Investigating the Impacts of Brand Social Media Posts’ Linguistic Styles on Consumer Engagement

Abstract

Enhancing consumer engagement with brand posts on social media is challenging to digital marketers. However, it is unclear what contents work better for which brand and in what way. This paper investigates the impacts of three brand post linguistic styles (i.e., emotionality, complexity, and informality) and finds that brand posts' linguistic styles can impact consumer engagement. The findings improve our understanding of the role that language plays in brand communications on social media. Communication accommodation theoryCommunication accommodation theory explains how people adjust their behaviors during communications, why they do so, and the effects arising from doing so [17][18]. According to CAT, the two general communication strategies are accommodation (or convergence) and nonaccommodation (or divergence) [17]. Accommodation is a strategy whereby people adjust their communication behaviors to appear more similar to their interlocutors. Conversely, nonaccommodation is a strategy in which people accentuate differences between themselves and their interlocutors in communication behaviors [17]. According to CAT, accommodation in language leads to positive evaluations of the communication (e.g., message agreement, persuasiveness, and communication satisfaction), the interlocutor (e.g., credibility, trust, sociability, and attractiveness), and the relationship (e.g., relational satisfaction, closeness, common identity, and intimacy) [17]. For example, research has shown that language accommodation in computer-mediated communications can enhance the rapport [18] and trust [19] between communicators. Recent research has shown that language accommodation also positively impacts communicators' involvement and behavior [20]. For example, Ludwig et al. [21] found that linguistic style matching between an online product review and the interest group is positively related to conversion rates. Steinmann, Mau, found that personalized communication style used by brands in interacting with online consumption community members can enhance members' evaluation of the community as well as increase their purchase intention.Brand posting is a form of brand-to-consumer communication that occurs in a CMC context, i.e., social media; thus, it is reasonable to assume that language accommodation in brand posting could positively impact consumers' evaluation and behavior

Buy My Emoji: An Analysis of Ads in Twitter/X

“…The following graph revealed that the tweet corpus we collected contained emojis being used mostly as attitude/emotional signals (43%), followed by word substitution/repetition (37%). When we consider the emotional function of tweets (grouping the attitude and emotional signal and the attitude/emotion intensity enhancer categories), almost 60% of emojis were used to convey or reinforce emotions and/or attitudes, which may confirm previous studies such as the one conducted by McShane et al (2021), andDeng et al (2020). The former showed enhanced consumer engagement when positive emotions were conveyed by emojis.…”

“…Both Ge and Gretzel (2018) and McShane et al (2021) have shown that consumer engagement is higher when emojis are incorporated into the posts. Also, readers are more likely to 'like' posts conveying positive emotions, and thus enhance engagement through Facebook posts containing emojis, as Deng et al (2020) revealed. Such findings may account for the fact that most Brazilian brand posts in our corpus conveyed emotions and/or attitudes.…”

“…Future research could investigate how the expression of emotion and positive attitude relate to consumer engagement through social media. Deng et al (2020) also showed that the informal and casual tone of the posts such as contractions and personal pronouns -in addition to emojis -help enhance consumer engagement. We could also see in our data the same features described by Deng et al (2020), especially in the beauty brands posts, even though that was not our aim.…”

“…Informality and respect to social media norms, including a style that resembles oral conversation is expected by consumers when brands communicate with them. As a result, according to Deng et al (2020), the adoption of a casual style in brand posts would meet consumers expectations and ultimately enhance consumer engagement. Emojis, contractions, and personal pronouns are considered informal features of discourse.…”

“Bizimle” uçun! Tüketici-Marka İlişkisinin Tüketici Katılımına Etkisi: Türk Havayolu Instagram Sayfaları Üzerine Ampirik Bir Araştırma

“…In his review, Stephen (2016) argue that linguistic style leads online consumer interaction behavior. Also, Deng et al (2020) found that brand posts' linguistic styles on social media influence consumer engagement.…”