Retweet If You Please! Do News Factors Explain Engagement?

Abstract

Stakeholders engagement with corporate messages is crucial for companies that want to increase their social media coverage. However, our understanding of the content-related factors that drive stakeholders engagement is still poor. Drawing from the literature on news selection and distribution, this paper explores whether the relevant news values that are already found in corporate messages could also explain greater engagement in social media. In particular, six news factors were examined in a sample of 2331 tweets that were posted by the Euro Stoxx 50 companies. The results show that four news factors (in particular, Prominence, Entertainment, Immediacy, and to a lesser extent Human interest) play a role in the drive of content sharing through retweets and favorites. Additionally, the inclusion of hashtags and media content helps increase retweets and favorites. Finally, we observe differences among industries. In particular, firms operating in business-to-business industries obtain less reach through sharing. The implications of these results are relevant for social media strategists as they suggest avenues to increase followers engagement with company-produced content.

Stakeholders engagement with corporate messages is crucial for companies that want to increase their social media coverage. However, our understanding of the content-related factors that drive stakeholders engagement is still poor. Drawing from the literature on news selection and distribution, this paper explores whether the relevant news values that are already found in corporate messages could also explain greater engagement in social media. In particular, six news factors were examined in a sample of 2331 tweets that were posted by the Euro Stoxx 50 companies. The results show that four news factors (in particular, Prominence, Entertainment, Immediacy, and to a lesser extent Human interest) play a role in the drive of content sharing through retweets and favorites. Additionally, the inclusion of hashtags and media content helps increase retweets and favorites. Finally, we observe differences among industries. In particular, firms operating in business-to-business industries obtain less reach through sharing. The implications of these results are relevant for social media strategists as they suggest avenues to increase followers engagement with company-produced content.