Information Control for Creator Brand Management in Subscription-Based Crowdfunding

Digital content creators, such as podcasters, musicians, writers, and YouTubers, are increasingly using subscription-based crowdfunding (SBC) platforms to attract backers and obtain recurring funding from them. Unlike conventional crowdfunding, a hallmark of SBC is the recurring funding scheme structured as a creator-centered freemium model. Empowering creators to build their person brands, SBC platforms are providing creators with novel features to control the information that they share with their backers or fans or conceal from them. Based on a large-scale study on Patreon, an SBC platform, we show how creators can effectively leverage two types of information controls—earnings concealment and private postings—to build their person brands and thereby develop their backer base and fan engagement. Interestingly, we also find a reinforcing relationship in which the increases in backer base and fan engagement further stimulate creators to leverage information controls in their SBC campaigns to grow their person brands. In sum, although information controls are effective in aggregate to build person brands on SBCs, creators need to dynamically adjust the extent of use of information controls based on changes in their backer base and fan engagement.

DOUYIN AND TIKTOK: A CROSS-LANGUAGE SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF ACADEMIC SCHOLARSHIP ON SISTER APPS

Following the meteoric rise of TikTok in the global market and the dominance of Douyin in the Chinese market, this article maps academic scholarship focusing on Douyin and TikTok. Examining Chinese and English journal articles studying Douyin and TikTok, we address three research questions: Firstly, what are the disciplinary approaches and methodologies employed by researchers in studying Douyin and TikTok? Secondly, what are the foci of research questions put forth by researchers? Thirdly, how is the academic scholarship on these platforms developing independently? In terms of disciplinary leanings, Douyin publications tended to be published by scholars in the humanities and social sciences while TikTok and comparative publications demonstrated a broader scope of disciplinary leanings. Regarding methodology, Douyin publications tended to employ qualitative ones. Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed approaches for TikTok publications were more balanced. Qualitative and quantitative approaches were observed in comparative publications. Data collection methods across publications included digital fieldwork, surveys, interviews, experiments, media texts, and ethnography; while data analyses included content, thematic, statistical, network, critical discourse, and descriptive forms of analyses. Regarding research questions, articles on Douyin tended to engage with e-commerce, the development of short form videos, and practices, cultures and communities. Articles on TikTok tended to engage with platform logics and governance concerns, fame, virality and influencers, and representation of events or information. Comparative publications tended to engage with platformization, expression of cultural differences, fan engagement strategies and factors underlying app usage. Finally, academic scholarship on Douyin and TikTok are largely based in independent geographic regions.

Fans behave as buyers? Assimilate fan-based and team-based drivers of fan engagement

PurposeCustomer engagement, as one form of interactive marketing, enhances organisational performance, in terms of sales growth, superior competitive advantage and increased profitability, particularly within the sports context. This research aims to explore fans' engagement behaviours with their sports teams and identify its drivers and outcomes.Design/methodology/approachThe researchers deployed mixed methods in this study via three phases: (1) A judgmental sampling technique, along with snowballing, were used to conduct in-depth interviews with twenty-two football fans, for the exploratory phase; (2) A convenience sample was also used for the quantitative phase, which was divided into two stages, (1) the pretesting stage (30 fans), and (2) the main data collection stage (407 fans) and (3) A judgmental sampling technique was applied for the qualitative validation phase (10 interviews with experts and practitioners).FindingsQualitative and quantitative results supported team jealousy, team competitiveness and team morality as new predictors for fan engagement behaviours. Further, while the fan role readiness had the most positive effect on management cooperation, team identification had the most predicting power for prosocial behaviour. Finally, team morality had the most significant positive impact on performance tolerance.Originality/valueDespite the considerable practical attention, and the recent extensive research, paid towards conceptualising customer engagement behaviours in the last decade, there is still a need for further exploration on the fan engagement concept to better understand fans' unique behavioural responses; accordingly, the current research was conducted.

#YouWillBeFound: Participatory fandom, social media marketing and Dear Evan Hansen

Drawing on studies of fan participation, labour and parasociality, this article explores the continuing diversification of musical theatre fandom via social media and the interactive ways in which productions harness fan engagement. The analysis focuses on Dear Evan Hansen (2016) as a musical that depicts emotionally vulnerable teenagers and exploitative online communication, notions that are also often reflected in how fans interact with the show. Fan-generated content is regularly recycled as marketing material, and even as merchandise, that is used to sell the production. Similarly, the musical’s producers and marketing team frequently invite interaction around the musical’s core mantra, ‘You Will Be Found’. These interactions can benefit fans by potentially eliciting feelings of social inclusion that may be experienced as empowering. However, this practice can also be interpreted as equally as ethically dubious as some of the musical’s narrative content, given that fans are ultimately providing free advertising for a commercial musical.

Determinants of Fan Engagement in Social Media-Based Brand Communities: A Brand Relationship Quality Perspective

This study adopts a brand relationship quality (BRQ) perspective to reveal the reason firms’ investments in social media-based brand communities should increase their social relationship marketing performances. An empirical analysis with 234 Facebook users who joined brand communities was conducted to examine the proposed hypotheses, revealing that fan needs fulfillments—information, entertainment, social interaction, and monetary ones—had positive effects on BRQ. Further, BRQ was found to have positive effects on fans’ engagement behavioral intentions toward brands, including willingness to buy, member continuance intention, and electronic word of mouth intention. This study contributes to existing research that indicates a new mechanism of BRQ improvement via the social media-based brand community. Implications corresponding to the research findings as well as study limitations and future directions are also addressed.