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Information asymmetry is an inevitable issue in e-commerce and largely hampers the development of online shopping. The purpose of this paper is to propose a model to investigate the emotional content of online customer reviews, which are considered an efficient way to reduce information asymmetry, as a potential signal of product quality. The moderating effects of perceived empathy and cognitive effort are also explored on the basis of signaling theory.

A laboratory experiment with 120 subjects was used to empirically test the proposed research hypotheses. The subjects were randomly assigned to two treatment groups, with 60 subjects in each group. ANOVA, linear regression and binary logistic regression were used.

The emotional content of online customer reviews positively influences perceived product quality, which subsequently and positively affects purchase decisions. The emotional content of online customer reviews greatly influences perceived product quality when perceived empathy or cognitive effort is high.

This study is the first to extend extrinsic cues to emotional content on the basis of signaling theory and reveals the important role of emotional content of reviews. Moreover, the mediating effect of perceived product quality and the moderating effect of perceived empathy and cognitive effort illustrate the mechanism of the influence of emotional content on purchase decision. Findings demonstrate the positive signal of emotional content and provide important practical implications for sellers and customers.

The purpose of this paper is to compare two brand posts with the different content created by a celebrity (emotional content vs rational content) on Instagram and their effects on users’ willingness to use offline word of mouth (WOM) and electronic WOM (eWOM). The research model also consists of product involvement as the moderator.

Based on the results of the pretest stages, the study included two stimuli, and respondents were presented with two different brand posts (i.e. two manipulated pictures and texts on the Instagram frame). A two-group comparison (positive emotional brand post vs negative rational brand post) between-subjects experiment (n = 214) was conducted.

The results indicate that WOM and eWOM are more affected by a celebrity’s emotional brand post than a celebrity’s rational brand post. Furthermore, both types of WOM are more affected through high product involvement enhanced by a celebrity’s rational brand post than through high product involvement boosted by a celebrity’s emotional brand post.

Managerial implications for social media marketing and Instagram celebrity-based branding are provided. Practical implications are also provided in the form of evidence of how the impacts of two different brand posts on positive offline WOM and eWOM are affected differently through the moderation of product involvement.

The research argues for theoretical implications for the marketing literature on celebrity endorsements. The study also tests one moderating effect on the relationship between brand post content and WOM and eWOM.

El propósito de este trabajo es comparar dos posts de marcas con diferente contenido creado por una celebridad (contenido emocional vs. contenido racional) en Instagram y sus efectos en la disposición de los usuarios a utilizar WOM y eWOM. El modelo de investigación también incluye la implicación del producto como moderador.

Sobre la base de los resultados de las etapas de prueba previa, el estudio incluyó dos estímulos, y a los encuestados se les presentaron dos publicaciones de marca diferentes (es decir, dos imágenes y textos manipulados en el marco de Instagram). Se realizó un experimento entre sujetos (n = 214) de comparación de dos grupos (post de marca emocional positivo frente a post de marca racional negativo).

Los resultados indican que el WOM y el eWOM se ven más afectados por el post emocional de la marca de un famoso que por el post racional de la marca de un famoso. Además, ambos tipos de boca a boca se ven más afectados por la alta implicación del producto potenciada por el post racional de la marca de un famoso que por la alta implicación del producto potenciada por el post emocional de la marca de un famoso.

se ofrecen implicaciones de gestión para el marketing en las redes sociales y el branding basado en los famosos de Instagram. Las implicaciones prácticas también se proporcionan en forma de evidencia de cómo los impactos de dos publicaciones de marca diferentes en el WOM positivo y el eWOM se ven afectados de manera diferente a través de la moderación de la implicación con el producto.

La investigación aporta implicaciones teóricas para la literatura de marketing sobre el patrocinio de los famosos. El estudio también prueba un efecto moderador en la relación entre el contenido de los posts de marca y el WOM y el eWOM.

本文旨在比较Instagram上两个由名人创作的不同内容的品牌帖子（感性内容Vs.理性内容）, 以及其对用户使用线下口碑（WOM）和电子口碑（eWOM）意愿的影响。该研究模型还包括产品涉入作为调节变量。

研究包括两个刺激物, 受访者被呈现两个不同的品牌帖子(即Instagram框架上的两个被操纵的图片和文字)。进行了两组比较(积极感性品牌帖子vs. 消极理性品牌帖子) 的主体间实验 (n = 214) 。

结果表明, 与名人的理性品牌帖子相比, WOM和eWOM受名人感性品牌帖子的影响更大。此外, 这两种类型的口碑通过名人的理性品牌帖子所增强的高产品涉入度比通过名人的感性品牌帖子所增强的高产品涉入度受到的影响更大。

提供了对社交媒体营销和Instagram名人品牌的管理意义。研究还提供了实际意义, 证明了两种不同的品牌帖子对积极的WOM和eWOM的影响是如何通过产品涉入度的调节而不同的。

该研究论证了名人代言的营销文献的理论意义。该研究还检验了品牌帖子内容与WOM和eWOM之间关系的调节效应。

This study aims to examine the underlying emotional process that explains how context-specific stimuli involved in virtual reality (VR) destinations translate into presence perceptions and behavioral intentions.

In total, 403 potential tourists participated in a self-administered online survey after they watched a randomly assigned VR tour. The Lavaan package in R software was used to conduct structural equation analysis and examine the proposed theoretical framework.

The results reveal that media content consisting of informativeness, aesthetics and novelty was positively related to users’ sense of presence in a VR tour. The effect of media content on presence was partially mediated by emotional arousal.

Managers and VR designers can create an emotive virtual tour that contributes to the user’s sense of presence to promote attraction to the target destination. The VR content needs to be informative, aesthetic and novel, which can excite users during the VR tour, portray virtual destinations clearly and eventually influence potential tourists’ visit intentions.

Research on the emotional mechanism to generate presence is still in its infancy. This study integrates presence theory into a conceptual framework to explore how media content influences presence and decision-making through the emotional mechanism.

Organizations are investing heavily in social media yet have little understanding of the effects of social media content on user engagement. This study aims to determine the distinct effects of informational, entertaining, remunerative and relational content on the passive and active engagement behavior of social media users.

Facebook Insights and NCapture are used to extract data from the Facebook pages of 12 wine brands over a 12-month period. A multivariate linear regression analysis investigates the effects of content on consuming, contributing and creating engagement behavior.

Results reveal distinct effects of rational and emotional appeals on social media engagement behavior. Rational appeals in social media have a superior effect in terms of facilitating active and passive engagement among social media users, whereas emotional appeals facilitate passive rather than highly active engagement behavior, despite the social and interactive nature of the digital media landscape.

Results contribute directly to understanding engagement and customer experience with social media. Further theoretical and empirical examination in this area will aid in understanding the dynamic nature of the levels of engagement within social media.

Findings provide managers and practitioners with guidelines and opportunities for strategic development of social media content to enhance engagement among consumers in a social media forum.

This study is one of the first to empirically examine the construct of social media engagement behavior. It extends the utility of dual processing theory to demonstrate how rational and emotional message appeals result in online engagement.

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.

Today, individuals use social media to express their opinions and feelings, which offers a living laboratory to researchers in various fields, such as management, innovation, technology development, environment and marketing. It is therefore necessary to understand how the language used in user-generated content and the emotions conveyed by the content affect responses from other social media users.

In this study, almost 700,000 posts from Twitter (as well as Facebook, Instagram and forums in the appendix) are used to test a conceptual model grounded in signaling theory to explain how the language of user-generated content on social media influences how other users respond to that communication.

Extending developments in linguistics, this study shows that users react negatively to content that uses self-inclusive language. This study also shows how emotional content characteristics moderate this relationship. The additional information provided indicates that while most of the findings are replicated, some results differ across social media platforms, which deserves users' attention.

This article extends research on Internet behavior and social media use by providing insights into how the relationship between self-inclusive language and emotions affects user responses to user-generated content. Furthermore, this study provides actionable guidance for researchers interested in capturing phenomena through the social media landscape.

The purpose of this research is to conduct an exploratory study to discover if presenting consumers with a certain content type (i.e. product-focused content with informational appeal, institution-focused content with emotional appeal, experience-focused content with emotional appeal,) and blog type (i.e. a corporate, sponsored or a personal blog) persuade consumers to form perceptions of credibility and similarity toward the fashion brand, which leads them to further engage with the brand through Electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM).

This study employs a 3(content type: product-focused, institution-focused, experience-focused) x 3(blog type: corporate, sponsored and personal) between-subjects design. Mock fashion blogs and content were developed in order to provide a realistic blogging experience for the participants. With 511 usable data collected, ANOVA was employed to test the relationships.

Findings reveal that content type, specifically product-focused content and experiential content, is an important consideration for illustrating similarities between the brand and consumers compared to institutional content. Product-focused content is found to be effective in encouraging consumer eWOM for the brand as well. Further, the interaction effect of blog type and content type was significant in establishing brand credibility. However, blog type did not influence any of the dependent variable.

This study brings meaningful suggestions to fashion brands on effective blog campaign, which eventually provide insights on how brands can influence female consumers to shape positive evaluation toward the brand.

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

This study aims to analyze a backchannel account on news of the coronavirus at the beginning of the pandemic, with information not disseminated in official media due to the social alarm it might cause and the negative image of government management. Specifically, it examines acceptance and dissemination of this type of content in a period of lack of information, while reflecting on what would constitute proper management of this type of channel.

First, based on a literature review, this study classifies possible explanatory variables of online content dissemination into content richness and psychological content. Second, this study performs sentiment analysis of the Twitter backchannel account @COVID_19NEWS and use Qualitative Comparative Analysis to find causal configurations of variables that obtained a high rate of retweets.

The results reveal predominance of one combination of three factors in backchannel information diffusion: emotional, identifying and video content. Other interesting combinations of factors were shown to be attractive enough to contribute to success of the tweets.

Knowledge of the main configurations that attract information dissemination in backchannel accounts is useful for public management of a health crisis such as the Covid-19 outbreak. Rather than suppressing these channels, the authors discuss different solutions.

This study advances scholarship on backchannel communications in emergency situations, providing insights to understand and manage such channels.

Este estudio analiza una cuenta extraoficial sobre noticias del coronavirus al inicio de la pandemia, con información no difundida en los medios oficiales por su posible repercusión en la alarma social y la imagen negativa de la gestión gubernamental. Concretamente examina la aceptación y difusión de este contenido en un periodo de desinformación, así como reflexiona sobre la gestión de este tipo de canales.

En primer lugar, en base a la revisión de la literatura, clasificamos las variables explicativas según la riqueza de contenido y el contenido psicológico. En segundo lugar, sobre la cuenta extraoficial de @COVID_19NEWS en Twitter, realizamos análisis de sentimiento y utilizamos Análisis Comparativo Cualitativo (QCA) para encontrar configuraciones causales de variables que obtuvieron una alta tasa de retweets.

Los resultados revelan la importancia de una combinación de tres factores en la difusión de información del canal secundario: contenido emocional, identificativo y video. Otras combinaciones de factores también contribuyeron al éxito del tweet.

Estas configuraciones podrían ser útiles para la gestión pública ante una crisis sanitaria como la Covid-19, prestando atención a los factores cuya configuración atrae la difusión de información en las RRSS. En lugar de suprimir estos canales, se presentan soluciones para garantizar una colaboración eficaz.

Este estudio realiza una contribución académica a las comunicaciones extraoficiales en situaciones de emergencia, proporcionando información para comprender y gestionar este tipo de canales.

Covid-19, Coronavirus, Canal extraoficial, Twitter, Análisis cualitativo comparado

Trabajo de investigación

在新冠疫情初期, 由于可能引起社会恐慌和政府管理部门的负面形象, 官方媒体缺少相关的新闻报道。本文研究了在这种官方信息匮乏的危机时期, 非正式渠道（backchannel）对于新冠病毒内容的接受和传播情况, 本文同时反思了如何对这类非正式渠道进行正确的管理。

基于文献综述, 我们先将在线内容传播的可能解释变量分为内容丰富度和心理内容这两个方面。其次, 我们对推特上的非正式渠道账户@COVID_19NEWS发布的内容进行情感分析, 并使用定性比较分析法来寻找内容获得高转发率的原因。

结果显示, 对于非正式渠道信息的成功传播, 情绪化、具有辩认度和包含视频内容这三个要素的组合占主导地位。此外, 其他要素的组合也有来助于推文的成功传播和扩散。

了解非正式渠道吸引信息传播的主要原因, 将有利于应对健康危机（例如Covid-19爆发）和进行公共管理。文本讨论了不同的解决方案, 而不是简单地压制这些非正式渠道。

这项研究推进了危机背景下非正式渠道传播的学术研究, 为理解和管理这类非正式渠道提供了见解。

关键词 - Covid-19, 新冠病毒, 非正式渠道, 推特, 定性比较分析

Organizations can benefit significantly from the growing capabilities of the internet. As the Web facilitates purchasing and reduces the costs of marketing, companies can connect with customers through the use of storytelling. This study aims to examine how small businesses leverage the use of storytelling to engage with customers and drive revenue and online reputation management.

Both qualitative and quantitative insights are offered in two studies. In Study 1, interviews were conducted with business owners to explore the efforts made by their companies to connect and engage with consumers online. Study 2 builds on the findings from Study 1 and uses survey methodology to test a model which outlines how storytelling can foster engagement with customers.

Results indicate that story content is positively related to emotional content and the personal connection an individual feels toward a firm’s products. Furthermore, user-generated content moderates the relationship between story content creation and personal connections. Findings also demonstrate that personal connection is essential to customer engagement. Ultimately, engagement can lead to revenue generation from social commerce as well as increased reputation management activity.

This research demonstrates how small businesses can use the power of storytelling to immerse and transport audiences in such a way that customer beliefs and attitudes toward the firm are impacted in a favorable way. By telling its brand story well, firms have the power to increase the value of their products.