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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Public Relations Review

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pubrev

Functional and emotional traits of corporate social media message

strategies: Behavioral insights from S&P 500 Facebook data
Yi Grace Jia, Zifei Fay Chenb, Weiting Taoc, Zongchao Cathy Lid,
⁎

a
Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture, Virginia Commonwealth University, United States
b
Department of Communication Studies, University of San Francisco, United States
c
School of Communication, University of Miami, United States
d
School of Journalism and Mass Communications, San José State University, San Jose, CA, 95192, United States

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Drawing from literature regarding public engagement, the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM),
Social media engagement computer-mediated communication research, and emotion psychology, this study examines the
Elaboration Likelihood Model effects of companies’ social media communication strategies on public engagement behaviors as
Functional interactivity indexed by post likes, shares, and comments. Specifically, it investigates how corporate Facebook
Vividness
posts’ functional traits (functional interactivity and vividness) and emotional traits (emotion
Emotion
Message strategies
presence, valence, and strength) impact public engagement online. Through data mining and
Computer-assisted sentiment analysis computer-assisted sentiment analysis of 33,379 posts from 106 Standard & Poor 500 companies’
Facebook accounts, this study finds a negative effect of functional interactivity but a positive
effect of vividness on engagement. It also shows that emotional traits overall yield stronger public
engagement outcomes. Two-way interactions between emotional and functional features are also
detected. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

1. Introduction

The prevalence of social media has revolutionized the way publics communicate with and about businesses. Defined as a group of
online applications that enable users to create and exchange content, social media differ from traditional media owing to five
characteristics: participation, openness, conversation, communities, and connectedness (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). These char-
acteristics empower publics to voice and share their opinions of a company and its products and services directly and instantly. They
also grant publics the opportunity to co-construe communication and co-create mutually beneficial relationships with the company
(Botan & Taylor, 2004; Heath, 2014).
As publics become more involved in social media use, a challenge emerges: How can companies better engage publics on social
media? Answers to this question are crucial for corporate public relations practice and scholarship for at least two reasons. First,
public engagement on social media has been acknowledged as a key barometer to evaluate the success of corporate public relations
efforts on social media (Jiang, Luo, & Kulemeka, 2016). This imperative is driven by growing evidence that a high level of social
media engagement leads to favorable perceptual, affective, and behavioral responses from publics such as improved corporate
evaluations and repeated product purchase (Hutter, Hautz, Dennhardt, & Füller, 2013; Ji, Li, North, & Liu, 2017; Men & Tsai, 2014).
Second, despite the advantage of social media over traditional media, many companies are yet to fully utilize the potential of these

Corresponding author.
⁎

E-mail addresses: ygji@vcu.edu (Y.G. Ji), zifei.chen@usfca.edu (Z.F. Chen), weiting.tao@miami.edu (W. Tao),
zongchao.li@sjsu.edu (Z. Cathy Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2018.12.001
Received 13 August 2018; Received in revised form 4 December 2018; Accepted 5 December 2018
0363-8111/ © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Ji, Y.G., Public Relations Review, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2018.12.001
Y.G. Ji et al. Public Relations Review xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

interactive platforms to create content that enhances public engagement and nurtures organization-public relationships (Brubaker &
Wilson, 2018; Kim & Yang, 2017).
To shed light on the aforementioned challenge, this research looks into the communication strategies that Standard & Poor (S&P)
500 companies employ to engage their publics on Facebook. Specifically, it examines corporate social media strategies from two
perspectives: (1) the functional traits of a corporate post as reflected by its functional interactivity and vividness, and (2) the
emotional aspect of the post including the presence, valence, and strength of emotions in its content. To date, prior studies (e.g.,
Rybalko & Seltzer, 2010) have mostly focused on testing how the functional traits of social media messages influence public attitude
and behavior towards a company. Only limited academic research has examined the role of emotion-carrying content in corporate
social media communication, which contrasts with the frequent use of emotional storytelling in practice (Arenstein, 2017). This study
intends to fill the research gap.
To examine how the functional traits and emotional aspect of corporate messages jointly influence public engagement on social
media, this study draws theoretical insights from the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM). By tapping into both the central (i.e.,
message emotion) and peripheral (i.e., functional traits) routes of information processing specified in the ELM, this study extends the
applicability of the theory to the area of corporate communication and public engagement on social media. It also provides im-
plications on further theorizing varied levels of public engagement that different social media metrics (e.g., likes, shares, comments)
may manifest. In addition to the aforementioned theoretical contributions, this study enriches public relations research on corporate
communication and public online engagement by introducing unique methodological approaches. It used data mining and computer-
assisted sentiment analysis to collect and analyze 33,379 posts from 106 S&P 500 companies’ Facebook accounts. Furthermore, it
measured posts’ functional traits, emotion content, and public engagement unobtrusively through natural matrix in real-time com-
munication settings, which was different from previous studies that relied on publics’ self-reporting data (e.g., Men & Tsai, 2014).
Last but not least important, results of this study yield useful insights for corporate public relations professionals to engage publics on
social media more effectively by considering both the functional and emotional design of their message strategies.

2. Literature review

2.1. Public engagement on social media

Engagement is a contested construct, the definition of which has been proposed from diverse perspectives (Taylor & Kent, 2014).
Terms such as social media engagement, dialogic engagement, civic engagement, community engagement, and employee engage-
ment have come to denote different facets of engagement in various contexts (Taylor & Kent, 2014). Broadly speaking, engagement
has been conceptualized via two approaches: the instrumental approach and the interpretivist approach. The instrumental approach
considers engagement as an individual’s psychological state (Johnston, 2018). In an organizational setting, it encapsulates the in-
dividual’s affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses to organizational communication, which have direct implications on the
attainment of organizations’ relational, reputational, financial, and social goals (Hurst & Ihlen, 2018). On the other hand, the in-
terpretivist approach theorizes engagement as a socially situated process. It “transcends managerialism to situate the organization
within an ecological framework” (Johnston, 2018, p. 20). Societal members co-construct meaning to address social issues, create
social capital, and cultivate a fully functioning society (Heath, 2006; Johnston, 2018; Taylor & Kent, 2014). As this study intends to
examine publics’ responses to organizational communication on social media and roots its theoretical underpinning in psychological
theories, it follows the instrumental approach to define engagement. Specifically, this study operationalizes engagement via the
manifest indicators of public engagement on social media (i.e., likes, shares, and comments).
Public relations studies have suggested that public engagement with an organization, manifested by their active communication
and involvement behavior, is an antecedent of their positive relationships with the organization (e.g., Grunig & Hung, 2002; Yang &
Grunig, 2005). In the past decade, as social media communication becomes an indispensable part of public relations practice, the
concept of engagement has been extended to social media-related studies (e.g. Taylor & Kent, 2010; Ji et al., 2017). Especially in
corporate public relations, an increasing amount of research has been undertaken to examine public engagement as an indicator of
corporate communication effectiveness on social media (e.g., Jiang et al., 2016). This body of research can be further grouped into
three streams: studies that probe the conceptualization and operationalization of public engagement on social media (e.g., Jiang
et al., 2016), studies that explore communication strategies stimulating such engagement (e.g., Chen, Hong, & Li, 2017), and those
that test the effect of such engagement on downstream organizational outcomes (e.g., Men & Tsai, 2014). Many of these studies share
a commonality as they consider public engagement on social media as a behavioral process involving both organizations and publics.
Specifically, following the instrumental approach (Johnston, 2018), public engagement is conceptualized as “a behavioral construct
with hierarchical activity levels, from passive message consumption to active two-way conversation, participation, and online re-
commendation” (Men & Tsai, 2014, p. 419). The present study adopts this definition.
When discussing the operationalization of public engagement on social media, Saxton and Waters (2014) astutely pointed out that
traditional approaches such as surveys or laboratory experiments failed to fully capture publics’ natural reactions to organizational
communication on social media. They advocated an alternative approach to assess public engagement behaviors, which was based
upon naturally-occurring behavioral data. To elaborate, social media such as Facebook allow organizations to directly observe public
responses to their messages via behavioral indicators such as likes, shares, and comments (Saxton & Waters, 2014). These indicators
imply different levels of engagement in that the action of liking, sharing, versus commenting requires varied levels of involvement
from publics and may produce distinct effects on them cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally (Cho, Schweickart, & Haase, 2014;
Yoon et al., 2018). Thus, to better understand how publics react to corporate communication on Facebook, this study used manifest

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social media indicators (i.e. likes, shares, and comments) to quantify public's responses to corporate Facebook posts (Johnston &
Taylor, 2018; Saxton & Waters, 2014).
As public engagement becomes a major goal of corporate public relations practice on social media (Watson, 2012), this study
focuses on corporate communication strategies that may enhance public engagement. Specifically, it adopts the Elaboration Like-
lihood Model as its guiding theory and examined two strategic aspects: the functional attributes of a corporate post including its
functional interactivity and vividness, and the emotional content of the post.

2.2. Elaboration Likelihood Model and social media communication

To integrate the aspects of functional attributes and emotional content on social media, this study draws insights from the
Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Petty, Cacioppo, & Schumann, 1983). According to the ELM, in-
dividuals process information via two distinct routes: the central route that focuses on the quality of the argument in the message, and
the peripheral route that directs to the heuristic cues such as attractiveness of the message source or other message features not
directly related to the central argument (Petty et al., 1983). In recent years, researchers have applied the ELM to online and social
media communication contexts and expanded the heuristic value of this theory (e.g., Chun & Lee, 2016; Cyr, Head, Lim, & Stibe,
2018; Ott, Vafeiadis, Kumble, & Waddell, 2016).
Relevant to the current study, the ELM can elucidate what aspect of a corporate social media post (i.e., functional attributes vs.
message content) serves as which type of information processing cues (central vs.peripheral cues). Previous studies on ELM in online
environments have identified several mechanical and aesthetic features of technological interfaces as peripheral cues. Some examples
of mechanical features include availability of interactive features, navigation design, and connectedness (Cyr et al., 2018; Goh & Chi,
2017; Xu & Sundar, 2016). Visual elements, such as background wallpaper, photo, and presentation format, also function as per-
ipheral cues (Cho, 2003; Goh & Chi, 2017; SanJosé-Cabezudo, Gutiérrez-Arranz, & Gutiérrez-Cillán, 2009). Accordingly, it seems that
in social media communication, post features that do not concern the central content or argument in the post can be considered as
peripheral cues, whereas content-focused attributes of the post are more likely to be processed as central cues (Goh & Chi, 2017;
Guillory & Sundar, 2014; Petty & Cacioppo, 1984).
Following these previous studies’ insights, this study proposes the multimedia features or functional traits of a corporate Facebook
post as the peripheral cues in publics’ information processing. These traits include the post’s functional interactivity that stems from
the mechanical structure of the Facebook interface, and the post’s vividness that relates to the sensory cues presented in the post
(Steuer, 1992). Comparatively, the emotional/non-emotional content contained in corporate Facebook messages, as part of the
message argument that yields publics’ evaluation of the message quality, tends to trigger publics’ central route of processing. By
corresponding the functional traits with peripheral cues and the message content with central cues as implied by the ELM, this study
investigates these two aspects of corporate posts in a comprehensive manner, thus contributing to corporate social media commu-
nication literature. Additionally, it is noteworthy that many previous studies on the ELM have been focusing on how these two types
of information cues lead to individuals’ attitudinal and behavioral responses to messages (e.g., Ott et al., 2016; Goh & Chi, 2017).
Given the context of this study concerns social media communication, the crucial online behavioral outcome among corporate
publics—public engagement as measured by liking, sharing, and commenting—is studied as the consequence of the two types of
information cues.

2.3. Public engagement via functional traits: functional interactivity and message vividness

2.3.1. Functional interactivity

Interactivity has been conceptualized and operationalized in a number of different ways across various disciplines (see Kiousis,
2002, for a review). This study follows a widely adopted view of interactivity originating from the field of computer-mediated
communication (CMC). According to Sundar, Kalyanaraman, and Brown, (2003), there are two major types of interactivity: func-
tional interactivity and contingency interactivity. As a predominant type of interactivity examined in CMC literature, functional
interactivity refers to “an interface’s capacity for conducting a dialogue or information exchange between users and the interface”
(Sundar et al., 2003, p. 33). It emphasizes the technological features that an interface provides for message senders and receivers to
interact with the interface and contribute to mutual discourse (Sundar et al., 2003). In other words, functional interactivity is about
human-to-computer interactions. A highly interactive interface is generally characterized by offering users a variety of technological
tools including hyperlinks, menu bars, site search tools, and so on; thus providing increased functionality compared with low-
interactivity interfaces (Sundar, Xu, & Bellur, 2010). On the other hand, contingency interactivity concerns the message flow on an
interface as it deals with how subsequent messages are contingent upon prior messages (Rafaeli, 1988). In public relations research, it
is commonly operationalized as the organizations’ responses to user comments (e.g., Lee & Park, 2013; Li & Li, 2014; Sung & Kim,
2014). Given that the current study focuses on examining organizations’ interactivity strategies as indicated by Facebook system-
generated technological features such as hyperlinks, hashtags, and mentions, the functional view of interactivity is adopted herein.
Adopting the functional approach of interactivity to the realm of social media, previous studies have revealed mixed results
regarding how functional interactivity, manifested by hyperlinks, hashtags and other interface features, affects user responses (e.g.,
Chen, Hong et al., 2017; Liu, Li, Ji, North, & Yang, 2017). Some argued that by allowing users to take action and interact with the
interface (e.g., clicking hyperlinks), messages with higher functional interactivity enhanced the user’s sense of control and self-
efficacy, thus generating higher levels of engagement (Liu et al., 2017). However, others studies discovered that when functional
interactivity became too high, it may create increased cognitive load, thereby producing more negative responses from the user (Xu &

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Sundar, 2016). In the context of Facebook communication, several empirical studies found that when multiple interactivity features
such as hyperlinks, hashtags, and mentions are added to a post, the structural complexity and the length of the post are greatly
increased. This contradicts Facebook’s norm of shorter content, thus reducing user enthusiasm towards engagement (Cvijikj &
Michahelles, 2013; Sabate, Berbegal-Mirabent, Cañabate, & Lebherz, 2014; Tafesse, 2015). In view of the inconsistent results from
previous empirical studies, this research asks:
RQ1. How does functional interactivity in corporate Facebook posts impact public engagement as measured by (a) number of likes,
(b) number of shares, and (c) number of user comments responding to corporate Facebook posts?

2.3.2. Vividness
In addition to functional interactivity, another peripheral cue embedded in corporate social media posts is post vividness.
Vividness refers to “the representational richness of a mediated environment as defined by its formal features; that is, the way in
which an environment presents information to the senses” (Steuer, 1992, p. 81). It is also known as media richness (Daft & Lengel,
1986). The degree of vividness can differ by the breadth and depth that the media environment presents (Park, Choi, Kim, & Kwon,
2018). Breadth refers to the number of sensory cues presented (e.g., color) and the number of senses stimulated by the medium, while
depth refers to the quality of the presentation (Park et al., 2018). For example, content combining text and images is more vivid than
textual content because images present a richer visual sensory cue. Similarly, a video is more vivid than a static image because the
former stimulates both the visual and hearing senses (de Vries, Gensler, & Leeflang, 2012). Even within the same medium, content
can be designed to present different levels of vividness (Tafesse, 2015).
Vividness is oftentimes operationalized as multimedia features in message content such as images and videos (e.g., Chen, Ji, &
Men, 2017; Liu et al., 2017). In the CMC setting, these features help enhance telepresence that creates a simulated representation of
direct experience (Coyle & Thorson, 2001). According to the telepresence theory, increased sensory perception yields higher attention
during information processing and a longer term of information retention (Blondé & Girandola, 2016). By creating stronger tele-
presence, messages with higher vividness would increase efficacy of information presentation, leading to a higher level of public
engagement on social media. Therefore, this study posits:
H1. Post vividness is positively related to public engagement as measured by (a) the number of likes, (b) the number of shares, and (c)
the number of user comments responding to corporate Facebook posts.
It is worth noting that although functional interactivity and vividness are conceptually different and should be examined sepa-
rately, in the context of Facebook communication, the two can co-exist. Previous studies have pointed out that message content with
high vividness may not embody high interactivity, such as televisions and magazine content (Fortin & Dholakia, 2005). It is also
possible that highly interactive posts, such as texts with hyperlinks, may not be vivid (Liu et al., 2017). However, when it comes to

Fig. 1. Example Facebook post.

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Facebook, certain features such as a shared post by a company (see an example in Fig. 1) carry both the characteristics of interactivity
and vividness. The operationalizations of interactivity and vividness are further discussed under the method section of this study.

2.4. Public engagement via emotional messages

Different from the functionality-based peripheral cues discussed previously, the emotional content of a corporate social media post is
considered to be processed via the central route, from the ELM standpoint. To wit, emotions are one’s cognitive evaluations of his or her
surroundings. They play a powerful role in shaping an individual’s information processing, decision-making, and behaviors (Zhu & Thagard,
2002). Corporate social media messages frequently use emotion-carrying expressions to attract publics’ attention, facilitate dialogue, and
strengthen a company’s online community (Ashley & Tuten, 2015). Nevertheless, despite the importance of emotion in content strategies,
research on its effectiveness is limited in public relations literature (Muralidharan, Dillistone, & Shin, 2011). This study intends to narrow the
gap by assessing the impact of companies’ emotion-carrying messages on public engagement. It borrows insights from the theory of social
sharing of emotions and examines the presence, valence, and strength of emotions in corporate messages on Facebook.

2.4.1. Emotion presence

The theoretical framework of social sharing of emotions denotes that the emotional element of a message accelerates social
transmission of the message and invites interaction among information receivers (Rimé, 2009). According to the theory, emotions
should not be merely regarded as intrapersonal and ephemeral when triggered by a source (in the current context, companies’
Facebook posts) (Rimé, Mesquita, Boca, & Philippot, 1991). Rather, they may spread interpersonally and have long-lasting effects
(Rimé et al., 1991). Abundant evidence has shown that the emotional aspects of a message influence the visibility and shareability of
the message in both online and offline settings, attracting more attention and stimulating more feedback (e.g., Berger & Milkman,
2012; Smith & Petty, 1996). Furthermore, by sharing an emotionally evocative source (e.g., companies’ emotion-carrying messages)
with others, publics can better regulate their own emotional states and co-construct emotional experiences with others, thus culti-
vating social bonding (Peters & Kashima, 2007; Rimé et al., 1991). Following these theoretical tenets, this study proposes that:
H2. Compared with non-emotion-carrying posts, emotion-carrying posts are more likely to generate public engagement as measured
by (a) the number of likes, (b) the number of shares, and (c) the number of user comments responding to corporate Facebook posts.

2.4.2. Emotion valence

A corporate Facebook message can contain positive and/or negative emotions. This points to an important aspect of emotional
content: emotion valence—the positive and negative feelings induced in one’s information consumption experience (Elster, 1998).
Previous research has reported conflicting results regarding the effect of emotion valence on public engagement. Some found a
positivity bias, showing that messages containing positive emotions are more likely to be shared (e.g., Ferrara & Yang, 2015); others
spotted a negativity bias, showing that information with negative emotions is more likely to be shared (e.g., Stieglitz & Dang-Xuan,
2013). This study argues that the effect of emotion valence on information diffusion (i.e., publics’ message sharing behavior) is
contingent on the specific communication context of interest. That is, the negativity bias may become more prominent when the
communication context bears uncertainty and skepticism (e.g., Klein, 1991). Such context prompts people to use and share negative
emotional messages as heuristics to avert risks (Stieglitz & Dang-Xuan, 2013). In contrast, when the context features appealing or
entertaining messages, people are more likely to share these messages because such positive emotional content reflects positively on
the message sender (i.e., publics’ self-presentation motive; Berger & Schwartz, 2011). As the context of this study deals with corporate
Facebook posts, we argue that positivity bias would be more salient in eliciting public engagement. This is because corporate Fa-
cebook posts predominantly contain positive and appealing content such as information for entertainment, promotion, reputation
building, and relationship cultivation (Men & Tsai, 2014; Tao & Wilson, 2015). Sharing this type of content may help fulfill publics’
self-presentation motive. Accordingly, the following hypothesis is formed:
H3. Compared with posts carrying negative emotions, posts carrying positive emotions are more likely to generate public engagement
as measured by (a) the number of likes, (b) the number of shares, and (c) the number of user comments responding to corporate
Facebook posts.

2.4.3. Emotion strength

Another essential trait of emotion is emotion strength. It is defined herein as the extremity or intensity of the emotion contained in
corporate messages (Rimé, 2009). Research has shown that the emotional strength of a message can influence message sharing
(Russell, 1980). That is, as emotions grow in strength, an individual’s need to regulate these emotions becomes more compelling,
which leads to more frequent sharing of these emotions (Rimé, 2009). Furthermore, research has also documented that social media
platforms such as Facebook make social transmission of emotional content convenient (Bazarova, Choi, Schwanda Sosik, Cosley, &
Whitlock, 2015). These platforms make organizational posts with strong emotions more observable and more likely to be shared by
publics (Bazarova et al., 2015). Hence:
H4. Compared with posts of lower emotional strength, posts of higher emotional strength are more likely to generate public
engagement as measured by (a) the number of likes, (b) the number of shares, and (c) the number of user comments responding to
corporate Facebook posts.

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Table 1
Descriptive Statistics of Post Likes, Shares, and Comments by Sector.
Sector Frequency Post Likes Post Shares Post Comments
(%)
Mean Md SD Mean Md SD Mean Md SD

Energy 7 (6.60%) 25.02 14 35.74 3.92 2 6.65 0.54 0 1.40

Materials 6 (5.66%) 364.79 28 1,296.95 6.72 2 33.98 2.23 0 13.63
Industrials 17 (16.04%) 976.28 116 2,790.66 106.63 13 402.25 37.67 3 162.36
Consumer Discretionary 20 (18.87%) 3037.07 176 14,278.05 257.07 17 2,591.33 166.04 11 684.46
Consumer Staples 6 (5.66%) 2058.22 118 6,475.03 159.9 16 761.86 101.61 6 374.41
Health Care 10 (9.43%) 169.47 42 933.54 36.76 7 205.02 3.44 0 16.80
Financials 13 (12.26%) 865.82 25 4,617.14 87.49 4 405.32 12.86 0 80.53
Information Technology 20 (18.87%) 487.64 31 5,489.96 77.75 3 1,440.03 21.54 0 331.35
Telecommunication Services 2 (1.89%) 959.43 109 5166.72 105.36 10 714.01 96.31 21 335.14
Utilities 5 (4.71%) 65.48 8 391.09 22.98 2 158.33 4.50 0 19.47
All 103 (100%) 1030.00 43 7294. 88 105.40 5 1409.90 49.16 1 368.94

2.5. Integrating emotional and functional attributes of corporate messages

Apart from their individual influences on public engagement on social media, ELM research indicated that the two information
cues, functionality-based peripheral cues and content-focused central cues, are likely to interact and impact engagement jointly (Goh
& Chi, 2017). This possibility was also alluded by the telepresence theory. According to the theory, through increased telepresence,
social media posts featured with higher interactivity and vividness levels tend to provoke increased interests among online users (Liu
et al., 2017). In addition, it has been evidenced that a message’s multimedia features such as images and videos may not only
influence users’ cognition but also their emotion, in particular their emotional arousal (Nisbett & Ross, 1980). Thus, the functional
traits of corporate Facebook messages (i.e. functional interactivity and vividness) may influence publics’ emotional arousal and thus
behavioral engagement in a similar way that the emotion-carrying messages would. Following this logic, this study speculates a joint
effect between the functional traits and emotion presence of corporate Facebook messages on public engagement. However, because
extant literature offers very limited insights on whether and how this joint effect work in generating engagement, this study asks:
RQ2. Is there any interaction effect between functional interactivity and emotion presence of corporate Facebook message on public
engagement as measured by (a) the number of likes, (b) the number of shares, and (c) the number of user comments responding to
corporate Facebook posts?
RQ3. Is there any interaction effect between vividness and emotion presence of corporate Facebook message on public engagement as
measured by (a) the number of likes, (b) the number of shares, and (c) the number of user comments responding to corporate
Facebook posts?

3. Method

To test the hypotheses and research questions, this study examined naturally occurring data from 2015 S&P 500 companies’
Facebook pages through data mining and computer-assisted sentiment analysis.

3.1. Data collection and sampling procedure

A list of 2015 S&P 500 companies was obtained from a financial database, Compustat. After a preliminary data screening, 317
companies were identified with active Facebook accounts in 2015. The 317 companies spread across 10 sectors as defined by the
Global Industry Classification Standard. A proportionate stratified sampling method was then utilized by randomly selecting one
third of the companies within each sector, resulting in 106 companies as the final sample. The company sectors and sampling
information can be found in Table 1.
The 106 companies’ complete Facebook posting history in 2015 was retrieved with Python through Facebook’s Graph application
program interface and saved in a relational database. This included textual information of posts, the post’s functional interactivity
and vividness features (e.g., post type, link, hashtag, and mention), the number of likes, shares, and user comments for each post.1 To
avoid potential threat from amalgamation paradox, a set of control variables that indicated companies’ Facebook popularity and
financial performance (i.e., the number of page likes and companies’ total annual revenue) were also collected and modeled as
covariates in analyses. The final sample consisted of 33,379 posts in total.

1
Variables regarding functional interactivity features (i.e. text, link, hashtag, mention, photo, and video) and engagement outcomes (i.e. number
of likes, shares, and comments) were not human coded but directly captured and measured by the Facebook API.

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3.2. Emotion analysis

To measure emotion presence, valence, and strength of the Facebook posts, the textual information of the posts was further
analyzed by SentiStrength.2 SentiStrength uses an algorithm to match words and phrases with its sentiment lexicon and mines
opinions from the texts (Thelwall, Buckley, Paltoglou, Cai, & Kappas, 2010). For example, it can detect sentence structures and
linguistic features including negation (e.g., not happy), emphasis (e.g., very happy), emoticon (e.g., :)), and amplification (e.g.,
haaaaaaapy) (Stieglitz & Dang-Xuan, 2013). SentiStrength also takes into consideration both positive and negative emotions in a
given text by estimating the strength of both. The positive score ranges from 1 (neutral) to 5 (extremely positive), and the negative
score ranges from -1 (neutral) to -5 (extremely negative). SentiStrength also reports trinary results, which classify the text as overall
positive/negative/neutral.

3.3. Operationalization of variables

3.3.1. Functional interactivity

Functional interactivity was operationalized as a categorical variable of five levels (level 0 to level 4) according to the number of
interactive indicators presented in the post (i.e. zero to four indicators). Prior content analysis studies (e.g., Chua & Banerjee, 2015;
de Vries et al., 2012; Luarn, Lin, & Chiu, 2015) coded interactivity into progressive levels depending on whether the interactive action
was trivial with a single click (e.g., call to action), or if it involved time-consuming actions of multiple clicks (e.g., question and quiz).
However, this operationalization was based on website and advertising content and thus was not suitable for Facebook posts. Fa-
cebook posts offered multiple interactive features including (a) hashtags, (b) mentions, (c) interactive external links3 (i.e., an URL
embedded in the post message), and (d) post/event/music/offer shared by a company in its Facebook post (a post can be one of these
types but not multiple), each of which was clickable and can take users to a different page and can be used collectively with other
feature(s). Please see Fig. 1 for an example of a post that contained all four features of hashtag, mention, external links and shared
posts. These measures have been frequently adopted to operationalize functional interactivity in the context of Facebook commu-
nication (e.g., Cvijikj & Michahelles, 2013; Jiang, 2017; Sabate et al., 2014; Tafesse, 2015). Thus, a more comprehensive oper-
ationalization of functional interactivity should reflect all the functional interactive features offered by this social media platform. A
viable solution was to tally the total number of interactive features in each post, resulting in a continuous variable (Tafesse, 2015).
However, there were two issues with this approach: (1) a linear relationship may be falsely assumed between functional interactivity
and dependent outcomes; (2) we cannot compare interactive features with non-interactive posts. Taking into account the afore-
mentioned considerations, this study proposed an alternative measure of functional interactivity that was especially applicable to
social media data. To elaborate, functional interactivity was dummy-coded into five categories ranging from 0 (non-interactive) to 4
(the most interactive). Posts were coded as non-interactive when none of the interactive features were presented. Posts were coded as
level 1, 2, 3, and 4 if they presented 1, 2, 3, and all 4 of the multiple interactive features, respectively. This operationalization allowed
us to observe any non-linear relationship and also compare interactive posts of multiple levels with non-interactive posts.

3.3.2. Vividness
Post vividness was classified into four different levels or types according to the post type. At the time of data collection, Facebook
allowed seven different types of organizational posts: Status, photo, video, as well as shared posts, event, music, or offer. Following
previous research with minor adjustments (Brubaker & Wilson, 2018; Chen, Ji et al., 2017; Chua & Banerjee, 2015; Cvijikj &
Michahelles, 2013; de Vries et al., 2012; Luarn et al., 2015). Vividness was operationalized as a categorical variable with four levels:
(a) none vividness, which only presented textual information; (b) low vividness for photos and images, which presented static
pictorial content; (c) medium vividness for posts, event, music, and offer shared by companies in their Facebook posts, because these
features were displayed via a richer content format that usually included a combination of additional text and images; (d) high
vividness for videos, because videos presented the most amount of media richness with moving imagery and sound. It should be noted
here that shared posts, event, music, and offer, in particular, present a hybrid format that is both functionally interactive (i.e., these
features are clickable linking to an external site) and vivid (i.e., these features are displayed via a richer format usually composed of
additional text and images). Fig. 1 presents an example of shared posts. The image offers a preview of the linked story, adding to the
vividness feature of the post. The entire shared post can also be clicked and linked to the original story at Fortune.com, adding to the
interactivity feature of the post. Therefore, shared posts, event, music, and offer are included in the operationalizations of both
interactivity and vividness.

3.3.3. Emotions
Based on the Sentistrengh result, three emotion variables were operationalized and used for hypothesis testing. Emotion was a
dummy variable representing the emotional presence in a post (0 = no, 1 = yes). Valence was a dummy variable representing the

2
As verified by many empirical studies (e.g., Abbasi, Hassan, & Dhar, 2014; Thelwall et al., 2010), Sentistrength (http://sentistrength.wlv.ac.uk/,
n.d.) has relatively higher accuracy than other opinion mining programs; it is comparable to human-level accuracy for short social web texts in
English. A number of studies have used SentiStrength for empirical testing (e.g., Dang-Xuan et al., 2013).
3
The external link referred to an interactive URL visually displayed in the post message, and should be differentiated from a shared post that
showed only a preview of the shared post.

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overall polarity of the post (0 = negative, 1 = positive)4. Strength was a continuous variable capturing the total amount of sentiment,
computed as strength = (positive_score – negative_score) – 2. The positive and negative scores referred to the positive and negative
scores estimated by Sentistrength. Note that we subtracted “2” from the original score; therefore the range of sentiment was
transformed from [2, 10] to [0, 8] for more intuitive interpretation. In this case, 0 referred to a neutral post with minimum emotion
strength.

3.3.4. Dependent variables

In line with previous research (Ji et al., 2017; Luarn et al., 2015), public engagement was operationalized as the numbers of likes,
shares, and comments each corporate post received from online publics.

3.4. Model specification

To test hypotheses and answer research questions, several negative binomial regression models were constructed. Negative bi-
nomial regression method was chosen due to two reasons. First, in the current study, dependent outcomes were counted as the
number of occurrences with discrete distribution. Second, it was observed that the count variances of the dependent variances were
larger than the means; thus over-dispersion needed to be adjusted. Given that negative binomial regression required a log-trans-
formation of the dependent variable, to interpret the results, the regression coefficients needed to be exponentiated.
To test RQ1 and H1, the following regression function was formulated:5
4 3
log(yj ) = j + f (interactivityfj ) + g (vividnessgj )+ h (log(page _likej )) + k (log(revenuej ))
f =1 g=1
9
+ l (sectorlj )+ m (log(wordcount j )) + j
l=1

Where log( yj ) represented the dependent variables of log( ylike ), log( yshare ) or log( ycomment ). They were log-transformed count data of
public engagement: the number of likes, shares, and comments. j represented constant terms. The independent variables included
dummy variables of interactivityfj indicating whether company posts were at a one, two, three, or four level of functional interactivity;
vividnessgj was dummy variables indicating whether company posts were at a low, medium, or high level of vividness. Further, to
parse out factors that may affect the engagement outcomes, a common set of control variables were included: (1) loglog (revenuej ) ,
each company’s financial performance indicated by annual revenue (a continuous variable and log-transformed); (2)
loglog (page _likej )the total number of page likes of each company’s Facebook account (a continuous variable and log-transformed);
and (3) sectorlj , was dummy variables indicating the industrial sector a company belonged to (nine dummy variables with energy
sector as the reference group); (4) loglog (word _countj ) , word count of each post (a continuous variable and log-transformed).
To test H2 to H4, we added a dummy variable of emotionj (the reference category was non-emotion), dummy variable of valencej
(the reference category was negative), and a continuous variable of strengthj , respectively, to the model, resulting in the following
equation:
4 3
log(yj ) = j + f (interactivityfj ) + g (vividnessgj )+ n (emotionj / valencej / strengthj ) + (log(page _likej ))
h
f =1 g=1
9
+ k (log(revenuej )) + l (sectorlj )+ m (log(word _countj )) + j
l=1

To answer RQ2 and RQ3, another three negative binomial regression models were created corresponding to the three public
engagement outcomes (i.e. liking, sharing, and commenting). Two two-way interaction terms, interactivityj * emotionj and
vividnessj * emotionj , were created and added to the models. The same set of control variables were kept to eliminate confounding
company-level effects. See the regression model below:

log(yj ) = j + f (interactivityj ) + g (vividnessj )

+ n (emotionj ) + o (interactivityj *emotionj ) + p (vividnessj *emotionj ) + (log(page _likej )) + k (log(revenuej ))
h
9
+ l (sectorlj )+ m (log(word _countj )) + j
l=1

4
Neutral posts were treated as missing value for the valence variable.
5
Functional interactivity was dummy-coded such that four dummy variables were included in the models, representing one, two, three, and all
four of the multiple interactive features. Each dummy variable was coded as 1 (representing that a corresponding interactivity level was observed)
and 0 (representing that the corresponding interactivity level was not observed). Non-interactivity was the reference group, indicated by having all
four dummy variables as 0s. Vividness was coded into three dummy variables with none vividness as the reference group. The dummy variables
were coded as 1 or 0 based on whether the corresponding vividness feature was used or not.

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4. Results

4.1. Descriptive statistics

Among the 106 sampled companies, the average number of Facebook page likes by the end of 2015 was 2,732,981 (SD =
7,951,899, Mdn = 193,635). In the year of 2015, the sampled Facebook posts on average received 1030 likes (SD = 7,295,
Mdn = 43), 105 shares (SD = 1,410, Mdn = 5.0) and 49 comments (SD = 369, Mdn = 1). Table 1 shows the average number of page
likes, shares, and comments by each sector. The dominant post type was photo (53.3%), followed by shared link (31.3%), video
(11.6%), status (3.6%), and event/offer/music (.2% combined). As for emotions, positive posts (43.8%) were the most dominant type
followed by neutral posts (38.7%) and negative posts (17.5%).

4.2. Negative binomial regressions results

RQ1. With respect to likes, posts with two (b= -.57, exp (b) = .56, SE=.03, p < .001) and three functional interactivity features
(b= -.57, exp (b) = .56, SE = .04, p < .001) were found to negatively predict the number of likes compared with non-interactive
posts. Posts with one (b = .03, p = .29) and four (b=-.09, p = .55) functional interactivity features showed no significant difference
compared with non-interactive posts predicting likes. Regarding public sharing behavior, posts with one (b = -.10, exp (b) = .91,
SE=.03, p < .001), two (b= -.78, exp (b) = .46, SE=.04, p < .001) and three functional interactivity features (b= -1.08, exp
(b) = .34, SE=.05, p < .001) were found to negatively predict the number of shares received from publics compared with non-
interactive posts. Posts with four functional interactivity features showed no significant difference (b=.23, p = .17). A similar pattern
was found for comments: Posts with one (b=-.57, exp (b) = .56, SE=.04, p < .001), two (b= -1.31, exp (b) = .27, SE = .04,
p < .001) and three functional interactivity features (b= -1.53, exp (b) = .22, SE = .06, p < .001) were found to negatively predict
the number of comments. Posts with four functional interactivity features were not significant in predicting volume of comments (b
= -.13, p = .49).
H1.Vividness features were found to positively predict post likes and shares received from publics, but resulted in mixed findings
regarding comments. Specifically, pictorial content (b=1.67, exp (b) = 5.31, SE = .05, p < .001), shared posts/events/music/offer
(b = .99, exp (b) = 2.69, SE= .05, p < .001), and video content (b = .57, exp (b) = 1.76, SE= .05, p < .001) were all significantly
and positively related to the number of likes. The exponentiated values mean that compared with status posts with no vividness, the
three vividness levels were associated with 431%, 169%, and 76% more likes, respectively. With respect to public sharing behavior,
pictorial content (b = 1.09, exp (b) = 2.98, SE = .06, p < .001), shared posts/events/music/offer (b = 1.18, exp (b) = 3.25, SE =
.06, p < .001), and video content (b=1.10, exp (b) = 3.02, SE = .06, p < .001) were found to be significant and positive predictors.
Compared with posts with only texts, the three vividness levels were associated with 198%, 225%, and 202% more shares from
publics, respectively. Thus, both H1a and H1b were fully supported. Regarding comments, pictorial content positively predicted
comments (b = .29, exp (b) = 1.33, SE = .06, p < .001). However, video content was found to have a negative relationship with
comments (b = -.30, exp (b) = .74, SE = .07, p < .001). The medium level of vividness was not significantly related to the number of
comments (b=.04, p = .60). H1c was rejected. Overall, H1 was partially supported.
H2. Results showed that emotion was a significant predictor for log(like) (b = .23, exp (b) = 1.26, SE = .02, p < .001), log(share)
(b = .18, exp (b) = 1.20, SE = .02, p < .001), and log(comment) (b= .21, exp (b) = 1.23, SE = .03, p < .001). Compared with non-
emotional posts, emotional posts generated approximately 26% more likes, 20% more shares, and 23% more comments from publics,
holding all other covariates constant. H2 was supported.
H3.Valence was found to be a significant and positive predictor for log(like) (b = .06, exp (b) = 1.06, SE = .02, p < .05) and log
(comment) (b = .15, exp (b) = 1.16, SE = .03, p < .001). However, the regression coefficient for valence was negative in the log
(share) model (b = -.18, exp (b) = .84, SE = .03, p < .001). These results implied that compared with negative posts, positive posts
would generate 6% more likes and 16% more comments, but 16% fewer shares from publics, holding all other covariates constant. H3
was partially supported.
H4. Emotion strength was found to be a significant positive predictor of log(like) (b = .08, exp (b) = 1.08, SE = .01, p < .05), log
(share) (b = .11, exp (b) = 1.12, SE= .01, p < .001), and log(comment) (b = .19, exp (b) = 1.21, SE = .01, p < .001). One unit
increase in the total amount of emotional strength was associated with 8% more likes, 12% more shares, and 21% more comments
given by publics, holding all other predictors constant. H4 was fully supported.
RQ2. There was a significant two-way interaction between functional interactivity and emotion presence on log(like) (Wald χ2
(4) = 92.28, p < .001), log(share) (Wald χ2 (4) = 309.30, p < .001), and log(comment) (Wald χ2 (4) = 319.75, p < .001).
Specifically, regarding liking, pairwise comparisons with Sidak adjustments showed that posts with emotion led to more likes than
non-emotional posts when the functional interactivity was at level 0 (no interactivity feature) (Mdiff = .35, p < .001), level 1 (Mdiff =
.12, p < .001), and level 2 (Mdiff = .14, p < .001).6 However, non-emotional posts became more effective when functional inter-
activity was observed as the highest level, level 4 (Mdiff = - .87, p < .01). Similar patterns were also detected for public sharing
behavior. At functional interactivity level 0 (Mdiff = .34, p < .001), level 1 (Mdiff = .27, p < .001), and level 2 (Mdiff = .36, p < .001),
emotional posts generated significantly higher sharing behaviors. Nevertheless, when a post became highly interactive (level 4),
publics tended to share it more often when it was created with no emotions (Mdiff = -3.09, p < .001). When it comes to comments,

6
All mean differences reported for R2 and R3 were based on log transformed values of dependent variables.

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Table 2
Two-way Interaction between Functional Interactivity and Emotion on Engagement Outcomes.
No Emotion With Emotion

Functional Interactivity Functional Interactivity

DVs 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4

log like *** 5.17 5.58 4.81 4.74 5.88 5.52 5.70 4.94 4.65 5.02
log share *** 3.52 3.64 2.60 2.52 4.92 3.86 3.91 2.95 2.50 1.83
log comment *** 3.04 2.54 1.48 1.31 2.17 2.80 2.78 1.90 1.50 3.07

Note: interaction is significant at *** p < .001.

Table 3
Two-way Interaction between Vividness and Emotion on Engagement Outcomes.
No Emotion With Emotion

Vividness Vividness

DVs 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3

log like *** 4.10 6.33 5.55 4.97 3.84 6.10 5.68 5.04
log share *** 1.81 4.04 3.97 3.92 1.93 3.25 3.59 3.28
log comment *** 2.13 2.44 2.24 1.62 2.26 2.70 2.51 2.19

Note: interaction is significant at *** p < .001.

Fig. 2. Interaction effect of emotion and interactivity on like.

publics were more responsive to emotional content as long as a post contained some functional interactivity features (for level 1, Mdiff
= .25, p < .001; for level 2, Mdiff = .43, p < .001; for level 3, Mdiff = .19, p < .05; for level 4, Mdiff = .90, p < .01). However, if a
post had no functional interactivity at all (level 0), publics tended to leave more comments on the one that was created with no
emotions (Mdiff = -.24, p < .001).
RQ3. Results showed significant interaction effects between vividness and emotion on the number of log(like) (Wald χ2
(3) = 199.85, p < .001), log(share) (Wald χ2 (3) = 329.93, p < .001), and log(comment) (Wald χ2 (3) = 66.82, p < .001). Pairwise
comparisons with Sidak adjustments were further performed to detect group differences. Results showed mixed patterns. First, non-
emotional posts were more effective in receiving likes in non-vividness (Mdiff = -.25, p < .05) and low vividness (Mdiff = -.23,
p < .001) conditions. Regarding log(shares), compared with emotional posts, non-emotional posts also generated significantly more
shares from publics. Such differences were beheld in low (Mdiff = -.79, p < .001), medium (Mdiff = -.39, p < .001), and high (Mdiff =
-.65, p < .001) vividness conditions. Interestingly, regarding comments, results were opposite to those of public sharing behavior:
Emotional posts generated more comments than their non-emotional counterparts (vividness low: (Mdiff = .56, p < .001) medium:
(Mdiff = .27, p < .001), and high: (Mdiff = .26, p < .001)). Results for RQ2 and RQ3 are displayed in Table 2 and 3 and Figs. 2–7.

5. Discussion

Guided by the ELM, this study examined two aspects of corporate social media strategies: Functional-based strategies indicated by
functional interactivity and vividness, and emotional-based message strategies measured by emotion presence, valence, and strength.
Using naturally-occurring behavioral data obtained from 106 of S&P 500 companies’ Facebook accounts, this study supported the
impact of both functional and emotional characteristics of corporate Facebook posts on public engagement. With both strategies
combined, companies could create social media content to effectively engage with online publics.
This study found negative relationships between various levels of functional interactivity and public engagement outcomes on

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Fig. 3. Interaction effect of emotion and interactivity on share.

Fig. 4. Interaction effect of emotion and interactivity on comment.

Fig. 5. Interaction effect of emotion and vividness on like.

Fig. 6. Interaction effect of emotion and vividness on share.

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Fig. 7. Interaction effect of emotion and vividness on comment.

Facebook. The effects of functional interactivity did not support the account based on increased feeling of control and self efficacy
(e.g., Liu et al., 2017). Instead, our findings confirmed the account on the increased cognitive load from too much use of features
containing functional interactivity (e.g., Xu & Sundar, 2016). Interestingly, several previous studies in public relations have also
discovered such pattern as they indicated that hyperlinks would actually distract publics from engaging with the central content in
social media posts (e.g., Chen, Hong et al., 2017; Men, Tsai, Chen, & Ji, 2018).
Regarding vividness, positive relationships were confirmed between the levels of vividness and public engagement activities,
including liking and sharing. Such results supported previous findings on the effects of vividness (e.g., Chen, Hong et al., 2017; Liu
et al., 2017). By enhancing the telepresence and sensory experience, messages with varying levels of vividness (i.e., multimedia
content such as pictures and videos) are more likely to engage publics.
Compared with the traits of functional interactivity and vividness, emotions focus on the affective traits presented by the textual
information only. This study found the three aspects of emotions had some substantial influence on Facebook engagement behaviors.
Compared with non-emotional posts, emotional posts led to 26% more likes, 20% more shares, and 23% more comments. In addition,
with one point increase in emotion strength, the associated likes, shares, and comments would increase by 8%, 12%, and 21%,
respectively. Emotion valence can also influence engagement outcomes in different ways. Positivity effect was found for engagement
behavior including likes and comments. Compared with negative posts, positive posts yielded 6% more likes and 16% more com-
ments. However, negativity effect was found for sharing behaviors as positive posts yielded 16% fewer shares than negative posts.
Previous literature addressed that different types of public engagement on social media were associated with different purposes and
impacts (Cho et al., 2014; Ji et al., 2017). Because liking, commenting, and sharing behaviors indicate different types of engagement
(Ji et al., 2017), it is plausible that publics may like and comment on corporate posts to co-create the relationships between orga-
nizations and themselves, but are less likely to share corporations’ positive posts for self-presentation motive. Sharing positive
corporate posts on one’s own social media platform may be perceived as promotional and therefore negatively influences one’s online
image. Indeed, prior studies pointed out that an individual’s psychological motives such as self presentation or self enhancement
affect his or her information transmission/sharing behavior on social media (Berger & Schwartz, 2011; Krämer & Winter, 2008).
Reasonable as this explanation sounds, it cannot be validated by the present research in that the computational and data mining
method employed herein. It is limited in testing causal explanations and exploring possible mechanisms that account for the un-
expected result. Thus, this study recommends future research to adopt qualitative methods such as in-depth interviews, focus groups,
and observational studies to explore why publics demonstrated different engagement behaviors responding to corporate posts with
different emotional valences. Additionally, quantitative methods such as experiments can be used to verify these explanations.
Moreover, the study results demonstrated interesting interaction effects between the emotion and functional traits of corporate
social media posts on public engagement. The identification of these interaction effects is in line with previous ELM research that
found the peripheral and central cues of an online message can jointly affect an individual’s attitudinal and behavioral responses to
the message (e.g., Goh & Chi, 2017). Furthermore, this study observed different interaction effect patterns for different public
engagement outcomes. For the outcomes of liking and sharing, emotion presence was more effective in driving these behaviors when
corporate posts displayed no or low functional interactivity. When the posts were highly interactive, however, emotion presence
became counter-productive. Moreover, emotion presence dampened the effectiveness of vividness on generating likes and shares.
Comparatively, when it comes to the outcome of commenting, a different pattern occurred: Emotion presence was more effective in
generating comments when the post contained some features of functional interactivity (vs. non-interactivity) or vividness (vs. non-
vividness).
The ELM helps provide a plausible explanation for the varying patterns of interaction effects on different public engagement outcomes
(i.e., commenting vs. liking and sharing). Compared with liking and sharing, commenting behavior is considered a more profound level of
engagement (Ji et al., 2017). This level of engagement implies that publics may involve in effortful elaboration on the central content
contained in a corporate post, resulting in the central route of information processing. Contrarily, liking and sharing behaviors, being at
shallower levels of engagement, may indicate a lower likelihood of elaboration on the central message in the post. In this situation, the
peripheral route (i.e., focusing on the cues of functional interactivity and vividness) rather than the central route of processing (i.e., focusing
on the message content per se, including the carried emotion) may dominate (Cho et al., 2014; Petty & Cacioppo, 1984). Said otherwise,
individuals who are “liking” or “sharing” the post may be more attentive to the functional traits embedded in the message than to the
emotion contained in the message content. Hence, emotion presence in the Facebook post would become less effective in generating liking
and sharing, especially when functional interactivity and vividness are high.

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As to the interaction effect pattern on commenting, this behavior, being a more profound form of engagement, may be a result of
heightened arousal among publics. Previous studies found that emotion presence, regardless of valence, would stimulate people’s
actions through an increased arousal level (Berger & Milkman, 2012). Such arousal level may be further uplifted via an enhanced
level of social presence that can be projected from a higher level of functional interactivity and vividness (Berger & Milkman, 2012;
Fortin & Dholakia, 2005). Therefore, emotional posts are more effective in generating commenting behavior when these posts are
interactive and vivid. With that being said, this study calls for future research to verify the above explanations through other methods
such as experiments.

5.1. Theoretical implications

This study takes an interdisciplinary approach and expands the existing theoretical framework of public engagement on social
media in public relations literature. While public engagement on social media has generated considerable scholarly attention (e.g.,
Brubaker & Wilson, 2018; Kim & Yang, 2017; Saxton & Waters, 2014), most studies to date are yet to examine the antecedents of such
engagement by incorporating functional and messaging features of corporate social media communication in a holistic manner.
Through integrating theoretical insights from the ELM, CMC research, and emotion psychology, this study conceptualized corporate
posts’ functional traits and message emotional features as information cues that are subject to distinct routes of processing (peripheral
vs. central) in the minds of publics. Moreover, it provided empirical evidence that demonstrated how these functional versus
emotional cues were differentially related to public engagement outcomes of liking, sharing, and commenting, as well as how the
interplay of these cues jointly prompted these outcomes.
Another theoretical contribution of this study is its emphasis on the emotional content of corporate social media messages and its
nuanced examination of the three aspects of such content: emotional presence, valuence, and strength. Previous public relations
studies that examined corporate communication strategies on social media have largely focused on the informational and cognitive
aspects of organizational messages (e.g., the promotional vs. non-promotional nature of the message or the perceived credibility of
the message; Men & Tsai, 2014; Sung & Kim, 2014). Relatively less attention has been given to investigate how different aspects of
emotional messages may bring different engagement outcomes among publics. Built upon the theoretical framework of social sharing
of emotions, this study made a convincing case that emotional content plays a crucial role in generating liking, sharing, and com-
menting behaviors. More importantly, it uncovered that each distinct aspect of emotion (presence, valence, and strength) yielded
differed impacts on these engagement behaviors. These insights have not been explicitly offered in previous corporate public relations
literature.
Furthermore, the varying effects found on different engagement outcomes on Facebook (i.e., liking, sharing, and commenting)
provide theoretical implications to examine these outcomes differently. Our results supported the rationale that these behaviors
represent different levels of instrumental engagement, with commenting being more profound than liking and sharing (Cho et al.,
2014; Ji et al., 2017). These varying instrumental engagement levels, as informed by the ELM, may result from different levels of
elaboration in publics’ message processing efforts (Goh & Chi, 2017). Those who are engaging at a shallower level via “liking” and
“sharing” behaviors are more likely to process corporate Facebook messages via the peripheral route, focusing more on the functional
traits such as functional interactivity and message vividness. Those who are engaging at a more profound level via “commenting”
behavior are more likely to process corporate messages via the central route and direct more attention to the emotion contained in the
message. By applying the ELM to the current context, this study bridges the theory with corporate communication and public
engagement literature in public relations. Simultaneously, this study also expands the scope of this body of literature in public
relations by connecting it to ELM-related research within the broader field of communication and psychology.
Lastly, this study complements previous content analysis studies and controlled experimental research on the telepresence effect
(e.g., Sundar et al., 2003) and the social sharing of emotions (e.g., Luminet, Bouts, Delie, Manstead, & Rimé, 2000) by testing these
effects using a large set of real behavioral data. Evidence gained from the behavioral insights help increase the external validity of the
aforementioned theoretical frameworks.
It should be noted that this study measures public engagement on social media via likes, shares, and comments because these
naturally-occurring behavioral indicators are not only directly observable, which enables easy replications of the study results by
future research, but can also be indicative of publics’ cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to organizational messages
(Johnston, 2018; Kim & Yang, 2017; Men & Tsai, 2014). However, simply engaging publics via likes, shares, and comments should
not be equated to publics’ overall engagement with organizational communication. As Johnston and Taylor (2018)) noted, social
media metrics such as likes and page visits capture the basic level of public engagement on social media and are possible mea-
surements of this level of engagement. Yet, a moderate level of engagement exemplified by organization-public relationship qualities
(e.g., trust and satisfaction) and a high level of engagement indicated by collective actions and civic movements cannot be easily
quantified or measured by counting the number of these impressions (Johnston & Taylor, 2018). Nonetheless, as different levels of
engagement are interconnected rather than mutually exclusive (Johnston & Taylor, 2018), engagement indexed by behavioral in-
dicators are likely to imply publics’ relational state with the company (e.g., people tend to share a Facebook post of a company that
they trust) and their tendency to partake in collective actions (e.g., people like and comment on a company’s post that calls for their
collective action to support a social cause). Therefore, these indicators provide the potential to be connected with higher levels of
engagement. In this sense, the results of this study pertaining to the basic level of engagement offer valuable insights on how the
emotional and functional oriented message strategies may help put into motion the potential for engagement between companies and
their publics and ultimately generate higher levels of engagement.

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5.2. Practical implications

Practically, this study provides implications for corporate public relations professionals on how to optimize the functional features
of social media platforms and better create content strategies to engage publics more effectively. It suggests that corporations should
take advantage of social media’s functional features to enhance telepresence of their message content. Yet, caution should be taken
because too much functional interactivity would generate higher cognitive load and have deflating effects on public engagement. As
the study results showed that the effect of emotional content would diminish when functional interactivity was high, professionals
should be strategic such that the functional features incorporated in their message design would not impose high cognitive load, thus
distracting publics from the central content of the message.
Moreover, findings on the effects of emotion presence, valence, and strength suggest that companies should not confine their
message strategies to be purely informational. Instead, they should incorporate emotions in the messages to engage publics emo-
tionally. Our study observed that emotional content was more effective in generating public engagement behaviors measured by
likes, comments, and shares than non-emotional content. As the emotion strength increased, such an effect became more pronounced.
However, when it comes to valence, positive emotions were more effective in generating likes and comments, but less effective in
generating shares. These findings lend further insights on the necessity for companies to consider the different manifestations of
public engagement behaviors and prioritize the different dimensions of emotional content accordingly.
Furthermore, caution should be taken when designing and distributing emotional messages on corporate social media platforms.
According to our findings and additional insights from the ELM (Petty et al., 1983), emotional content might not work well among
publics who demonstrate low involvement with the company and/or its product. This is because low-involvement publics are more
likely to process corporate social media messages through the peripheral route, where they tend to get distracted from the message
content by the interactive and vivid functional traits on social media. Thus, to maximize the positive impact of emotional messages on
public engagement, cultivating a sense of involvement seems to become a prerequisite. Without more profound involvement with the
company or its product, emotional content on social media might not work effectively as intended.
Lastly, our results suggested that the presence of emotion did not always complement the functional traits on stimulating pubic
engagement. To prevent companies from abusing message strategies and technical functions by applying too many of them in
message building, we hope the current study provides a strategic plan of how to integrate different functional and emotional stra-
tegies to generate public engagement.
It is noteworthy that following the instrumental perspective of engagement, publics’ social media engagement may not im-
mediately lead to changes at a societal level, such as increasing civic awareness, creating social capital, and forming social em-
beddedness (Johnston & Taylor, 2018). However, the conversational, interactive, empowering, and synchronous nature of social
media carries a great potential to achieve social engagement as theorized by the interpretivist view of engagement (Johnston &
Taylor, 2018; Men et al., 2018). For public relations practitioners, it is suggested that publics’ social media engagement manifested by
natural interactive behaviors such as liking, sharing, and commenting provides companies with opportunities to listen to, understand,
and respond to publics’ voices, and collaboratively address various issues with them. Such engagement may pave the path for both
entities to achieve mutual trust and respect and ultimately co-cultivate a fully functioning society (Heath, 2006; Taylor & Kent,
2014). Practitioners may also examine how the emotional and functional oriented message strategies may influence sensemaking by
publics at an individual level and cumulatively create engagement on the organizational or even societal level.

5.3. Limitations and suggestions for future research

There are a few caveats to be addressed by future research. The validity of the sentiment analysis program needs to be further
verified. Although SentiStrength is suggested to have a relatively high accuracy rate compared with other opinion mining programs
(e.g., Dang-Xuan, Stieglitz, Wladarsch, & Neuberger, 2013; Thelwall et al., 2010), there are still discrepancies between machine-
learned emotions and human level accuracy. In addition, although the results of interaction effects suggest that the varying effect of
engagement may result from different routes of processing social media posts, the causality is yet to be tested. Future studies may
triangulate the effect patterns found from the computational approach with controlled experimental designs to further test the causal
effect. Finally, considering the contested nature of the construct of engagement, future research should adopt other approaches (see
Johnston & Taylor, 2018, for details) to operationalize public engagement on social media so as to yield more insights on how publics
experience and respond to organizational messages on these interactive platforms.
To conclude, in the era of digital communication, corporate public relations practitioners are challenged to develop a deep
understanding of publics’ online communication behaviors and to enhance communication effectiveness through promoting orga-
nization-public online engagement. This study offers useful insights that help practitioners to achieve these goals. Its findings also
enrich public relations scholarships on corporate communication and public engagement in the digital era.

Acknowledgements

This research project was funded by the RSCA Infusion Grant at San Jose State University.

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