Is social media a fortune or misfortune? —The art film’s dilemma and breakthrough.

Sammanfattning: In China, Weibo is a social software that almost everyone uses. Weibo does not only provide an arena for users to share their experiences with friends but also offers a platform for companies to promote their products. From 2014, the distributors of the films began to use Weibo as one of their main marketing tools. Nevertheless, from the same time, Chinese art films have begun to decline, and the most direct manifestation is the downturn in the box office. At the coincidence of the two time points, the decline of art films and the Weibo seems to be linked. However, there are still a handful of art films which achieved great success on Weibo in this 3-year period. In these cases, Weibo seems to be a fortune for these art films. The first part of this study is devoted to exploring what has changed in the ways to Weibo users’ get information and communicate about films, especially art films from 2014 to 2017 by social media logic. The second part analyzes a successful case and tries to find out how the distributors of the art films could use Weibo as an online marketing tool to conduct online marketing activities by combing the social media logic with the marketing strategy for non-mainstream culture products. This study used a combination of qualitative research and quantitative research. After analyzing the collected data, it is indicated that during the three years, Weibo users have changed a lot in obtaining movie information and communicating art movies which might have an impact on Weibo users discussing art films and purchasing tickets. Weibo can also be utilized by art films distributors using idiosyncratic marketing approach than ordinary method to attract audience's attention.