I wanna be part of that!

What video streaming platform V Live does so right when it comes to digital communities.

For the uninitiated (you’re missing out!) V Live is a South Korean, but internationally accessibility app that streams K-pop content. This content goes beyond performances and lets fans interact with live chat sessions.

The motivation behind the 29 million monthly active users of V Live can be explored using the ISE Strategy, specifically focusing on social connection. If we take a close look at the consumption, participation and production nurtured on the platform we can begin to understand its mass appeal and even apply some community building strategies to our own marketing plans.

Ingesting, Feasting… CONSUMING!

V Live is incredibly accessible; it has a global reach, with about 85 percent of its traffic made-up of international audiences. Free and with an intuitive interface V-Live facilitates the consumption of K-pop Idol content, but it also offers interaction between users; facilitating communities and fan clubs. V Live’s content is well organised with features such as subtitling, messaging, live notifications and the heart button; a ‘like’ that can be pressed multiple

times creating a wave of hearts. V Live: Happy Birthday To Me

Do more than belong: participate.

V Live does participation well; Idols are able to establish a bond through casual communication with fans that showcases their off-stage persona. Idols turn the camera on themselves in intimate settings, to keep fans up-to-date, read comments flooding in the live chat (you might even get yours read by your bias!) and generally thank fans. No matter if you are an ARMY, STAY, BLINK or ONCE (each group has a special name for their fans) you can participate in creating and strengthening the two-way interaction between yourself and your favourite Idol.

V Live Screencap + Filter by Nicole Scriva

Control the means of production.

Many Idol’s only speak Korean, which can be limiting for their global audience, V Live has combatted that by creating V Fansubs, a community that allows members to take subtitling into their own hands. V Fansubs gives content to fans to legally subtitle, these multilingual fans then translate the content, creating new social connections with global fans and strengthening their Idols worldwide reach. Fansubs can even show off their rank based on their translation word count.

V Live Screencap by Nicole Scriva illustrating Fansubs

V Live is a place where K-pop mega stars and fans can work together to build community through social connections, and it is a useful platform for marketers to take note of when trying to strategist community creation. Have you come across any non-Western centric platforms that foster community well?

Be sure to check out my other blog post on communities, this time from the perspective of two types of users!

[An error was found in the title of this blog and amended on the 24/11/21 - originally 'I wanna be a part of that!' ]

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For background to this blog post check out these references:

Aisyah, A & Nam, JY. (2017). K-Pop V Fansubs, V LIVE and NAVER Dictionary: Fansubbers’ Synergy in Minimising Language Barriers. The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 23(4), 112 – 127.

Kassing, J. W., & Sanderson, J. (2009). “You’re the kind of guy that we all want for a drinking buddy”: Expressions of parasocial interaction on Floydlandis.com. Western Journal of Communication, 73(2), 182–203.

Kim, S, Hwang, SY, & Kim, J. (2021). Factors influencing K-pop artists' success on V live online video platform. Telecommunications Policy, 45(3), 1–13.

Heinonen, K. (2011). Consumer activity in social media: Managerial approaches to consumers' social media behavior. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 10(6), 356–364.