From Marketer-Generated Content to User-Generated Content: Evidence from Online Health Communities

How should marketers engage with social media features in online communities to shape knowledge contributions from customers in their potential markets? This is an important question because customer contributions are important drivers of business value. We examine the effect of marketer generated content in online health communities on user-generated content, using longitudinal data from a leading online health community. We focus on the firm’s practice of knowledge investment, in which its marketers provide product information or share life experience by posting in the social interaction section of online health platforms. The results demonstrate that because of knowledge investment in healthcare markets, the use of platform’s social media feature by marketer influence both the quantity and linguistics features of customer-generated content

EXAMINING THE INFLUENCE OF ONLINE USER GENERATED CONTENT ON CONSUMER CHOICE: VARIETY SEEKING, LEARNING, AND SHARING

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Commercialized Content on Social Media Platforms: Exploring the Drivers of the Viewership of Paid Q&A

Paying to view others’ answers is an emerging business model happening on Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter. Yet, little is known about what drives people to pay to view others’ answers. Based on signaling theory and related literature, we develop a model to predict the viewership of paid-for answers. Using unique panel data of 417 question-to-answers, we find that answer providers’ Weibo level, the number of comments that the paid-for answer receives, as well as the question price positively affect the viewership of the paid-for answer. Our findings contribute to the literature and enlighten content providers and platform organization on how to facilitate individual users to commercialize content for profits