Publication Type

PhD Dissertation

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

12-2023

Abstract

Content creation platforms, including Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, and Bilibili, have emerged as significant drivers of employment and economic growth within the digital economy. These platforms invigorate online engagement and offline consumption, serving as vital conduits that merge China’s digital and real economies. Currently, China boasts over 10 million active content creators on its leading platforms, although their earnings are markedly uneven. While some top-tier creators garner substantial profits, the majority in the mid to lower tiers grapple with profit generation and encounter challenges in enhancing their creative performance. Against this background, this study delves into the antecedents of creative performance. By examining data and contexts from two prominent Chinese content creation platforms, Xiaohongshu and Bilibili, the study unfoldsthrough three sequential sub-studies that focus on the work characteristics, the personal styles of the creators, and the incubation strategies employed by multi-channel networks (MCNs), respectively. This approach uncovers the antecedents and the underlying mechanisms that could heighten content creators’ performance.

In sub-study 1, we analyzed the works published by creators with over 10,000 followers within the knowledge section from January 2021 to January 2022 (n=247,972). To construct a novelty index from work tags, we employed the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm. Our regression analysis revealed a positive U-shaped relationship between work novelty and three variables: views, likes, and comments. Specifically, as novelty grows, these variables tend to decline first and then climb. In other words, the works that enjoy the highest popularity among viewers are either those with highly familiar themes or those that are extremely novel.

In sub-study 2, we scrutinized content spanning videos, audio, and text from creators with 10,000 followers or more within the beauty category on Bilibili, between January 2021 and January 2022. From this pool, we took a sample of 15% of the creators, resulting in 1,118 original videos produced by 129 creators. A sequence of analyses was conducted: multimodal analysis, factor analysis, and regression analysis. We distinguished six personas of bloggers within the sample: casual, energetic, professional, sweet, approachable, and good-looking. Regression outcomes pointed out that the good-looking persona has a positive impact on the number of followers, whereas the sweet persona has a positive impact on the number of bullet comments.

In sub-study 3, our attention shifted to the synergy between the incubation strategies of MCNs and the individual creative activities of content creators, exploring how this synergy aids creators in achieving breakout successes. We opted for a multi-case study approach, drawing from bloggers on Xiaohongshu and Bilibili as our subjects. Through interviews and archival research, we constructed a three-stage (development/stagnation stage–transformation stage– secondary growth stage) model outlining the collaborative framework of MCNs and key opinion leaders (KOLs) to realize breakout successes.

This study makes several theoretical contributions. First, it elucidates the influence of novelty on the creative performance of diverse types of works, addressing the gap in existing literature that often overlooks the novelty in content creation platforms. Second, the study delineates the personas of content creators and assesses their effect on creative performance, addressing the shortcomings of existing research offering a superficial and unilateral view of creators’ characteristics. Third, by revealing the process of content creators and MCNs jointly achieving transformation and secondary growth, this study remedies the focus of existing research that is often confined to the short-term effects of work and creator characteristics on creative performance while overlooking the inclusion of MCN incubation strategies and the sustained advancement of creators.

Based on the insights from the three sub-studies, this study has developed three implementation schemesthat include three products: the Creation Material Toolbox, the Text-Video-Audio (TVA) Model of KOL (Key Opinion Leaders) Portrait, and the Incubation Management System. These products have been applied and upgraded in enterprise practices, which contributes to enriching our theoretical outcomes.

Overall, the study’s conclusions offer valuable guidance for content creators aiming to boost their creative performance, for MCNs seeking to manage and develop content creators scientifically, and for the orderly, healthy, and rational advancement of China’s platform economy, particularly within the content creation sector.

Degree Awarded

Doctor of Business Administration (Accounting and Finance)

Discipline

E-Commerce | Marketing

Supervisor(s)

ZHANG, Liandong

First Page

1

Last Page

152

Publisher

Singapore Management University

City or Country

Singapore

Copyright Owner and License

Author

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