TY - GEN A1 - Reichstein, Thomas A1 - Brusch, Ines T1 - The Decision-Making Process, in: Viral Marketing - A Review And Suggestions For Further Research T2 - Psychology & Marketing N2 - Viral marketing is used to widely distribute content. To achieve this goal, the basic decision‐making process from content reception to interaction must be clarified. This paper examines the decision‐making process of individuals in viral marketing using a new dynamic model. In addition, this work reviews the existing literature on viral marketing and structures to identify existing issues for further research. The decision‐making process is basically divided into two stages. In the first decision stage, individuals decide whether content should be considered. When individuals agree to view the content, they decide in the second stage whether they want to interact with it. These two decisions are influenced by three factors: the framework conditions, content, and interaction aims. With the help of the decision model, this paper summarizes the most important findings from viral marketing research over the last 20 years. In addition, this work provides new opportunities for further research in the field of viral marketing. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21256 SN - 1520-6793 VL - 36 IS - 11 SP - 1062 EP - 1081 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Reichstein, Thomas A1 - Brusch, Ines A1 - Meier zu Ummeln, Rebecca T1 - Social Media Marketing in the Event Industry: An Empirical Study to Determine Factors Influencing the Distribution of Events T2 - Archives of Data Science, Series A N2 - Digitization offers great potential for many areas, including event marketing. Newsletters and social media are already being used successfully by companies to draw attention to their events. Social media marketing can help to increase the reach of events. In this context, it is important to understand which factors influence the intention to interact and interest in event announcements. Using an image manipulation experiment, we examined the influence of four framework conditions on event announcements: Image (present vs. absent), number of persons interested (high vs. low), title length (long vs. short), and relationship information (present vs. absent). The results showed that event announcements with an image elicit significantly higher intention to interact. In addition, interest increases significantly when relationship information is present in the ad (when there is a basic interest in the event). Furthermore, we analyzed the influence of emotionality of event images. We show that emotionality is positively significantly correlated with the intention to interact and interest. Y1 - 2020 UR - https://publikationen.bibliothek.kit.edu/1000130979 SN - 2363-9881 VL - 6 IS - 2 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Reichstein, Thomas A1 - Brusch, Ines A1 - Dost, Florian A1 - Brusch, Michael ED - Cross, Samantha ED - Saboo, Alok T1 - Captivate Your Audience: Suggestions for Enhancing Social Media Engagement Through Captions T2 - AMA Winter Academic Conference Proceedings, St. Pete Beach, Florida, on February 23-25, 2024 N2 - Engagement is important for the success of social media offers. Accordingly, the goal of responsible social media managers is to generate the maximum engagement with their content. Extant research has already addressed the factors that are related to the creation of compelling content. However, very little attention has been paid to the caption, and thus to a part of the social media post that can be easily changed. Our aim is to measure the impact of caption characteristics on engagement. We use, text length, number of emojis, and hashtags as caption variables, as well as comments, likes, and shares as engagement variables. In two different datasets, one from a merchandise online store (Facebook, Study 1) and another from a travel influencer (Instagram, Study 2) we find a similar robust result: the analyses reveal s a non-linear relationship between caption text length and engagement that follows an inverted U-shape. It follows that, contrary to previous assumptions, longer captions of around 600 characters should be used to in¬crease engagement. Estimations show that an increase in engagement of about 20% is possible. Y1 - 2024 UR - https://www.ama.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2024-Winter-AMA-Proceedings_Feb-28-2024.pdf SN - 978-0-87757-018-9 SP - 570 EP - 572 PB - American Marketing Association CY - Chicago, IL ER - TY - GEN A1 - Reichstein, Thomas A1 - Brusch, Ines A1 - Dost, Florian A1 - Brusch, Michael T1 - How To Optimize Your Social Media Caption To Generate More Engagement :) #Captionize #SocialMedia T2 - Proceedings of the European Marketing Academy, EMAC 2023 Annual, Odense, Denmark, May 24, 2023 N2 - Maximizing engagement is an important issue for social media managers. Science has already provided guidance on how to make content more engaging. However, one easy-to-edit part of the social media post has received little attention: The caption. We show that the caption has an underestimated impact on engagement and we specifically address text length. The relationship between text length and engagement is not linear as described in previous literature but follows an inverted U-shape. Using field data, we estimate the optimal length of captions and provide surprising results. We show that captions are mostly too short instead of too long and that an optimal length can increase the engagement rate by up to 17%. Y1 - 2023 UR - https://proceedings.emac-online.org/index.cfm?abstractid=A2023-114288&How%20To%20Optimize%20Your%20Social%20Media%20Caption%20To%20Gener PB - European Marketing Academy ER - TY - GEN A1 - Reichstein, Thomas A1 - Brusch, Ines A1 - Dost, Florian A1 - Brusch, Michael T1 - Maximizing Engagement Through Caption Optimization: Insights from Social Media Field Data T2 - 2023 ISMS Marketing Science Conference Proceedings N2 - Social media managers are constantly seeking ways to maximize engagement with their content. While prior research has shed light on strategies for creating engaging content, the impact of captions on engagement has been under-explored. Our study focuses specifically on the relationship between caption length and engagement in social media posts. Contrary to previous literature, we find that the relationship between caption length and engagement follows an inverted U-shape. Using field data from an omnichannel retailer (Facebook) and a travel influencer (Instagram), we determine the optimal caption length for maximizing engagement and present surprising results. Our results are robust for different model and identification specifications, indicating that captions are often too short, rather than too long, and that optimizing caption length in our case can increase engagement by up to 25%. These findings have important implications for social media managers and influencers seeking to enhance the impact of their posts. Y1 - 2023 UR - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/379237977 ER - TY - THES A1 - Reichstein, Thomas T1 - Enhancing Engagement – Understanding the Engagement Drivers of Social Media Content N2 - Social media is the staple of Internet consumption. There are currently 4.8 billion social media users worldwide. This means that almost every Internet user (5.18 billion) also consumes social media (Statista1, 2023). The enormous importance for the advertising market is underlined by the considerable advertising expenditure, which is expected to reach $ 207 billion in 2023 (Statista2, 2023). By comparison, traditional TV advertising is expected to reach $140 billion in 2023 (Statista3, 2023). However, social media is not only the ideal channel for marketers to advertise, but also to engage with their customers and strengthen their relationship with them (Lim & Rasul, 2022), as it has a positive impact on firm performance and word of mouth (de Oliveira Santini et al., 2020; Yost, Zhang, and Qi, 2021). As a result, companies want to know how to make their content, whether advertising or general, highly engaging. This dissertation aims to contribute to the following research question: “How can content engagement be increased, and what are the drivers of content engagement?" Thus, the first objective of this work is to provide an overview of the basic decision-making process of user engagement in social media. Part I of this dissertation shows that previous research has shed light on the tools used to create engaging images and videos, referred to as main content (Berger & Milkman, 2012; Reichstein & Brusch, 2019). However, less light has been shed on an important aspect that also strongly influences engagement: the factors surrounding the content, referred to in this paper as framework conditions. One example of framework conditions is the text that accompanies a post, known as the caption. The second objective of this dissertation, in Part II and Part III, is therefore to examine the effects of framework conditions, such as the text length of a caption, on engagement. Table 0.1 gives an overview of the three manuscripts used in this dissertation. Part I of this paper builds on the publication by Reichstein and Brusch (2019). This part provides a literature review on viral marketing, specifically an overview of the factors that influence content engagement. Viral marketing is a buzzword that represents the ideal of creating content that spreads like a virus. The section provides a definition of viral marketing and classifies the literature to date based on a hypothetical model. The model shows the decision-making process of individuals in social media, from receiving a content to making a decision to engage. 7 Part II builds on the published work of Reichstein, Brusch, and zu Ummeln (2021). An empirical study examines the effect of four framework factors (persons interested, title length, image, relationship information) on engagement and interest in Facebook events. The study is based on a survey that is analyzed using a statistical comparison of means. Additionally, the effect of emotions on engagement and interest is tested using correlation analysis. The results provide initial evidence that framework conditions influence engagement and interest. Furthermore, the strong effect of emotions on engagement, known from the literature (Berger & Milkman, 2012), is confirmed. Part III is based on the unpublished manuscript by Reichstein, Brusch, Dost, and Brusch (2023). This part examines the effect of the caption, which can be considered as the framework of a social media post, on engagement. The focal variable studied is the text length of the caption. In addition, the effect of emojis and hashtags on engagement is examined. Two experiments and field data from an onminchannel retailer and a travel influencer are used. The results show that the relationship between text length and engagement follows an inverted U-shape, and thus the optimal text length maximizes engagement. The effect is surprisingly strong. Estimates for the given datasets show a potential increase in likes of up to 25% per post on average by optimizing text length. The structure of this cumulative dissertation is as follows. The main part consists of the three papers (Part I, Part II, Part III). Each of them starts with a motivational part to clarify the contribution and the classification for the dissertation. It should be noted that the previously published papers (Part I and Part II) have been partially adjusted in language to unify the dissertation. At the end, there is a conclusion section that summarizes the findings of the paper. Y1 - 2024 CY - Cottbus ; Senftenberg ER - TY - GEN A1 - Reichstein, Thomas A1 - Dost, Florian T1 - Attention please! How attention drives social media engagement T2 - Proceedings International Marketing Trends Conference 2024, Venice N2 - Social media has become an integral part of Internet usage, with billions of users worldwide. Therefore, it is increasingly important for marketers to understand how to optimize one of the most important variables for success: Engagement. This study examines the relationship between user attention and engagement on social media, considering the effect of caption text length and emojis. Using an eye-tracking experiment, we measure user attention and engagement (likes, clicks, comments) for 161 social media posts. Our results confirm that attention affects engagement. Furthermore, we show that text length and emojis moderate this relationship. This study makes an important contribution to understanding one of the most important mechanisms for driving engagement. KW - Eye-Tracking KW - Social Media KW - Engagement Y1 - 2024 UR - https://archives.marketing-trends-congress.com/2024/pages/PDF/37.pdf SN - 978-2-490372-18-8 ER -