IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jmedec/v31y2018i3-4p75-95.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The economics of social media (super-)stars: an empirical investigation of stardom and success on YouTube

Author

Listed:
  • Oliver Budzinski
  • Sophia Gaenssle

Abstract

A new type of superstars developed with the rise of social media markets: social media superstars (SMS). The economic literature on the superstar phenomenon provides empirical evidence on different types of stars, above all athletes and musicians. This paper presents the first empirical work on SMS with original data from YouTube. Using various econometric techniques, we analyze a unique sample of 200 YouTube stars out of four different video categories to shed light on this new phenomenon. Beyond applying classic economic concepts on superstars by Rosen, MacDonald, and Adler, we contribute to extending the literature toward attention economics and the concepts of audience building (audience attraction and maintenance). In our empirical analysis, we find evidence supporting an inverse U-shape influence of upload frequency on the success of SMS. Moreover, we find empirical evidence that the duration and experience in the market have a significant influence on social media success. Eventually, we derive implications for superstar theory, SMS management, service providers, and advertisers.

Suggested Citation

  • Oliver Budzinski & Sophia Gaenssle, 2018. "The economics of social media (super-)stars: an empirical investigation of stardom and success on YouTube," Journal of Media Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3-4), pages 75-95, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jmedec:v:31:y:2018:i:3-4:p:75-95
    DOI: 10.1080/08997764.2020.1849228
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/08997764.2020.1849228
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/08997764.2020.1849228?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mourelatos, Evangelos & Mourelatos, Haris, 2022. "Online video sharing and revenues during the Pandemic. Evidence from musical stream data," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1050 [pre.], Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    2. Mourelatos, Evangelos & Mourelatos, Haris, 2022. "Online video sharing and revenues during the Pandemic. Evidence from musical stream data," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1050, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jmedec:v:31:y:2018:i:3-4:p:75-95. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/HMEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.