Analysis of Bilibili’s Social Media Marketing Strategy

. Nowadays, social media has become one of the main ways of entertainment for people after dinner, which is accompanied by the huge industrial structure and commercial chain behind it. How to attract more customers and reap the maximum benefits in the fierce platform competition has become the basic goal of every platform. In essence, there is a three-way connection between the platform, the company and the user and the communication between them to get the content and traffic they want. Therefore, the cooperation between companies, the innovative use of popular IP, and the accurate grasp of user preferences have become the key to the control of traffic flow of social media. By studying the collected literature on social media and Bilibili’s marketing strategies, this paper explores the marketing strategies of social media platforms in the current era and draws out the development prospects of the social media platform Bilibili in the post-epidemic era. Bilibili innovates marketing strategies in such an industry background, fights for a better marketing environment and timely adjusts marketing methods, so as to quickly seize a certain position in the increasingly fierce competitive market and improve its competitive advantage. This article takes Bilibili as an example to analyze the social media operation strategy and the reasons why it can get a head start in the post-pandemic era.


Introduction
In the history of human communication development, human communication activities and the development of media technology have always been accompanied and closely related, and every progress of media technology always gives birth to and reconstructs the new communication ecology of human beings.Social media is a kind of new media which is rooted in the Internet environment and rises rapidly.It causes the unprecedented media reform and communication revolution in the history of human communication and affects the relationship, structure, decision-making, ethics and other aspects of the whole society imperceptibly.
For people today, social behavior is essential.It is culturally embedded in people's lives.With the improvement of production capacity, the development of science and technology and the guidance of platformbased interaction rules, people are learning to interact with each other through technology and data, thus the origin of social media and its continuous development.With the creation of the first E-Mail in 1971, a long 40year history of social media was rolled out.Then came the familiar concept of groups, and various early search engines and real-time communication tools officially began to appear in people's vision.In 1999, the development of social media changed dramatically with the advent of blogging tools.Facebook was officially founded in 2004, and the platform now has 955 million monthly active users.In 2005, social video app YouTube was founded, and in the following years, Twitter, Google and Weibo took a large share of the market.Gradually, the flourishing form of social media is what it is now.For China, although its development started relatively late, it relies on its huge Internet user base, scientific and modern Internet standardized management mode, numerous excellent enterprises, entrepreneurs' keen sense of The Times and unremitting efforts.The earliest social media in China can be traced back to ChinaRen co-founded by Chen Yizhou, Zhou Yunfan and Yang Ning in May 1999.At that time, social media was just introduced from abroad, but its positioning was not clear and its functions were not perfect.In recent years, the birth and development of social media, such as Douban, Renren, Tianya, Qzone, Sina Weibo and Wechat, has made China's social media industry show a flourishing state of a hundred flowers [1].China's social media development has quickly become the world's largest market in the last decade.Chinese social media platforms such as Weibo, Douyin and Bilibili have been expanding overseas in recent years, gaining popularity overseas and attracting many celebrities from home and abroad.
Social media is not just some trendy business model.Historically, it has been a key force pushing the Internet closer to the real world.At present, social media covers all forms of network services with human social interaction as the core.The Internet is an interactive platform for mutual communication, mutual communication and mutual participation.Social media has expanded the Internet from a platform for research departments, schools, governments and commercial applications to a tool for human social communication.
The development and popularization of social media has brought users an open and free interaction platform.When social media and smart terminals such as mobile phones are interwoven together, a new type of social environment, namely mobile social media, is born.In addition to the characteristics of traditional social media, mobile social media also presents the characteristics of mobility, convenience and intelligence.Mobile and convenient enable users to enter and interact with apps anytime and anywhere in the network environment.The intelligence based on big data analysis also further improves users' experience of using mobile social media.In the decade of continuous development of information globalization, Bilibili has become a wellknown mobile video culture community in China and even the world.This article through the the literature collected on social media and Bilibili's marketing strategy and the analysis of the market situation, marketing strategy interpretation and other aspects to analyze Bilibili.This article mainly includes a brief introduction of Bilibili's current situation, a detailed analysis of the marketing strategy and the prospect of future development.

About BiliBili
Bilibili, or B Zhan for short, was founded on June 26, 2009, and has grown from a website to a Nasdaq-listed company in 10 years.Today, it has been an ecosystem that produces a steady stream of quality content, a multicultural community with more than 7,000 layers of interest.In the early stage, it mainly shared twodimensional video content, which attracted a group of users who love animation and game content.After 11 years of development, it expanded its categories on the basis of the original and added several sections such as funny, entertainment, food, etc., and the circle of users kept expanding.It has become a leading cultural exchange platform for young people in China, which integrates video, games, live broadcasting, advertising, e-commerce, animation and other businesses.
By the end of 2018, more than 80% of the members of BiliBili were young people born after 1990.It means that in the network environment, which is dominated by the "post 80s", BiliBili subdivides this age group into the "post 90s".Younger thinking and more active characteristics provide natural soil for the emergence of ghost and animal culture, a network subculture [2].Bilibili announced its unaudited financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2022.According to the results, the total revenue of Station B in FY22 increased 13% year on year to RMB21.9 billion, including the fourth quarter revenue of RMB6.14 billion, up 6% year on year [3].Considering that Bilibili has a clear market leadership position in the younger generation of the market.And with such a large and growing user base, Bilibili's profits are just around the corner.At the same time, Bilibili's various industry segments complement each other, forming a reasonable ecological closed loop also for their own profitability of the ordinary road.Next, this paper will analyze the current social media platform industry competition environment to point out the development prospects of Bilibili.

Social media platform industry competition environment
In 2020, the investment and financing amount of the whole social media industry is 160 million yuan.In 2021, stranger social networking rebounded to 2 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 1127%; The number of investments reached 25.The amount and number of investments have increased significantly, and the social networking market for strangers is picking up after a cold winter.The huge user base of stranger social combined with "Generation Z", sea, meta social and other factors, the market still has a great future.Today, with the increasingly common use of social media and the explosive growth of investment, Bilibili has formed its own "bullet screen culture" with its sophisticated industry experience and user precipitation, which enables it to seize its unique advantages in the fierce market competition.Bilibili has a large number of users and high visibility, its broad user base in the user demand and investment is constantly expanding today for its further development and deployment have provided a broader platform and room for maneuver.
In an era dominated by visual culture, social apps exploit their audio-visual advantages to the fullest.However, the deliberate pursuit of audio visual effects, that is, blindly catering to the audience's psychological pursuit of sensory stimulation, paying attention to the development of special effects technology and the creation of gorgeous pictures, while ignoring the content and connotation of videos, will limit the development of short videos, make them naturally become entertainment "toys", and then lose the serious function and significance as a new mode of communication.Additionally, social media platforms use proprietary algorithms that focus on increasing user engagement and may promote videos that do not necessarily reflect accurate health information.A recent systematic review found that the prevalence of health misinformation was high across almost all social media platforms [4].Thus, how to improve the quality of content and provide knowledge and content products while ensuring publicity will become the key for software to occupy the leading position in the industry.
Stranger sociability is characterized by low frequency rigor.According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, human needs can be divided into physiological needs and safety needs.And a great feature of stranger socializing is to complement reality, with great virtuality.The needs of strangers' social groups determine that these software cannot be "conformist" like acquaintances' social networking.Social media provides users with focused immersion, which allows the user to escape life's unpleasant realities [5].The platform market is already saturated.How to innovate in the way of play and entertainment is worth thinking about.
Under the epidemic situation, China's social media industry has bucked the trend and played an important role: In terms of the effective use time of individual computers, the stickiness of social media users has increased due to the impact of the epidemic, and has remained high above that of other content consumption areas.From the perspective of major social media platform initiatives, each platform has demonstrated different media communication values according to its own attributes, content styles and audience characteristics.How social platforms cope with the impact of user time loss and how Bilibili stands out in social media software in the post-pandemic era.

Bilibili marketing strategy
Taking Bilibili platform's marketing methods in content operation, brand marketing and customer development in recent years as an example to make a deeper interpretation of these marketing methods.By combining Bilibili's successful marketing methods in brand cooperation, innovative technology application and customer links with the competitive environment of social media platforms, the advantages of large platforms in platform operation are highlighted, so as to provide reference for the development of social media platforms in the future.
Through the deep cultivation of Chinese style scenes and the innovative use of VR avatars, the company makes use of strong IP images to attract young users and IP fans.Regarding marketing strategy, Bilibili shows many marketing methods that align with The Times and cooperate for win-win results.The main way is to constantly improve the content operation mechanism, through brand cooperation with large companies, constantly innovate and break the circle across the industry, and expand the source channels of hot spots.At the same time, the platform connects customers through a creative barrage to form a wide range of marketing slogans with certain brainwashing and communication power.
Through brand cooperation with large companies, Bilibili constantly innovate and break the circle across the world to broaden the source channels of hot spots.For example, when KFC celebrates the 80th anniversary of its Finger lickin original chicken, it hopes to take advantage of the node to create a major brand event, fully penetrate the young circle and trigger group resonance, and deeply communicate with users about the fried chicken culture.(Attract users to participate in discussions and express opinions, cooperate with international restaurants, and open up online and offline channels).Lay's Potato Chips introduced an interesting innovative flavor in early summer called "Snail Pink Potato Chips".The preference or rejection of snail powder has always been a hot topic among young people.Therefore, Lay's also hopes to create a hot topic in Bilibili by discussing the flavor of Snail Pink potato chips.
It has always been the key to creating a good and friendly discussion atmosphere by creating a conflict of views, forming a hot topic of discussion, strengthening content audit and creating a good and friendly discussion atmosphere.Bilibili website to maximize the role of domestic mainstream social platforms, to create internal video topic marketing.At present, there are many well-known social platforms in China, such as Baidu Tieba, Sina Weibo and Wechat.Bilibili can make full use of these platforms, such as publishing topics related to hot videos on the platform, entering the topic circle with the help of topic links to carry out discussions, and attracting users' attention through discussion, so that users can generate interest and keep following.Simply put, it is users' understanding of social platforms.Video platforms need to constantly enrich their own content, actively interact with fans, and effectively enhance user loyalty.In addition, video websites should combine the specific conditions of various social platforms and launch corresponding products to attract more customers [6].
Lynk & Co cooperated with Station B in the graduation season, and made use of the influence of virtual idols in the pop culture circle to penetrate into the young group and improve the empathy and favorability of Generation Z for the brand.By seizing the hot trends of the young generation, Bilibili can enhance the visibility and influence of Party A, expand revenue channels for itself and meet the entertainment needs of users.In the current new media environment, with the increasing popularity of digital image production technology, fans are guided to produce fan works by admirers, so that they can provide intelligent consumption in their own social circles, which can improve their topic degree in social media.In particular, those with excellent video production skills among fans are often opinion leaders in their fan communities and skill fields, with their own fans and traffic [7].Then there is the rise of cultural confidence among the young generation.With the help of the key marketing events of Mid-Autumn Festival and Lantern Festival, China Construction Bank integrates into the trend of national culture, resonates with the emotional resonance of Generation Z, and gains users' recognition and love for the brand.
Bullet culture has been the most distinctive content and marketing tool of Bilibili.Bullet comment is a realtime interactive comment mode born in the Internet environment.It can be directly displayed on video in the form of scrolling, lingering and even more action effects.These are short comments sent in real time by people watching the video [8].Consumers' brand attitudes have a positive impact on their purchase intentions.In the marketing process, enterprises should pay attention to consumers' feelings and experiences from the perspective of consumers [9].Connect customers through creative barrage to form a wide range of marketing slogans with certain brainwashing and spreading power.In terms of technology, it constantly optimizes the technical level of software to provide users with smooth bullet screen animation, stable bullet screen processing and efficient transmission of real-time interactive comments, which promotes the formation of bullet screen culture.

Future expectations
As Bilibili takes root in a broader group of young users, it occupies more and more categories of high quality and high value.From the original minority community, to the present comprehensive content produced community.Bilibili constantly conforms to the main users -the young generation, it captures the young people, with young people own the future, its future development space is still very huge.It also needs to expand into pan-entertainment, with niche content spawning more and larger platforms for user communication.It encourages and supports the production of native content, and at the same time introduces recommendation algorithm and labels fans in different partitions, so as to continuously create a more complete and healthy operation system, which constantly meets users' expectations for content community and users' psychology.Also, Short videos and livestreams have made social e-commerce a new trend in 2019, but Bilibili's performance in this area is still relatively modest compared to other platforms, especially its unique patel-free advertising ecosystem model, which has resulted in it relying on page ads for part of its revenue for a long time.In recent years, with the significant development of Bilibili's advertising cooperation business and livestreaming business, it still has broad development space and potential in the social e-commerce ecosystem [10].

Conclusion
This study finds that in the marketing strategies of today's social media platforms, the main focus is the combination of the relationship among social media platforms, companies and users.Based on the relationship among users, companies and platforms, this study explores in detail the marketing strategies adopted by Bilibili in its prosperous development period in recent years, which are mainly reflected in the following aspects: Brand cooperation, digging deep content and the connection with customers.
Although Bilibili, a relatively small social platform, is facing great threats and challenges in the market competition in the era when short videos dominate, there is still a huge appreciation space and development opportunity for Bilibili with the rapid development of Internet market and technology.The structure and characteristics of netizens are becoming more and more complex.By better understanding users' psychological demands from their perspective, Bilibili can continuously improve their satisfaction, so that Bilibili can continue to introduce original content with higher quality.In the analysis of Bilibili's market competition strategy, this paper mainly discusses its marketing cases and user links.However, the development of its live streaming and short videos is not involved.Therefore, this part still needs necessary attention from Bilibili.There are still many shortcomings in this study.For example, this study mainly focuses on Bilibili video website, and the research scope is limited, so it needs to be expanded.This study has clarified the classic cases and outstanding points in the marketing strategy of Bilibili video website, and put forward future prospects in line with its development prospects.
The research done in this paper provides some feasible solution analysis for the development of some emerging social media platforms today, as well as analysis and prospect for the future development direction of social media platforms and Bilibili.Many points of view in this article are still superficial and lack of in-depth discussion on the connotation and chain impact of social platform operation.