How Can SMEs Integrate Intellectual Property Rights Into Social Media Marketing Strategies to Achieve Brand and Business Development?: Case Study of the Chinese Cultural Industry

Definition and Classification

Social media are internet-based programs that allow users to create and share user generated content (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). They can be classified into different categories (Hanafifizadeh et al., 2021). WhatsApp, Line, Telegram and WeChat are examples of networking sites. Youtube, Tiktok and Vimeo are examples of content communities. Twitter and Blogspot are examples of blogs. TripAdvisor, Yelp and FourSquare are examples of online forums & discussion. Organizational usage of social media is changing organizational communication and public relations (Farzana et al., 2018). Social media enables open communication, which helps organizations to understand customer needs and motivates them to respond proactively and efficiently to those needs (Farzana et al., 2016).

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are important contributors to any nation’s economy. Globally, in developing countries, SMEs constitute about 90% of businesses and over 50% of employment, representing a major portion of GDP (World Bank, 2020). SMEs’ prominence lies in the innovation, poverty alleviation, job creation, economic growth and social cohesion. It has contributed over 40% to GDP and created over 70% jobs in emerging economies (Sheshadri & Arpan, 2020).

While large organizations dominate the use of social media, research has proven that social media are crucial tools for SMEs (Rahmawati et al., 2020). Social media can be employed by SMEs because of its low cost, technical manageability and ease of use, and its capability to connect with and reach consumers in scale (Farzana et al., 2018).

The Special Meaning of IP in China

China, as a developing country with a high social media penetration rate, has valuable experience in the organizational usage of social media. One of the examples is the creation of online literature IP. IP originally refers to intellectual property rights. In China, it has almost become a synonym for a particular form of cultural production—original internet fiction (Wu, 2022). It typically refers to web novels with strong economic exploitation potential, and the forms of exploitation include the adaptation of online literature into music works, film and animation, online games, etc. (Zeng & Du, 2021).

China's online IP literature and film industry are very well developed. Jinjiang Literature and Daylight entertainment, as SMEs, are one of the forerunners in the literature and film industries respectively. They produce high-quality literary works, film and television works, and receive rich financial returns. Meanwhile, it also helps them enhance their corporate image.

Research Questions

In this chapter we are going to explore the following questions.

• Question 1. What types of SMEs in China are suitable for social media marketing?

• Question 2. Why is it possible for these types of SMEs in China to create IP through social media and improve their performance?

• Question 3. What kind of social media did each of these two companies use and how did they become successful?

• Question 4. Do SMEs in China encounter any problems when using social media? If so, how can they be solved?

This chapter will first present a global and Chinese perspective of usage of social media, SMEs, IP industry, etc. Next, this chapter will analyze the development of Chinese online literature on social media and its IP creation, and then focus on the case study of online literature company Jinjiang Literature and film company Daylight Entertainment. Both of them are famous SMEs in China, producing a lot of literature, films and television works of high quality and all the while, work on improving their business performance. In the end, this chapter will analyze the problems these companies face and find out the solutions.