The KOL concept has become common, and social media platforms, such as RED, Instagram, TikTok and Weibo, have incubated a lot of KOLs. But cooperation between businesses and KOLs is seen mainly in big brands, and the form is relatively fixed, restricted mainly to direct contact on a platform. For example, if an influencer with 50k followers goes to a restaurant, she does not have a “50k followers” sign on her, so the merchant treats her as an ordinary customer. But there is a potential supply and demand relationship here. Taplink provides the possibility of instant collaboration to improve mobility. All merchants can get a Taplink sticker, which carries the collaboration information through the technology. Through the sticker, KOLs can determine whether the merchant has a need for publicity, and online/offline cooperation can be arranged between the two parties. Merchants can negotiate with KOLs to collaborate on defined social media platforms, and this collaboration can be monitored through the Taplink platform. Merchants can also post bounty tasks directly online, and bloggers can visualise all bounty information through the bounty map. In addition, Taplink's unique point system creates a circular ecosystem on the platform, allowing bloggers and consumers to use points directly as a credits for spending, and taking rewards, posting and spending directly are all ways to earn points. These features can allow the creation of a highly interactive and proactive community platform.
Team members
Mr Liang Kaikang (PhD student, Dept. of Architecture and Civil Engineering, CityU)
Ms Liang Xinyu (The University of Hong Kong)
Ms Li Xuan (The University of Edinburgh)
* Person-in-charge
(Info based on the team's application form)
- CityU HK Tech 300 Seed Fund (2022)