Research On The Influencing Factors Of Wechat User's Paid Appreciation Intention

On social media platform(such as WeChat public platform)based on UserGenerated Content(UGC),content consumers(article readers)can pay money to content creators(article authors),which is called Paid Appreciation.Paid appreciation has positive implications for social media platforms.On the one hand,content creators can earn monetary income from paid appreciation,which encourages content creators to provide more high-quality original content;on the other hand,social media platforms can share some of the paid appreciation income with content creators(through the way of revenue-sharing),this cash flow increases the profitability of social media platforms.Paid appreciation is a voluntary and initiative behavior of users.Social media platforms typically allow users to read content provided by other users for free,ie,paid appreciation is not mandated by the platform.From the perspective of rational man,there is no need for users to pay for content after they have read it entirety.Even if users want content creators to get financial support so that they can continue to read high quality content in the future,users still don't have to pay for content by themselves,but they can take free-ride(let other users to pay for the content while just they read it for free).Since the paid appreciation behavior is neither mandatory nor necessary,why does it still occur? In order to reveal the motivation of the paid appreciation behavior,this paper studies the influencing factors,mechanism and boundary conditions of paid appreciation intention.User-generated content(UGC)on social media platforms exist many kinds of media and communication,and paid appreciation also exist many forms of presentation.In order to focus on the nature of the problem,this paper limits research scope to a specific social media platform.Considering the proportion of WeChat users and the representativeness of WeChat public platform,this paper focuses on the use situation of WeChat public platform.The research work includes:(1)Put forward questions and comb literatures.(2)Aim at the dual attributes of paid appreciation behavior(charity donation and consumption)to construct the research framework,which through integrating the brand attachment process model and PWYW(Pay What You Want)pricing model and combining the interview research(16 WeChat users with paid appreciation experience).(3)Put forward 10 research hypotheses about direct effect and moderate effect,and establish conceptual model.(4)Based on the sample database of professional online survey company,466 valid questionnaires were collected for reliability and validity analysis,using the structural equation model of full model and multiple group models test the hypothesis.(5)Discuss the research results' theoretical and practical implications,and analyze the research limitations and future research directions.The results show that:(1)Emotional attachment and perceived fairness have a positive impact on paid appreciation intention;(2)Identification and interaction have a positive impact on emotional attachment;(3)Information value and other user paid appreciation behavior has a positive impact on perceived fairness;(4)WeChat article type moderates the relationship between perceived fairness and paid appreciation intention.When users read utilitarian(vs.hedonic)articles,the positive relationship between perceived fairness and paid appreciation intention is stronger.(5)Users' impulsive purchase tendency moderates the relationship between emotional attachment and paid appreciation intention.For users with high(vs.low)impulsive purchase intention,the positive relationship between emotional attachment and paid appreciation intention is stronger.This paper expands the previous theoretical model of paid appreciation intention.Appling the typology of hedonic and utilitarian products to content products and analyzing their moderating effects.Introducing user behavior tendency as the moderating variable between emotional attachment and it's outcome variables.Extending attachment theory and PWYW pricing theory to WeChat users paid appreciate context.The findings help WeChat authors and similar online content creators to optimize content creation strategies and increase revenue,and help WeChat public platform operators and similar UGC social media platform operators to improve platform operations and user management.