Which social media posts generate the most buzz? Evidence from WeChat
ISSN: 1066-2243
Article publication date: 14 June 2021
Issue publication date: 18 January 2022
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
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