Die Rolle der Emotionalität von User Generated Content in Social Media

Abstract

The present study addresses the question how the emotionality of User Generated Content (= UGC) influences credibility and engagement. Due to the increasingly dominant presence of the digital landscape, including social media, it becomes crucial for companies to engage the broad audience of their relevant target audience in order to establish a competitive advantage. Since the credibility of company-generated content is not as significant as UGC, it is increasingly important for brands to utilize the marketing form of UGC. Thus, the question arises how brands can utilize UGC to enhance their credibility and improve their brand perception. It is important to identify the factors that influence the credibility of UGC in order to develop effective strategies. Despite the potential of UGC risks such as possible negative impacts on brand image and customer loyalty must also be considered. Special attention deserves the role of emotionality in UGC on social networks and its influence on brand perception in the digital marketing context. Following the introductory chapter which includes the problem statement, research questions, methodology and structure of this bachelor thesis the main chapters concerning social media, usergenerated content and the empirical part are presented. The UGC chapter includes, after a general clarification of the term and the significance of UGC, the topics of credibility, engagement and emotionality. To achieve the aim of the work as effectively as possible, a literature review and analysis of the mentioned topics were conducted in the first step. This was followed by summarizing the key findings and based on that conducting the empirical study. UGC can influence user’s trust and perception since it tends to be more suitable than content created by companies. To ensure credibility, authenticity, openness, mutual communication, relevance and continuity play a crucial role. It has been found that the source, the message and the media used are also relevant for credibility. Influencer marketing is becoming increasingly important as many users feel an identification with the content creators, thereby building trust in the content they create. Engagement is crucial in today’s marketing for brand perception, trust and customer loyalty. The literature mentions five factors influencing engagement: brand factors, product factors, consumer factors, content factors and social media factors. It has been found, that emotionality has a significant impact on engagement. However, due to existing literature, it could not be conclusively determined what specific influence the emotionality of UGC has on credibility.

Date of Award	2024
Original language	German (Austria)
Supervisor	René Riedl (Supervisor)