This is how advertising on the social web becomes most effective
A study shows that advertising on social media is particularly successful when users discuss it and there are indirect posts by users and word-of-mouth.
Advertising on the social web is most effective when it encourages users to share information about the advertised products and services with others, i.e., to post more or less relevant information about them, thus triggering an avalanche of information. That's what a study by researchers at the University of Notre Dame shows. The experts analyzed data from the film industry, which busily posts advertisements on social media, to find out how this type of marketing can be optimized. In total, there were 145,502 company-generated and 5.9 million user-generated Twitter posts about 159 movies.
Company generated content relevant
According to research leader Shijie Lu and his team, which includes colleagues from the University of North Carolina, company-generated content has a positive and significant impact on movie sales. They increase the amount of user-generated content, which further boosts movie consumption.
The common belief has been that social media allows marketers to directly influence the buying behavior of their followers. Now, however, it turns out that it additionally happens indirectly through users' posts and word of mouth. The team analyzed tweets about movies released by the 20 largest U.S. studios between January 2014 and June 2015. These were linked to 486 Twitter handles, including 158 film, 310 actor and director, and 18 studio accounts. They conducted an econometric analysis to test the relationships between company and user-generated posts and box office sales.
Main film account is decisive
"Interestingly, even when multiple social media accounts of the film's actors, directors and studio are used to promote a new film, the content from the main film account is the most effective," Lu says. In addition, regular posts from companies with a movie-specific hashtag are more effective than replies, re-tweets and posts without a hashtag.
"This suggests that movie executives should focus on creating content that sparks conversations among followers when new movies are released. The recent re-tweet of the Barbie movie about a father dressing up in a Barbie costume to take his daughter to the movies is a good example of how to get followers to spontaneously talk about the movie," Lu says. (pte)
