The role of user engagement in electronic word-of-mouth and online performance

Being a member of social media channels involves the use of many engagement activities, including reposting content, commenting on posts and expressing interest. Online user engagement has been proposed to encourage various positively-valenced interactions between consumers and online brands, with electronic Word-Of-Mouth being one of the most significant. Despite the extensive research that has been carried out in the field of social media, the number of quantitative studies exploring the effects of the various factors that affect the performance of a social media channel is still limited. This study examines the relationship between online user engagement and eWOM, also addressing the effects on user interaction advertisement results. The data set was provided by a large YouTube music channel and, in contrast with other similar studies, the data extracted from YouTube analytics that represent actual user values. All insights were selected from a 6-year period. During this time, almost 500 music videos were uploaded. In total, 83 831 subscribers were included in the data set. Statistical analyses showed that user engagement significantly affects eWOM. Accordingly, the role of eWOM in organic results, such as views and number of subscribers, was verified. Finally, a significant mediating role of eWOM in the relationship between user engagement and advertisement results was reported. The results of the current study are highly important for administrators of social media video channels, as they provide enough information on how to develop their promotional strategy and how to best manage the content they want to upload.

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Opracowanie rekordu ze środków MNiSW, umowa Nr 461252 w ramach programu "Społeczna odpowiedzialność nauki" - moduł: Popularyzacja nauki i promocja sportu (2020).