When I served as the Content Director for LiveMe, one of the most valuable lessons I learned was that not all user engagement is created equal. Many of LiveMe’s most popular broadcasters aren’t more talented than other users. Rather, they’ve received a tremendous amount of support from their LiveMe fans, which has allowed them to rise to the top on the platform.

There are different levels of fan support, and the amount and quality of support a content creator receives can play a significant role in their success:

Viewing

The lowest level is viewing. This is the most common activity a fan can do. While some fans will try to skip the pre-rolled sponsored ad before enjoying a YouTube video, other fans will watch it simply because they know that by watching the ad, they are supporting the content creators financially.

Light engagement

The next level is light engagement, which includes “liking,” “sharing” or “commenting” on a post. These behaviors indicate that a fan is willing to show support more strongly by helping the content creators fulfill a brand sponsored content requirement or bring more awareness to their content for future business potential.

Heavy engagement

Then we come to the level of long-term commitment, or heavy engagement. This might include a subscription or follow, in which a fans keeps track of content updates from the creator. The more subscribers or followers a creator has, the better the position they have when negotiating business deals with advertisers. Some creators can also drive their fans to perform a desired action — or the “call-to-action” — which is significantly important to any advertiser.

Peer-to-peer support

The ultimate level of support is peer-to-peer support, such as a donation, a paid subscription or “virtual gifting.” No matter the format or terms, peer-to-peer support occurs when fans send valuable things (usually fiat currency) to creators directly.

We’ve found that this type of support is very important to small or middle-tier content creator, since most of time their fan base cannot meet advertisers’ requirements, and centralized content platforms also limit the ad revenue they can earn. By having a small group of fans willing to support them with this method, the creator will be able to obtain the necessary financial assistance to keep improving their content and grow their fan base.

So why are these four levels of support so important?

Content platform can leverage the data collected from audience behavior to measure a content creator’s potential business value. Can this creator attract more new fans with the same viewership compared to other creators? Can this creator mobilize to perform a specific action? These answers significantly affect the algorithm in any centralized content platform and play a major role in which content creators are featured in the “recommended” sections of these platforms.

In the Contentos ecosystem, these levels of support will also guide the future design of content promotion and recommendation. However, the major difference between a centralized content platform and Contentos is that all behavior data will be transparently recorded in each block. The algorithm will be open-sourced, which gives content creators and audiences a fair environment to create and enjoy content.

Another major difference between Contentos and other centralized content platforms or decentralized content ecosystems is that we believe every piece of content should be rewarded fairly based on its support. This is the core goal of the content ecosystem reward outlined in the Contentos white paper.