揭秘吸金能力惊人的中国网红

Ling Ling, a 29-year-old living in Shanghai, has gone to great lengths to curate a picture-perfect life on social media. Her photos on micro-blogging site Weibo show her glamorous and leisurely life.

玲玲是生活在上海的一个29岁女孩，她在社交媒体上精心营造了完美的生活。微博上晒的都是自己光鲜亮丽的休闲生活照。

Dressed in fashionable clothing and with immaculate make-up, Ling Ling is seen dining at fancy cafes and restaurants; attending parties and social events with her girlfriends; travelling to places like Boracay, Tokyo and Dubai.

照片里，玲玲衣着时尚、妆容精致，或是出现在高级餐厅和咖啡厅，或是和闺蜜们参加聚会和社交活动，要么就是在菲律宾长滩岛、东京和迪拜四处旅游。

But she does not cultivate her online image just to make herself feel good or her friends jealous. She is one of the new internet celebrities, known as Wang Hong.

但是她苦心经营自己的网络形象并不是为了让自我感觉良好或是让朋友羡慕嫉妒。她只是一个新晋的网络红人，即网红。

It's a lucrative business, with Zhang Dayi, one of China's best known Wang Hong, reportedly earning 300m yuan (￡35m; $46m). This compares favourably to top Chinese actress Fan Bingbing, who according to Forbes, made about $21m last year.

网红是个利润颇丰的行业。据报道，中国网红第一人张大奕收入已高达三亿元（合3500万英镑、4600万美元），已经完全超过中国的一线明星范冰冰了。据福布斯报道，去年范冰冰的收入约为2100万美元。

Online fashionistas

网络时尚达人

There are two types of internet celebrities in China - those who create original content like Papi Jiang, who was once censured for excessive use of foul language in her videos, and the "fashionistas".

中国有两种网络红人。一是因自制原创内容出名的，比如曾因在视频中频繁使用粗俗语言而被勒令整改的Papi酱。第二种就是网络时尚达人。

Ling Ling and Zhang Dayi fall into the second category, selling clothes and cosmetics on Taobao, China's leading online shopping site.

玲玲和张大奕则属于第二种类型，她们在中国某主要网购零售平台上售卖衣服和化妆品。

They work as their own shops' models by posting pictures of themselves wearing the clothes they sell, and some of their followers become their most loyal customers.

她们穿着自家销售的衣服拍照，为自己的网店充当模特，而一些粉丝也就成为了她们最忠实的买家。

Ling Ling, who has been active online for 10 years and has more than 330,000 followers on Weibo, says she didn't plan on becoming an internet celebrity.

玲玲已经在网上活跃十年了，微博拥有超过33万粉丝，但她说自己原本无意成为一名网红。

"In the beginning, there were only online forums. I posted pictures and wrote online every day and a lot of People started paying attention to me."

“刚开始的时候只有论坛。我每天晒图配文，得到了许多人的关注。”

When she was 18, Ling Ling started a bricks-and-mortar clothing shop in Shanghai, but she soon realised that her online fame would bring more business.

玲玲18岁时在上海开了家实体服装店，但是她很快意识到了网络名气能给她带来更多生意。

"You will be able to reach to customers across the nation with an online store. I've got quite a lot of customers in Beijing and Guangzhou," she says.

她说：“开网店的话，你可以遇到全国各地的人。我的很多买家都是北京人和广州人。”

Her Taobao shop generates around 300,000 yuan in sales every month and that figure can double during festivals.

她的网店每月销售额约为三十万元，节假日时这个数字还会翻倍。

But these numbers did not satiate her ambition, so she signed a contract with Tophot, an incubator aimed at nurturing top internet celebrities.

但是她并没有满足于此，所以她和网红孵化公司Tophot签订了合同，这家公司旨在培养顶级网红。

'Outperforming A-listers'

比一线明星的表现更优异

According to CBNData, a commercial data company affiliated with Alibaba, the "internet celebrity economy" is set to be worth 58bn yuan in 2016, more than China's box office in 2015.

根据第一财经商业数据中心（CBNData，基于阿里巴巴的一家商业数据公司），2016年“网红经济”市值将达到580亿元，超过2015年中国的票房总收入。

The enormous earning potential has led to the rise of internet celebrity incubators in China, which race to discover and nurture the next Zhang Dayi.

巨大的盈利空间带动了“网红孵化公司”的兴起，这些公司争先恐后地挖掘和培养下一个“张大奕”。

Incubators like Tophot provide training for budding internet celebrities, with skills in photography, make-up and performance. They also represent internet celebrities and help them find jobs like product endorsements. In return, they take a cut from their earnings.

诸如Tophot此类的网红孵化公司会培训崭露头角的网红，教授她们拍照、化妆以及表演技巧。公司也作为网红代表为她们寻求产品代言的工作，并收取网红收入的一定提成作为回报。

Janet Chen, founder of Tophot, said internet celebrities had already "outperformed" showbiz A-listers and she attributes this to the fact that they are more down-to-earth and approachable.

Tophot公司的创办者陈誉瑾表示，网红的表现已优于一线大腕了，这是因为网红更“接地气”，更平易近人。

"Zhang Dayi is not an exceptional beauty, but she looks like someone you can be friends with. People think they can look like her if they put on some make-up," Ms Chen says.

陈女士说：“张大奕并不是一个大美人，但是她看起来是那种可以和你做朋友的人。人们觉得如果自己化点妆的话，也能像张大奕一样。”