Search results

Though prior research has addressed customer engagement (CE) with a focal object (e.g. a brand), the dynamics characterizing customers' engagement with different objects and the potential spillover from a customer's engagement with one object to that with another remains tenuous, exposing an important literature-based gap. The authors, therefore, develop a model proposing the existence of a spillover effect from customers' brand engagement to their engagement with brand-related content and suggest customers' personality trait of conscientiousness to moderate this effect.

An online survey-based experiment using 380 Danish Facebook users was conducted to test the model.

The results suggest customers' brand engagement as a significant predictor of their engagement with brand-related content, corroborating the proposed spillover effect. A weaker spillover effect is observed for highly (vs less) conscientious customers, substantiating the moderating role of customer conscientiousness. Moreover, customer conscientiousness is found to interact with brand content-related (i.e. commenting/content creation) task type and brand type (i.e. utilitarian/hedonic) (e.g. more conscientious customers are less likely to engage in brand-related content creation vs. commenting tasks), weakening the spillover effect.

This study extends prior research by quantitatively corroborating an intra-individual CE-based spillover effect from customers' brand engagement to their engagement with brand-related content. The authors also unearth a moderating role of customer conscientiousness, which interacts with brand- and brand content-related task type, on the spillover effect, informing the development of digital marketing strategies.

Social media allow for observing different aspects of human behaviour, in particular, those that can be evaluated from explicit user expressions. Based on a data set of posts with user opinions collected from social media, this paper aims to show an insight into how the readers of different news portals react to online content. The focus is on users’ emotions about the content, so the findings of the analysis provide a further understanding of how marketers should structure and deliver communication content such that it promotes positive engagement behaviour.

More than 5.5 million user comments to posted messages from 15 worldwide popular news portals were collected and analysed, where each post was evaluated based on a set of variables that represent either structural (e.g. embedded in intra- or inter-message structure) or behavioural (e.g. exhibiting a certain behavioural pattern that appeared in response to a posted message) component of expressions. The conclusions are based on a set of regression models and exploratory factor analysis.

The findings show and theorise the influence of social media content on emotional user engagement. This provides a more comprehensive understanding of the engagement attributed to social media content and, consequently, could be a better predictor of future behaviour.

This paper provides original data analysis of user comments and emotional reactions that appeared on social media news websites in 2018.

The study aims to propose an instrument for measuring product-centeredness (i.e. the extent to which comment content is related to a product) using word embedding techniques as well as explore its determinants.

The study collected branded posts from 205 Instagram influencers and empirically examined how four factors (i.e. authenticity, vividness, coolness and influencer–product congruence) influence the content of the comments on branded posts.

Post authenticity and congruence are shown to have positive effects on product-centeredness. The interaction between coolness and authenticity is also significant. The number of comments or likes on branded posts is not correlated with product-centeredness.

In social media influencer marketing, volume-based metrics such as the numbers of likes and comments have been researched and applied extensively. However, content-based metrics are urgently needed, as fans may ignore brands and focus on influencers. The proposed instrument for assessing comment content enables marketers to construct content-based metrics. Additionally, the authors' findings enhance the understanding of social media users' engagement behaviors.

This paper aims to look at the effects of different levels of involvement (high and low) on social media (Facebook) users' engagement (likes, shares and comments) with different types and formats of brand content.

The authors analyzed user reactions to 1,156 Facebook posts from eight business-to-consumer brands (goods and services). Based on a post hoc test, four product/services were identified as belonging to the group of high-involvement and the other four as low involvement.

The data suggest that, when involvement is low, users in general engage more with brand posts regardless their format (text, image and post) or type (hedonic and informative), or even the interaction of both. Moreover, low involvement leads users prefer to comment on brand content, whereas higher involvement is associated with to sharing it. Exceptions were observed for images (both hedonic and informative) and for hedonic image and video in both low and high involvement users.

The goal was not to measure users’ attention to each type of post. Moreover, the authors did not have access to information regarding which devices were used to access the online content and whether that aspect might have an impact on users’ reactions. Neither do they claim that engagement necessarily reflects positive reactions, as any content analysis of users’ reactions was beyond the scope of this project.

These findings are expected to help brand managers and social media strategists to better select content based on their marketing goals, as well as to provide a potential explanation for the success of campaigns.

As far as we are aware, no previous study has attempted to observe the mediated effect of consumer involvement on brand posts considering their type and format. We also believe that this is the first observation of how behavior differentiates according to the target audience’s level of involvement. This paper also proposes a convenient framework for categorizing social network sites content. Suggestions for future research are made at the end.

The purpose of this paper is to test the influence of various content cues and characteristics on the followers’ online expressions of relationship quality. Second, the research aims to understand the moderating effects of content curation.

The sample comprised of 100 posts and 29,000 comments that were sourced from the Facebook pages of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The content was coded using the prior literature. Comments were manually coded using a deductive approach and captured the dimensions of relationship quality. Multiple regression was used to confirm the hypotheses.

Visuals, content popularity, volume of comments and content’s length have a positive effect on voters’ expressions of relationship quality. However, source credibility, argument quality, valence and interactivity did not have an impact. Additionally, content curation negatively moderated the effects of length and interactivity on expressions of relationship quality.

The findings emphasise the use of peripheral cues rather than the central route. Curating interactive and lengthy content should be avoided, however, curation of images and videos is well received.

The research contributes to the literature by understanding the role of marketer-generated content in building online relationships. Additionally, it explores the distinct impacts of created and curated content.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of congruent and incongruent anonymous comments posted to an online health news article on personal risk perception. This association is examined through testing the moderating roles of perceived similarity and approval ratings, and the mediating roles of source credibility and content credibility.

Hypotheses regarding the impact of comments on personal risk perception were tested experimentally using a news article, comments and approval ratings about the ear picking behavior. Data were collected from 391 young Vietnamese respondents.

The influence of online comments (congruent vs incongruent) on personal risk perception was mediated by source credibility and content credibility. Further, data showed a direct effect of online comments on personal risk perception. Interestingly, the direct and indirect effects of online comments on personal risk perception were observed among participants who perceived that anonymous commenters were similar to them. Approval ratings had neither a main nor interaction effect with comments on the dependent variables.

The results indicate that marketers should consider online comments as a powerful form of social influence, which may alter consumers’ personal risk perception.

The present study adds to social marketing literature by showing how consumers’ online comments influence personal risk perception in the context of changing media ecosystem.

Social media are channels of communication and relationship between consumers and brands. In this paper, the determinants of consumer engagement in firm-generated content on Facebook are examined in a higher education institutions (HEIs) context.

Data was collected from 1,981 Facebook brand posts of 16 Brazilian HEIs and thoroughly analyzed with seemingly unrelated regression (SUR).

The results indicated that the type of media does not increase the user's engagement. The emotional content, on the other hand, increases the number of likes and shares and not comments. An interaction between dimensions, type of media and content is relevant disclosed to increase engagement metrics, while characteristics related to the day and time of posting are not relevant.

This study analyzes the factors that influence consumer engagement in brand messages published on Facebook, in the context of higher education institutions. Specifically, the authors seek to examine the influence that emanates from the likes, comments and shares: (1) factors related to the type of media (interactivity and liveliness); (2) content-related factors (remuneration, emotional, entertainment and informational); and (3) factors related to posting (day of the week and time of day).

In the context of educational services, social media is increasingly present, remarkably in HEI marketing practices. Previous studies have shown that universities use social media (mainly Facebook) to promote interactivity with students. The study presents the key characteristics of the postings by the HEIs, with an emphasis on the liveliness, the interactivity of the media, and the information content of the posts. It stands out by the examination of the most relevant factors that influence Facebook engagement, and by providing evidence on the strength of the factors related to post features that influence user engagement.

The research contributes to the proposition and empirical test of a predictive model of consumer engagement on Facebook, which can predict engagement in an HEI context.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-06-2020-0242

Through the lens of self-directed theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate if social technologies such as YouTube will be viable to disseminate educational instructions and in the process empowering learners to take charge of their learning.

A total of 150 educational videos on YouTube were selected and 29,386 comments extracted using the authors’ customized extraction software application. Sentiment and qualitative content analyses were performed.

Results indicate that YouTube can play important roles in facilitating online self-directed learning (SDL) as the findings uncovered a variety of learning and social affordances of YouTube. However, caution should be exercised as high views and well-commented videos might not imply quality and credibility. This study concludes that YouTube generally provides a conducive a learning environment that affords learners the resources to meet their SDL objectives.

To the best of knowledge, this is the first study that investigates SDL in social media by combining both qualitative content and sentiment analyses. The study shows that such a hybrid approach of combining two diverse analytical techniques provides an innovative means to make sense of comments expressed in social media.

The results will help educational institutions and policy-makers to craft better programs for public education and create policies to help self-directed learners in evaluating online video resources.

Despite a wealth of literature on the use of technologies to support learning, the majority of work done to date has dealt in the classroom context. Studies on SDL using educational content on YouTube are limited. Hence, this research contributes by providing insights on how educational institutions can move toward the direction of building collaborative digital learning platforms with relevant educational instruction and resources to enable users to participate in lifelong self-learning and education.

This study aims to examine the moment-to-moment (MTM) effects of in-consumption dynamic comments on consumers' responses to digital engagement and the underlying mechanisms involved, as well as the interactive role of advertisements embedded in short-form online video.

This study uses data extracted from 2,081 videos posted on the prominent Chinese online live platform, Bilibili. The hypotheses are tested using regression models and natural language processing.

The results indicate that the intensity of live comments at the beginning negatively affects users' digital engagement, while a corresponding increase in live comments at the end elicits a positive effect. A linear trend and peak difference in live comments intensity positively affect digital engagement, while the variability of live comment intensity exerts a negative effect. These MTM effects were driven by sentiments of live comments. Furthermore, in-video advertisements are likely to amplify the negative beginning effect on users' digital engagement and mitigate the negative variability of live comments.

This study is the first to examine the direct effects of MTM comments from the online temporal sequence perspective, differentiating the process- and performance-based engagement. The mechanism and interactive role of in-video advertisements were identified. These findings contribute to literature on interactive marketing and provide valuable guidance for influencer marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the strategic importance of visual aesthetics and presentation modality for consumer responses to fashion luxury brand content posted on Instagram.

A content analysis of 40,679 posts on the official Instagram accounts of 15 global luxury brands was conducted.

Brand posts using expressive aesthetic image received more likes and comments on Instagram than those with classical aesthetics. Brand video content received more likes and comments than static content. There was also a significant interaction between visual aesthetics and presentation modality in generating likes and comments. Brand content adopting expressive aesthetic and audio-visual modality generated more responses when using audio-visual modality, while content using classical aesthetics produced more responses in a visual-only format.

As visual aesthetics and modality resulted in different responses to Instagram ads, luxury marketers should consider using appropriate approaches when creating brand posts on Instagram.

This is one of the few studies examining the effectiveness of visual aesthetics and presentation modality in Instagram advertising, especially in luxury fashion brand context.