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Which social media posts generate the most buzz? Evidence from WeChat

Jie She (Changsha University, Changsha, China)
Tao Zhang (Information Management and Engineering College, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, China)
Qun Chen (Shanghai Publishing and Printing College, Shanghai, China)
Jianzhang Zhang (Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China)
Weiguo Fan (University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA)
Hongwei Wang (School of Economics and Management, Tongji Univeristy, Shanghai, China)
Qingqing Chang (Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance, Shanghai, China)

Internet Research

ISSN: 1066-2243

Article publication date: 14 June 2021

Issue publication date: 18 January 2022

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Abstract

Purpose

Following the hierarchy-of-effects model, this study aims to propose a two-step process framework to investigate social media post efficacy via attraction and likes.

Design/methodology/approach

The study analyzes 113,785 social media posts from 126 WeChat official accounts to explore how external (headline features and account type) and internal (content features and media type) features impact social media post attractions and likes, respectively.

Findings

The antecedents of post attraction differ from those of post likes. First, headline features (punctuation, length, sentiment and lexical density) and account type significantly influence social media post attraction. Second, content features (depth, tone, domain specificity, lexical density and readability) and media type affect social media post likes.

Originality/value

First, this study considers online user engagement as a two-step process regarding social media posts and explores different influencing factors. Second, the study constructs new variables (account type and domain specificity) in each stage of the two-step process model.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Fund of China under Grant No. 61976057 and 72074033, the Shanghai Municipal R&D Foundation under Grant No. 20511101403, the National Social Science Fund General Project of China under Grant 18BTQ058, the Scientific Research of Hunan Education Department of China under Grant No.20C0164, the Natural Science Fund of Shanghai under Grant No. 19ZR1417200, the Humanities and Social Sciences Planning Fund of Ministry of education of China under Grant No. 19YJA630116, the Major Program of National Fund of Philosophy and Social Science of China (18ZDA088). Shanghai Engineering and Technology Research Center for Financial Intellegence (19DZ2254600).

Citation

She, J., Zhang, T., Chen, Q., Zhang, J., Fan, W., Wang, H. and Chang, Q. (2022), "Which social media posts generate the most buzz? Evidence from WeChat", Internet Research, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 273-291. https://doi.org/10.1108/INTR-12-2019-0534

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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