Cyber stars' key ways to grow rich

3. Profits from running online stores

Setting up a personal fashion brand is the most popular income source for most online celebrities. It is also the stream that pulls in the largest part of their income. One shining example is Zhang Dayi, 28. She has cultivated more than 4 million followers on Sina microblog. By regularly posting her store's fashion items and corresponding links on her Sina microblog account, Zhang successfully converted her online store on marketplace Taobao into a must-visit destination for female online shoppers. Her shop is listed as the second-best store in terms of sales in 2015 on Taobao, the consumer-to-consumer platform of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

A report from Guotai Junan Securities Co, one of China's largest investment banks, estimated that e-commerce stores run by Internet celebrities handled transactions worth more than 100 billion yuan in 2014, accounting for about one-sixth of the entire online clothing retailing market.

4. Appearance fees

Internet celebrities no longer limit their commercial activities to the online world. It is increasingly common for companies to pay them to attend offline gatherings like product launches and similar corporate events and celebrations.