The Impact of Otome Games’ Intellectual Property Joint Strategy on Social Media Exposure

As an important branch of the women’s entertainment market, Otome Games’ IP joint strategy has become a key means to increase exposure. The existing research focuses on the emotional connection and consumption behavior of players, and there is an empirical gap in the influence mechanism (such as IP type and publicity methods) on the effect of joint branding. This article aims to explore the influence path of Otome Games’ IP joint strategy on social media exposure. Based on the social exchange theory, this study collected data from Xiaohongshu and Weibo (topic views, post interactions) of 55 top Otome Game joint cases from 2021 to 2025 and built a multivariate linear regression model to analyze the moderation effect of joint type, IP popularity and offline promotion. Research has found that the beauty category significantly increases the number of comments, while the catering category reduces the number of views. IP popularity only increases the number of comments in conjunction with the beauty category. Offline promotion has an inhibitory effect on the technology, culture and catering categories. The joint branding effect depends on type matching and the control of cognitive cost.