Social media enable celebrity to interact with their followers and enable followers to build the relationship through the interaction. Former research has found that openness and perceived interactivity are antecedents for parasocial interaction. In order to investigate the way to increase user’s engagement in celebrity’s social media page, this research examines the relationship between celebrity’s posts employ openness and perceived interactivity, other user’s posts employ openness and perceived interactivity, parasocial interaction, parasocial relationship, and social media engagement. Survey data were collected from 595 followers of one Chinese celebrity through an online survey. The results indicate that neither celebrity’s nor other user’s posts employ openness and perceived interactivity direct lead to user’s social media engagement. However, PSI and PSR, which increased by celebrity’s and other user’s posts employ openness and perceived interactivity, have a positive relationship with user’s social media engagement. It provides support for the mediating role of PSI and PSR to social media engagement.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This study explored the perspectives of six public sector human resource professionals on social media policies and how it maintains the behavior of employees that engage on social media. The expansion of technology in the public sector allows personnel to build relationships with the people they serve and participate in public forums. As more legislators and professionals use social media for work and personal matters, they are more likely to face public humiliation and disciplinary punishment over uncivil behavior. This research shows the public sector institutions in the Indianapolis area have lenient social media policies. In addition, this research argues that work policies, i.e., social media, should be modernized and relevant for all cultures. This dissertation analyzes how social media policies are established and executed within local government organizations using a multi-method approach. The first phase of this study surveyed and interviewed human resources professionals. While social media issues are still relatively new, progressive disciplinary procedures are most likely to be implemented when an employee engages in uncivil behavior on social media. The Logic of Appropriateness as the framework for the content analysis of social media policies from eight local agencies explores how the organizations direct employee behavior. The analysis findings determine certain public sector institutions in the Indianapolis area have social media policies for legal protection but place ethical value on respect as an expectation for employee conduct. This study backs the development of transparent social media policies in public sector agencies, especially since there is a recurring shift in the generational and cultural background of public representatives.

Fake news has great potential to cause damage to brand reputations and finances. Given the technical challenges of detecting fake news in time, it is inevitable that social media platforms will end up hosting fake news. The competition for attention and advertising revenue is intense. Many consumers read only the headlines. Fake news stories that mention brands in headlines can help news publishers garner social media engagement but can also hurt brands, raising concerns about brand protection. In this research, I focus on the first two stages of the information processing model – attending to information and encoding information (Berk 2018; Miller 1988).In Chapter 2, I investigate whether mentions of human and product brands are associated with news consumption and news retransmission (how brand mentions attract attention; the first stage of information processing). Using data from a news platform that generated both traditional and satirical (fake) news stories, I quantify the effects of brand mentions on social media engagement for both traditional and fake news. The analysis encompasses mentions of popular product brands, such as Apple, and mentions of human brands, such as famous politicians and actors. A framework based on uses and gratifications theory (UGT) aids in variable selection and the interpretation of results. My results imply that human brand mentions generally have a positive effect on news consumption and retransmission for both news formats, and product brand mentions affect engagement of satirical news via an interaction with news categories. Results provide further insights on the roles of sentiment, narrative style, and writing quality of news stories. The high potential of human and product brands in the headlines, especially human brands in satirical news, may be indicative of their potential to be misused by unscrupulous news media publishers. This reminds social media platforms of their responsibility to protect brands and consumers from fake news. Next, in Chapter 3, I examine the effectiveness of before-warnings (BWs) and after-warnings (AWs) in alerting consumers and reducing the persuasive influence of fake news on brand attitudes (how warning timing affects encoding; the second stage of information processing). Results reveal that for both negative and positive fake news, BWs are sometimes no more effective than no-warnings. Although BWs do encourage more critical processing of misinformation, this can distract consumers from the warning message. More importantly, Chapter 3 demonstrates a robust after-warning effect (AWE). Warning consumers after they have read fake news with AWs consistently leads to a higher reduction of persuasive influence (negative or positive) than BWs. AWs are more salient and arouse greater reactance to the false information than BWs. The resulting loss in control over how the news influenced attitudes and increased anger lead to the observed after-warning effect. News valence also matters since positive news is perceived to be more credible and processed less critically than negative news. AWs relative to BWs thus arouse feelings of being tricked when fake news is positive but not when it is negative, also leading to the after-warning effect. The findings have several theoretical and managerial implications. / Business Administration/Marketing

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The lack of success of the gun control movement and the success of the gun rights movement in the United States have prompted research into the root causes. Although the political infrastructure, organizational resources, and public interest prove to be important factors in a social movement's success, how each social movement frames their arguments is extremely important for proposing policy initiatives and garnering support. In order to understand how gun control and gun rights organizations frame their arguments this study does two things: (1) performs topic modeling on the six gun control organizations' and three gun rights organizations' press statements to see the frames that each social movement engages in, and (2) identifying these frames in the most popular gun control and gun rights organizations on Facebook to predict likes, comments, and shares. This study is able to identify the top frames in the gun control and gun rights social movements and see how followers of each of these movements engage with each of these frames on Facebook.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of influencer marketing with a focus on Generation Z. The study aims to reveal which properties of environmental and sustainability related content are important to maintain the social media engagement of Generation Z, as influencers start to include this on their social media platforms.  Method: The study takes a deductive and qualitative approach, focusing on the underlying factors of social media engagement. Data has been collected through three semi structured focus groups.  Results: The results from this study show that Generation Z have a double sided relationship with sustainability issues, where many consider these to be important, but few show this in their consumer behaviour. Furthermore, the participants’ attitudes towards sustainability issues being implemented on influencers’ social media platforms are positive, but there is also a large risk of decreased social media engagement from Generation Z. Messages about the environment and sustainability that are too negative or too frequent, can lead to the participants feeling anxiety or losing interest in the influencer at hand.  Conclusion: To summarize, there are some properties of environmental content which can be crucial for the sustention of the social media engagement of Generation Z. The content should use several types of media (images, videos, text, etc.), be well integrated with the influencer’s niche and the message should be short. The message is more appreciated if it is not in the form of a paid collaboration and the content should not appear so frequently that the influencer’s niche appears to have changed. Finally, the social media engagement might increase over time if the content is consistently interesting and engaging. / Syfte: Syftet med studien är att öka förståelsen för området influencer marketing med ett fokus på generation z. Detta för att ta reda på vilka egenskaper i miljö- och hållbarhetsrelaterat innehåll som är viktiga för att följarengagemanget hos generation z inte skall minska, när influencers inför detta på sina sociala plattformar.  Metod: Studien har en deduktiv och kvalitativ ansats, med fokus på de underliggande faktorerna hos följarengagemang. Data på detta har samlats in genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer i tre fokusgrupper. Resultat: Resultaten från denna studie visar att generation z har en tvåsidig relation till hållbarhetsfrågor, där de flesta anser att dessa är viktiga, men ett fåtal visar detta i sitt konsumtionsbeteende. Vidare är respondenternas inställning positiv till införandet av sådana frågor på influencers sociala plattformar, men risken är också stor för ett minskat följarengagemang från generation z. Budskap om miljö och hållbarhet som är för negativt lagda eller för frekventa kan skapa ångest hos respondenterna samt ett minskat intresse för influencern i fråga.  Slutsats: Sammanfattningsvis framgår det att vissa egenskaper i miljörelaterat innehåll kanvara avgörande för generation z:s fortsatta följarengagemang. Innehållet bör vara multimedialt, kortfattat och väl integrerat med influencerns nisch. Budskapet uppskattas mer om det inte är i form utav ett betalt samarbete och bör inte förekomma så pass ofta att influencerns nisch upplevs som förändrad. Vidare kan följarengagemanget öka med tiden om innehållet är konsekvent intresseväckande och engagerande.

This study investigates what roles the Chinese state-owned media play in the Covid-19 outbreak in terms of what kind of messages they delivered on Weibo and the quality of the messages. It also explores how the public is engaged with these messages on Weibo. Both the messages and the engagement are examined by mix-method content analysis.   The exploration of the Weibo messages relies on the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) framework. The CERC framework combines various existing theories and compiles them into a communication guideline for a health crisis. This study examines the messages by focusing on sensemaking and self-efficacy. Sensemaking is informing the public of the nature of the crisis; self-efficacy reflects people’s confidence in the capacity to change behaviours and deal with the problems. It was found that Weibo provides a platform for delivering sensemaking messages and self-efficacy messages in the coronavirus outbreak. However, considering the accuracy, relevance and intelligibility of strategic health communication, the quality of the messages is debatable in some cases.   The exploration of social media engagement relies on Liu, Lu and Wang’s virality theory on social media which discusses four aspects of engagement: authority, privacy, evidence and incentive appeal. This study shows how each of these aspects influences how people engage with messages on Weibo: the effect of different authorities on the message engagement; the usage of one-to-one communication and one-to-many communication in the engagement; and the engagement in positive appeals and negative appeals.

Aim: In connection with digitalization, companies have increased their use of social media marketing and influencer marketing. Thanks to this, the skincare industry has had a magnificent effect on its sales, where millennial women are a strong target group for its digital marketing. These marketing channels contribute to direct interaction on social media and research has shown that there are seven different behaviors on social media: co-creation, positive contribution, consumption, dormancy, detachment, negative contribution, and co-destruction. The purpose of the study is to understand whether there is a connection between millennial women's behavior on social media in relation to the marketing of skincare and their frequency of purchase of skincare products. The research question that is answered is which behaviors on social media towards marketing of the skincare industry have an effect on millennial women in Sweden's purchase frequency of skincare products. Method: The study is based on a quantitative method with a deductive approach. Hypothesis development and a survey were conducted with a total of 200 respondents who are millennial women living in Sweden. The data were analyzed through multiple regression analysis and is reported through a hypothesis test. Result and Conclusions: The study shows that there is a connection between millennial women's buying frequency and its behavior on social media towards the marketing of skincare products that are co-creative, positive contribution, consumption, detachment, and co-destruction. However, there is a lack of this connection when it comes to the behaviors of dormancy and negative contribution. Contribution of the thesis: The contribution of the study is theoretical knowledge for the skincare industry regarding the effect on the purchase frequency of skincare products that millennial women have, based on their behaviors on social media towards its marketing. The study also contributes with practical knowledge that there are reasons for marketers to pay attention to this in order to achieve increased sales. Suggestions for future research: Further research into the subject could be to apply these behaviors to other industries and populations than those to which this study relates. This is because these behaviors that have been investigated are not limited to a specific industry or population. Another suggestion is to study the effects on specific brands and influencers, as all of them are different and consumers can thus perceive these in different ways. / Syfte: I samband med digitaliseringen har företag fått ökad användning av marknadsföring i sociala medier samt influencermarknadsföring. Tack vare detta har hudvårdsbranschen fått en storslagen effekt i sin omsättning, där kvinnliga millennials utgör en stark målgrupp för dess digitala marknadsföring. Dessa marknadsföringskanaler bidrar till direkt interaktion på sociala medier och forskning har visat att det finns sju olika beteenden på sociala medier: samskapande, positivt bidrag, konsumtion, viloläge, avskildhet, negativt bidrag och medförstörelse. Studiens syfte är att förstå om det finns samband mellan kvinnliga millennials beteenden på sociala medier i relation till marknadsföring av hudvård och deras köpfrekvens av hudvårdsprodukter. Forskningsfrågan som besvaras är vilka beteenden på sociala medier gentemot marknadsföring av hudvårdsbranschen som har en effekt på kvinnliga millennials i Sveriges köpfrekvens av hudvårdsprodukter. Metod: Studien har en kvantitativ utgångspunkt med en deduktiv ansats. En hypotesutveckling samt en enkätundersökning har genomförts där svar från totalt 200 respondenter som är kvinnliga millennials bosatta i Sverige erhölls. Datan har analyserats genom multipel regressionsanalys och redovisas genom en hypotesprövning.  Resultat och slutsats: Studien visar att det finns ett samband mellan kvinnliga millennials köpfrekvens och dess beteenden på sociala medier mot marknadsföring av hudvårdsprodukter som är samskapande, positivt bidrag, konsumtion, avskildhet och medförstörelse. Däremot finns en avsaknad av detta samband när det gäller beteenden viloläge och negativt bidrag. Examensarbetets bidrag: Studien bidrar till teoretisk kunskap för hudvårdsbranschen angående vilken effekt på köpfrekvensen av hudvårdsprodukter som kvinnliga millennials har baserat på deras beteenden på sociala medier gentemot dess marknadsföring. Studien bidrar även med praktisk kunskap om att det finns anledningar för marknadsförare att uppmärksamma detta för att uppnå ökad försäljning.  Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Fortsatt forskning som kan genomföras är att applicera dessa beteenden på andra branscher och populationer än för de som denna studie avser. Detta då dessa beteenden som har undersökts inte är bundna för enbart en specifik bransch eller population. Övrigt förslag är att studera effekten för specifika varumärken och influencers eftersom alla dessa är olika och konsumenter kan därmed uppfatta dessa på olika sätt.

Nowadays the market is becoming increasingly competitive. Consumers have a wide variety of choices and make their decisions based on the recommendations of other peers, which they consider more trustable compared to traditional advertisements. In such a scenario customer engagement is becoming the most important challenge for businesses. In fact engaged customers are not only loyal, but also active recommenders of the product/service to other peers. Social media, thanks to their interactive features, allow building relationships with customers and therefore they have a key role for customer engagement.   The paper analyzes how companies can use social media in order to build a customer engagement strategy. The project begins with an overview of the literature available about two main topics: customer engagement and social media.  In the later analysis, the author demystifies social media for business by analyzing what are the main functionalities that they provide and how these functionalities can be used in order to create a social media engagement strategy. A new model is presented: “The Social Media Engagement Cycle” that highlights how engagement on social media helps driving repeat sales and getting new customers through the existing ones. The author addresses the organizational and cultural implications of the model to highlight which are the changes that companies should address in order to implement a successful social media strategy. Finally the author discusses a case study from the telecommunication industry, and drives general conclusions about how the engagement on social media has a pervasive importance across industries.