Stop being so informative! : A quantitative study on social media content and consumer engagement

Sammanfattning: Purpose: Considering previous research on consumers’ social media engagement, content types and social media platforms, the purpose of this research was to explain the relationship between social media content types employed by brands and levels of consumers’ engagement. This since brands nowadays turn more towards branded content rather than advertising and several scholars expressing an urge for explaining an assumed relationship. Method: A deductive, quantitative and cross-sectional study was conducted. Further on, a standardized self-completion questionnaire was distributed to 227 respondents, by employing a convenience sampling. 165 responses were valid and the analysis was done employing ANOVA and regression analysis. Findings: Four hypotheses were accepted; all three concerning self-oriented content as it triggers all three levels of engagement and one hypothesis for entertaining content as it triggers emotional engagement. The hypothesis regarding the moderating effect of platform was partially accepted. Hence, five out of total ten hypothesis were rejected. Research limitations: The study’s generalizability is limited by the sampling technique and by the three example posts used in the questionnaire. Plus, the condition for respondents being exposed to social media post examples is another limitation in this research. Practical implications: All the findings were composed in a framework among of which is that brands’ content on social media should be of self-oriented nature to trigger engagement on all three levels or feature entertaining content as it triggers emotional engagement. YouTube is the preferred platform, followed by Instagram and then Facebook. However, all platforms trigger emotional engagement. The content benefits from being rich media and being appreciated by the consumers. Younger consumers are more likely to be engaged. Theoretical implications and originality: The findings of this research fill in the gap and present new findings within the topic of social media content, engagement and social media platforms. Hence, considering all the theoretical findings of this research, it offers a framework that delivers a rich explanation of relationships between social media content types, the three levels of engagement and social media platform types, which can be used as a base for further investigation in this area.