IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joinma/v53y2021icp96-110.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Emoji, Playfulness, and Brand Engagement on Twitter

Author

Listed:
  • McShane, Lindsay
  • Pancer, Ethan
  • Poole, Maxwell
  • Deng, Qi

Abstract

Brands, both human and corporate, are increasingly communicating with their consumers using emojis. The current work examines if and how these pictographs shape online brand engagement on Twitter (i.e., likes & retweets). To do so, we first examine datasets generated by scraping the tweets of the most popular celebrity brands and most popular corporate brands (Study 1). This study demonstrates that emoji presence increases engagement with tweets, with more emoji leading to more likes and retweets. Two controlled experiments then explore the role of perceived playfulness in explaining this effect of emojis on engagement (Studies 2 and 3). We find that the effect of emojis on brand engagement varies depending on the nature of the interplay between emojis and text, and the subsequent effect of this interplay on perceived playfulness. Theoretical contributions and social media practitioner implications are also addressed.

Suggested Citation

  • McShane, Lindsay & Pancer, Ethan & Poole, Maxwell & Deng, Qi, 2021. "Emoji, Playfulness, and Brand Engagement on Twitter," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 96-110.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joinma:v:53:y:2021:i:c:p:96-110
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intmar.2020.06.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1094996820301031
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.intmar.2020.06.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sarah G. Moore, 2012. "Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid: How Word of Mouth Influences the Storyteller," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 38(6), pages 1140-1154.
    2. Scarpi, Daniele, 2010. "Does Size Matter? An Examination of Small and Large Web-Based Brand Communities," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 14-21.
    3. Labrecque, Lauren I., 2014. "Fostering Consumer–Brand Relationships in Social Media Environments: The Role of Parasocial Interaction," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 134-148.
    4. Tina M. Lowrey & L. J. Shrum, 2007. "Phonetic Symbolism and Brand Name Preference," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 34(3), pages 406-414, June.
    5. Gensler, Sonja & Völckner, Franziska & Liu-Thompkins, Yuping & Wiertz, Caroline, 2013. "Managing Brands in the Social Media Environment," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 242-256.
    6. Xinshu Zhao & John G. Lynch & Qimei Chen, 2010. "Reconsidering Baron and Kenny: Myths and Truths about Mediation Analysis," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 37(2), pages 197-206, August.
    7. Barcelos, Renato Hübner & Dantas, Danilo C. & Sénécal, Sylvain, 2018. "Watch Your Tone: How a Brand's Tone of Voice on Social Media Influences Consumer Responses," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 60-80.
    8. Ann Kronrod & Shai Danziger, 2013. ""Wii Will Rock You!" The Use and Effect of Figurative Language in Consumer Reviews of Hedonic and Utilitarian Consumption," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 40(4), pages 726-739.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pedro Almeida & Paulo Rita & Diego Costa Pinto & Márcia Herter, 2024. "The power of facial expressions in branding: can emojis versus human faces shape emotional contagion and brand fun?," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 31(5), pages 543-556, September.
    2. Tobias Maiberger & David Schindler & Nicole Koschate-Fischer, 2024. "Let’s face it: When and how facial emojis increase the persuasiveness of electronic word of mouth," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 119-139, January.
    3. Chun Yang & Xuqi Chen & Jie Sun & Wei Wei & Wei Miao & Chao Gu, 2022. "Could Surplus Food in Blind Box Form Increase Consumers’ Purchase Intention?," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-19, June.
    4. Xiao, Tingwen & Wei, Haiying & Chen, Siyun, 2024. "Prominent or subtle: The impact of brand prominence on social media advertisement engagement," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    5. Bashirzadeh, Yashar & Mai, Robert & Faure, Corinne, 2022. "How rich is too rich? Visual design elements in digital marketing communications," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 58-76.
    6. Jungwoo Lee & Cheong Kim & Kun Chang Lee, 2021. "Investigating the Negative Effects of Emojis in Facebook Sponsored Ads for Establishing Sustainable Marketing in Social Media," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-15, April.
    7. Avneet Kaur & Sujata Khandai & Jones Mathew, 2023. "Mapping the Field of Social Media Engagement: A Literature Review Using Bibliometric Analysis," FIIB Business Review, , vol. 12(4), pages 368-385, December.
    8. Yu, Joanne & Dickinger, Astrid & So, Kevin Kam Fung & Egger, Roman, 2024. "Artificial intelligence-generated virtual influencer: Examining the effects of emotional display on user engagement," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    9. Federico Mangiò & Giuseppe Pedeliento & Daniela Andreini & Lia Zarantonello, 2024. "How persuasive is woke brand communication on social media? Evidence from a consumer engagement analysis on Facebook," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 31(4), pages 345-381, July.
    10. Dušan Mladenović & Kamil Koštiál & Nikolina Ljepava & Ondřej Částek & Yash Chawla, 2021. "Emojis to conversion on social media: Insights into online consumer engagement and reactions," WORking papers in Management Science (WORMS) WORMS/21/13, Department of Operations Research and Business Intelligence, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology.
    11. Li, Yiling & Kim, Hye-jin & Do, Boram & Choi, Jeonghye, 2022. "The effect of emotion in thumbnails and titles of video clips on pre-roll advertising effectiveness," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 232-243.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Labrecque, Lauren I., 2014. "Fostering Consumer–Brand Relationships in Social Media Environments: The Role of Parasocial Interaction," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 134-148.
    2. Marius Johnen & Oliver Schnittka, 2019. "When pushing back is good: the effectiveness of brand responses to social media complaints," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 858-878, September.
    3. Zhang, Chu-Bing & Zhang, Zhuo-Ping & Chang, Ying & Li, Tian-Ge & Hou, Ru-Jing, 2022. "Effect of WeChat interaction on brand evaluation: A moderated mediation model of para-social interaction and affiliative tendency," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    4. Tony Cooper & Constantino Stavros & Angela R. Dobele, 2019. "The levers of engagement: an exploration of governance in an online brand community," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(3), pages 240-254, May.
    5. Fujita, Momoko & Harrigan, Paul & Soutar, Geoffrey N. & Kumar Roy, Sanjit & Roy, Rajat, 2020. "Enhancing member-institution relationships through social media: The role of other-user engagement behavior and similarity perceptions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 642-654.
    6. He, Yi & You, Ya & Chen, Qimei, 2020. "Our conditional love for the underdog: The effect of brand positioning and the lay theory of achievement on WOM," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 210-222.
    7. Bertele, Kerrie & Feiereisen, Stephanie & Storey, Chris & van Laer, Tom, 2020. "It’s not what you say, it’s the way you say it! Effective message styles for promoting innovative new services," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 38-49.
    8. Javornik, Ana & Filieri, Raffaele & Gumann, Ralph, 2020. "“Don't Forget that Others Are Watching, Too!” The Effect of Conversational Human Voice and Reply Length on Observers' Perceptions of Complaint Handling in Social Media," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 100-119.
    9. Agnieszka Zablocki & Bodo Schlegelmilch & Michael J. Houston, 2019. "How valence, volume and variance of online reviews influence brand attitudes," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 9(1), pages 61-77, June.
    10. Li, You & Chang, Yaping & Liang, Zhehao, 2022. "Attracting more meaningful interactions: The impact of question and product types on comments on social media advertisings," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 89-101.
    11. Richard R. Klink & Lan Wu, 2017. "Creating ethical brands: the role of brand name on consumer perceived ethicality," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 411-422, September.
    12. Nadeem, Waqar & Al-Imamy, Saifeddin, 2020. "Do ethics drive value co-creation on digital sharing economy platforms?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    13. Taylor, Alex & Carlson, Jamie & Liao, Yi-Chuan & Rahman, Mohammad M., 2023. "Customer engagement and sharing behaviors: Toward a contingent curvilinear perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    14. Mohammed Jabreel & Assumpció Huertas & Antonio Moreno, 2018. "Semantic analysis and the evolution towards participative branding: Do locals communicate the same destination brand values as DMOs?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(11), pages 1-29, November.
    15. Roma, Paolo & Aloini, Davide, 2019. "How does brand-related user-generated content differ across social media? Evidence reloaded," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 322-339.
    16. Weismueller, Jason & Harrigan, Paul & Wang, Shasha & Soutar, Geoffrey N., 2020. "Influencer endorsements: How advertising disclosure and source credibility affect consumer purchase intention on social media," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 160-170.
    17. Eun-Ho Kim & Dongho Yoo & Sun-Jae Doh, 2021. "Self-construal on brand fan pages: the mediating effect of para-social interaction and consumer engagement on brand loyalty," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 28(3), pages 254-271, May.
    18. repec:oup:jecgeo:v:50:y:2023:i:2:p:236-254. is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Marchand, André & Hennig-Thurau, Thorsten & Flemming, Jan, 2021. "Social media resources and capabilities as strategic determinants of social media performance," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 549-571.
    20. Jin, S. Venus & Ryu, Ehri, 2020. "“I'll buy what she's #wearing†: The roles of envy toward and parasocial interaction with influencers in Instagram celebrity-based brand endorsement and social commerce," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    21. Simon, Françoise & Tossan, Vesselina, 2018. "Does brand-consumer social sharing matter? A relational framework of customer engagement to brand-hosted social media," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 175-184.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joinma:v:53:y:2021:i:c:p:96-110. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-interactive-marketing/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.