Proceedings of The 5th International Conference on Research in Humanities and Social Sciences
Year: 2021
DOI:
Monetization the Fame of Entertainment Celebrities in the We Media Era
Yuxin Zhu
ABSTRACT:
Weibo is the quickest growing We media platform globally, with 510 million monthly active users, which is important for celebrities to spread their influence. Thus, this study focused on how Weibo has influenced the economic livelihood of celebrities in China. Based on this question, this article uses Xiao Zhan as a case study in order to explore his attraction of fans on this social media platform and its relationship to his personal financial growth. In 2019, Xiao Zhan became a top star on Weibo with the popularity of the TV series “The Untamed”. He is currently the most influential star on Weibo with 29.32 million followers. Based on following his Weibo account 2 years and 2 hours for data collection on Weibo every day, in this paper I will argue that celebrities use Weibo to gain economic benefits by attracting fans through various techniques and using their fan base to attract corporations to pay them for their influence. This research is relevant to “Weibo Marketing in the Era of Fan Economy” literature, and to researchers who are more broadly interested in how the internet is changing social life.
keywords: We media, Internet marketing, fan economy, Weibo, entertainment celebrities.