Chapter 2081: Joining Weibo

The higher a person's social rank, the more people they connect with, the greater their power to control others, and the more apparent the determinism and inevitability of each of their actions.

Such was Zhao Fusheng.

In a sense, Zhao Fusheng now, even if he did nothing, his every move would involve a multitude of people and events.

Even a phone call or a single word from him could affect the fate of many.

Such was reality.

Because Zhao Fusheng's social rank had reached a certain level and stage.

A decision of his could influence the life trajectory of many families and the future of many people.

Just like now, because of a phone call from Zhao Fusheng, the celebrity artists under Future Film and Television had moved from Blog to Weibo, telling their fans that they would henceforth share their thoughts on Weibo.

When this news spread, it immediately brought a large number of users to Weibo.

The influence of celebrities was evident; some young people ignored the words of parents and teachers but cared deeply about their favorite idols, not allowing anyone to speak ill of them.

Now that their favorite artists were using Weibo, those fans naturally followed suit, registering on Weibo and following their beloved artists.

When the news reached Sina, they were truly taken aback.

"What's going on? Does Future Investment plan to acquire us?"

The first reaction of the person in charge at Sina was that Zhao Fusheng had his eye on their company and intended to force an acquisition.

Otherwise, why would Future Film and Television, under the Future Group, have its artists move from Blog to Weibo?

If it were artists from another company, they might not be so jumpy, but Future Film and Television was different; behind it was a large conglomerate, a top billionaire worth tens of billions of dollars.

To put it bluntly, if Zhao Fusheng really set his sights on Sina and launched an acquisition, it might actually be possible.

After all, his wealth was right there.

And most crucially, it was said that this tycoon owed no money to banks; all his assets were his own.

That was terrifying!

Generally speaking, most of today's wealthy, especially in China, owed bank loans.

This was called debt operation.

What is debt operation?

Debt operation, also known as leveraged operation, is a way for enterprises to raise funds through bank loans, bond issuance, leasing, and commercial credit. Therefore, only debt funds obtained through borrowing constitute the connotation of debt operation.

Debt items belonging to debt operation include only short-term borrowings, short-term bonds, and various debt items in actual liabilities.

A company must have current assets sufficient to repay long-term and short-term principal and interest; the net asset profit rate obtained from debt-financed production must be greater than the debt interest rate, or even if individual debt interest is too high, the enterprise as a whole must still be profitable; although the asset-liability ratio is higher than the industry average, it must control equity capital from being acquired by creditors; debt-financed production aims to maximize enterprise benefits, not to borrow new debt to repay old debt, causing a vicious cycle in the enterprise's financial situation.

But clearly, this situation did not exist for the Future Group.

Zhao Fusheng's personal finances were sound, and none of the subsidiaries of the entire Future Group had loans or external debts.

On the contrary, they had hoarded a large amount of cash.

For this reason alone, if Zhao Fusheng were willing, major banks would be happy to lend him money.

And it was rumored that the Future Group had very close ties with many overseas Chinese banks, with frequent business dealings.

"Go find out what's really going on?"

The person in charge at Sina quickly instructed his subordinates.

...

...

In comparison, while Sina was in a state of panic, Future Film and Television was quite calm.

After all, for these artists, Weibo and Blog were essentially the same thing—just platforms to attract fans.

No one was foolish enough to truly use such social platforms as a place to reveal their real selves.

Those who could become artists were no fools.

So-called social platforms were just another stage for performance to them.

Therefore, no artist in the company opposed Ye Jing's request; everyone complied.

There were also the curious ones, like Jiang Wen, who was a bit nosy, and specifically called Zhao Fusheng to ask what was going on.

Of course, if someone else asked, Zhao Fusheng might be amiable, but for a certain jerk who had spent over a hundred million of his money and still hadn't finished filming, his attitude was naturally not good.

"None of your business."

Zhao Fusheng said bluntly: "Just register obediently, hand over your Weibo account to the company, and let the PR department manage it for you."

"No way, I need to post about my own stuff."

Jiang Wen immediately retorted.

"Register a burner account yourself."

Zhao Fusheng directly rejected: "And I'm telling you, even on a burner account, don't you dare say anything reckless. If word gets out, don't blame me for telling your wife about you sending money to your ex-wife for no reason."

"Alright, alright!"

Jiang Wen was instantly speechless and immediately backed down.

He also knew that his filming of "Let the Bullets Fly" had indeed been too slow, and it was normal for Zhao Fusheng to have complaints. He decisively stopped talking nonsense with Zhao Fusheng and hung up.

As for Zhao Fusheng, he didn't bother with him anymore.

Old Jiang, sometimes, was like a donkey; you had to whip him hard from behind, or else he really wouldn't make an effort to move forward.

Of course, Zhao Fusheng wasn't dissatisfied with Jiang Wen as a person; his filmmaking style was just like that—he had skill, but if you expected to make money from Old Jiang's movies, you might as well hope for stock investments to be more practical.

Directors who could really make money were people like Ning Hao and Xu Shanzheng.

With the Spring Festival approaching, Xu Shanzheng's new film "Lost on Journey" officially began promotion.

Under Zhao Fusheng's orders, the resources of the Future Group began to fervently warm up the film.

In an era where promotion was increasingly important, the quality of a film was certainly crucial, but even more important was having sufficient promotional channels.

Good wine also needs a bush.

Simply relying on word-of-mouth and quality to attract audiences was very unrealistic.

Countless excellent directors and films had proven this truth.

No matter how profound a film's content or how dedicated the screenwriter, director, and actors, the final product might still be less appealing than certain popcorn movies.

Not that the audience's appreciation ability was flawed, though that was a fact.

What truly hindered a good film's box office success was that filmmakers often couldn't find the right promotional methods to attract audiences into theaters.

That was the biggest problem.

The film promotion and distribution process was actually not complicated.

Although Zhao Fusheng wasn't an insider, he was well aware of the process.

Celebrity and conventional promotion, as the most basic and crucial part of distribution, were also the most important.

For audiences, their first impression of a film came from the cast; the quality of the cast directly determined their interest in the film. Leveraging the cast for promotion was immensely helpful to the film itself.

So "Lost on Journey" also followed this process.

Starring Xu Shanzheng and Wang Qiang, with numerous industry celebrities making cameo appearances—that was one of the film's selling points.

Next came conventional promotion, which involved commonly used promotional methods and channels: print media and internet media, along with various activities, including collaborations with KFC and major cinemas.

Through these conventional actions with high-quality and dense coverage, it helped amplify all the important elements of the film, thereby establishing a box office base and laying the foundation for subsequent distribution.

Also, there was topic marketing.

As someone who had experienced the era of self-media, Zhao Fusheng knew well that in today's increasingly developed social media, everyone could become a channel of communication, and everyone could become the most important focal point in the marketing chain—and that focal point was the topic.

A topic that could resonate was the best marketing tool.

Nowadays, for a film to achieve box office success without marketing or creating social topics, relying solely on a bare release, was almost a fantasy. Of course, exceptions could occur, but no film investor with any courage would take such a risk. Thus, film marketing had become the top priority in the film industry chain.

And these elements would translate into word-of-mouth for the film, thereby affecting its box office.

In Zhao Fusheng's original memory, although "Lost on Journey" had good word-of-mouth, its final box office was only over forty million.

Fortunately, the film's cost was low, only a few million, allowing the producers to make a substantial profit, which led to subsequent sequels.

This time, Zhao Fusheng would not allow such a situation.

In his view, since the film had been made, what was the point of the investment if it didn't achieve high box office success?

Of course, the final results would also depend on luck.

After all, this was not ten years later; China's film market was indeed not mature enough.

Zhao Fusheng was well aware of this.

Film is part of the cultural industry, and the development of the cultural industry has always been closely related to scientific technology and socio-economic development.

Many people actually hadn't noticed this.

Starting from the mid-to-late 1990s, China's economy developed faster and faster, and China's film industry also began to develop gradually. By the first decade of the 21st century, with the rapid development of the internet, people were learning more and more information online, and films gradually entered thousands of households. Our film market became increasingly mature.

It wasn't until 2010 that China's film market finally experienced explosive growth, and the era of film dividends truly arrived.