**6. Conclusions**

This paper investigates the factors influencing network relationship-building through the online behavioral activities and network structure data of 1356 hotel sleep testers in a Chinese travel online content community (http://tips.qunar.com/, accessed on 2 May 2005).Through a study of network relationship-building and a comparison of opinion leader and non-opinion leader data, we obtained several important conclusions.


#### **7. Discussion and Future Directions**

#### *7.1. Theoretical Contribution*

First, this paper enriches the study of social networks by dividing them into two categories: traditional social networks and consumer advice networks. The most essential difference between the two is that the network relationship in social networks is a socially embedded relationship that reflects people's connection in real life and thus is a strong relationship; however, the relationship in consumer advice networks is a virtual relationship that exists independently of real life and thus is a weak relationship. Moreover, in social networks, network nodes establish relationships mainly for social interaction and thus for emotional support, while in consumer advice networks, network relationships are established mainly for information acquisition.

Second, this study also explores the construction of relationships in consumer advice networks, showing the mechanism of network formation. For consumer advice networks, the role of network relationships is information acquisition, thus network members are most likely to establish relationships with those who can provide rich information and thus they realize the value of the relationship.

Last but not least, this study also deepens the understanding of behavioral activities. Previous research on behavioral activities has focused more on their impact on consumers' purchase decisions. In contrast, our study shows that behavioral activities (e.g., contributing content, interacting with information, and liking) play an equal role in the establishment of online relationships and in the formation of opinion leaders.

#### *7.2. Suggestions for the Sustainable Development of CANs*

The Internet has moved from Web 1.0 to 2.0 and now into the mobile Internet era. The SoLo Moization of consumer behavior, i.e., social, location, and mobile elements, drives the socialization of consumer decision-making, with 70% of consumers relying on e-WOM as a source of information. For this reason, many companies are shifting from traditional advertising models to digital content marketing models, as well as social media influencer marketing models. Therefore, companies need to gain insight into the evolution mechanism of consumer advice networks as well as into the opinion leadership formation mechanism.

Firstly, it is possible to establish trusting relationships with opinion leaders early on. This requires companies to identify potential opinion leaders through social network analysis methods as early as possible and to establish both interaction and trust relationships with them in advance.

Second, companies can cultivate their own opinion leaders from the consumers' perspective. Opinion leaders have their own formation mechanisms and companies can fully apply the formation law revealed in this study to cultivate their own opinion leaders.

Again, companies can provide appropriate information according to the needs of opinion leaders and use their influence to serve their marketing activities. As an important information source in consumer advice networks, the information released by opinion leaders has an important influence on other network members.

Finally, companies can use social media to establish their own consumer advice networks. The formation of an opinion leader is essentially the establishing of a community or a group of people with common interests that establish their own community around certain influential opinion leaders. Companies can leverage the unique needs and behavior patterns of these members to establish communities that are attached to their own brands. Some successful examples include Xiaomi's fan community built by Xiaomi Mobile Corporation and WeChat fan groups built by NIO Automotive Corporation.

#### *7.3. Future Directions*

Consumer advice networks emerged in the context of SMI marketing and online community marketing. The sustainability of consumer advice communities still faces many issues. For example, unlike the strong social relationships constructed between acquaintance social networks, consumer advice networks are mainly para-social relationships constructed between strangers [98]. Additionally, exploring the process of relationship construction between influencers and consumers by introducing communication theories, such as para-social interaction and para-social relationships, is an important research question [99–101]. The issue of trust between consumers and influencers is another important research direction in consumer advice networks [19,31,102]. Consumer identification with communities [103,104], mechanisms of cooperation between companies and opinion leaders in the community, and companies' managemen<sup>t</sup> strategies for the community are also urgen<sup>t</sup> future research questions [105].These are the key issues that affect the sustainability of consumer advice communities.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, L.W.; data curation, J.L. and X.L.; formal analysis, J.L.; funding acquisition, L.W. and J.Q.; investigation, D.K.; project administration, L.W.; software, D.K. and X.L.; supervision, J.Q.; visualization, J.L.; writing—original draft preparation, L.W.; writing—review and editing, D.K. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This work was supported by the Philosophy and Social Science Foundation of Shanghai (grant number:2020EGL017); by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number: 71601005 and 72042004); and by Digital Transformation in China and Germany: Strategies, Structures and Solutions for Aging Societies (grant number: GZ 1570).

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
