China Daily Online, January 11th In recent years, China’s "online celebrity" economy has grown exponentially. According to the data released by consulting organizations, the number of "online celebrity" with more than 100,000 fans in 2017 increased by 57.3% compared with 2016. For China, a market with 1 billion mobile phone users, foreign "online celebrity" have also found huge business opportunities. Nowadays, more and more foreign faces appear on various social platforms in China.
According to the American news website The China First News, in 2018,’s "online celebrity" economy was about $14 billion (about 96 billion yuan). The huge fan base and lucrative advertising fees have made a fortune for domestic "online celebrity", and now foreigners are competing to join in the fun. In order to stand out from the fierce competition, foreigners follow the trend and meet the needs of China fans to the greatest extent by providing distinctive content.
Launch its own brand
According to the article, foreigners who were famous in China in the past were either international celebrities themselves or lived in Asia. The latter can attract people’s attention for two reasons. First, it is as unconventional as a "bearded spice girl" who has been a wrestler; The second is to become a China hand like a mountain.
Nowadays, a new type of foreign celebrities has begun to rise. They have often become popular on social media abroad. Although he can only speak a few simple Chinese, the English level of young people in China has improved, and fans often translate subtitles spontaneously, which attracts the attention of many fans in China. In short, these content creators always have something that interests China audiences.
Gavin’s screenshot of Weibo
Gavin Thomas, an 8-year-old "smirk boy", is an example. In many Asian countries, in order not to offend people or ease the embarrassing atmosphere, people always squeeze out a fake smile. Gavin’s "embarrassed and polite smiles" aroused people’s resonance and made him gain a lot of fans.
In July 2018, Gavin opened a Weibo account, and the number of Weibo fans has reached 1.95 million, exceeding his fans on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Gavin has cooperated with Taobao and launched a series of co-branded products, such as sweaters with his head, which is a change in the way foreign online celebrity realized in China.
In 2018, there seems to be a new trend among foreign bloggers. They should not only produce high-quality content, but also integrate themselves into all aspects of life in China and form their own distinctive cultural brands. In 2019, foreign "online celebrity" may pay more attention to the interaction with netizens in China, create an influential independent brand in China and realize its realization.
Multi-platform operation
The article points out that WeChat and Weibo are the largest social media platforms in China. In addition, social media platforms such as Youku Tudou, Tik Tok, Xiaohongshu, Meipai, and Bili also have many users.
Previously, foreign "online celebrity" bloggers were mainly active in WeChat and Weibo, but in 2018, a short video boom started in China, with domestic bloggers shooting short videos on various platforms, and foreign bloggers also followed the trend.
Some of them hang out on short video platforms such as Li Li, some settle in Xiaohong’s writing product evaluation, and some specialize in making funny videos. Some foreign bloggers even have fans in Zhihu. Marie from England can speak fluent Chinese. On social media in China, her name is Tan Manru. Going to Zhihu and making videos made her famous in China.
In 2015, Tan Manru and China’s popular Chen Han Siri filmed a video, which was posted on Mile Mile, Youku and YouTube, and the number of hits exceeded 37,000. The video released by Chen Han Siri focuses on letting China audience know about western culture.
When answering questions from Zhihu, Tan Manru often gives her own unique views on cultural differences and explains her understanding of China culture in a humorous way. She won more than 130,000 endorsements and 41,580 collections on Zhihu. After becoming popular on Zhihu, Tan Manru also began to enter other platforms. She settled in the knowledge question-and-answer platform "Be a little better" to provide paid question-and-answer service for fans.
In 2018, social media in China flourished, and various platforms emerged one after another. Especially with the rise of short videos, creating richer content to help major platforms attract users has become a must for foreign "online celebrity".
Seek institutionalized operation
The article thinks that 2018 is the era of short video, with second shot, Aauto Quicker and Tik Tok leading the way. The video ecosystem has also changed in other ways.
However, as foreign "online celebrity" clustered in China content market, more and more people encountered difficulties in cross-cultural communication and entering the China market. At this time, MCN(Multi-Channel Network) operation mode shows certain advantages. Slivki Show, a Ukrainian video blogger on YouTube, is an example of the cooperation between content creators and MCN organizations. Slivki Show will share interesting scientific experiments and life tips, such as how to squeeze 2 liters of orange juice from an orange. It has more than 1 million fans and 191 million video hits on Youtube. In 2017, Slivki Show settled in Weibo and added Chinese subtitles to the video.
Slivki Show will share interesting scientific experiments and life tips. Image source: Weibo video screenshot
MCN institutions explore and sign talents, and then push them to various media platforms. Yoola, a MCN company working with Slivki Show, manages more than 72,000 channels on YouTube. Yoola localizes the channels that it thinks are suitable for China audiences.
People may not have noticed that many foreign entertainers have settled in China social media websites or cooperated with MCN organizations. American model Carly Klaus settled in Little Red Book in May. Actor Robert Downey Jr., singers Taylor Swift and Britney Jean Spears, basketball player Dwyane Wade all opened Weibo, and Radiohead of British rock band also used Weibo. Many of these people’s social media accounts in China are managed by the Fanstang of MCN. And creative rookies can cooperate with many small MCN organizations to localize their content in China market.
The article points out that in the future, there will be more foreign "online celebrity" active on social media platforms in China, especially those YouTube foreign bloggers who have many fans. They won’t miss the market of China, and they will be more active in 2019.