoid, or when to stop tweaking a cover. I’ll walk you through those step by step
when I’m showing you how it works.

One last reminder: if you make videos the professional way, you need at least a small team—someone to shoot, someone to edit, and someone to write the copy. Even for filming alone, you need to get a microphone and other equipment ready, or the audio will be muddy and all that effort on the visuals will be wasted. Based on my experience, producing a single talking-head video at a company—filming, editing, adding footage and effects, adjusting subtitles, and trimming pauses—takes at least two days from start to finish. At that rate, hiring one person and getting all the equipment would cost at least 10,000 yuan a month, not counting the time spent going back and forth on revisions.

You don’t need any of that with my setup. There’s no need to hire someone to write the copy, and the digital avatar and voice are already set up. The software picks the footage itself, and all you need is a phone. Once you get the hang of it, you can make one video a day in half an hour—or an hour at most—and the results are pretty good. For ordinary people, it’s affordable, hassle-free, and sustainable. Work that costs over 10,000 yuan a month and takes two days per video can now be done on a phone and posted in half an hour. All I want as an ordinary person is something I can post every day. Compared to that, the cost-benefit calculation is easy: it’s worth it.

That’s it. This turned out a little long, but it’s all stuff I genuinely do every day. If you want to give it a try, get in touch.

WeChat Channels: VOBC | Contact me: DM or leave a comment | Website: vobcai.cn