The Impact of Content, Context, and Creator on User Engagement in Social Media Marketing

Social media has become an important tool in establishing relationships between companies and customers. However, creating effective content for social media marketing campaigns is a challenge, as companies have difficulty understanding what drives user engagement. One approach to addressing this challenge is to use analytics on user-generated social media content to understand the relationship between content features and user engagement. In this paper we report on a quantitative study that applies machine learning algorithms to extract textual and visual content features from Instagram posts, along with creator- and context-related variables, and to statistically model their influence on user engagement. Our findings can guide marketing and social media professionals in creating engaging content that communicates more effectively with their audiences.