Exploring the factors affecting content dissemination through WeChat official accounts: a heuristic-systematic model perspective

Bo Yang (), Yue Hu (), Xusen Cheng (), Ying Bao () and Wenjing Chen ()
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Bo Yang: Renmin University of China
Yue Hu: Renmin University of China
Xusen Cheng: Renmin University of China
Ying Bao: University of International Business and Economics
Wenjing Chen: Renmin University of China

Electronic Commerce Research, 2023, vol. 23, issue 4, No 26, 2713-2735

Abstract: Abstract WeChat official accounts attract huge traffic and have an extremely high marketing value. However, as the number of accounts on the platform increases, a new concern for the account operators is garnering more traffic than competitors. Here, we employed the heuristic-systematic model to classify the influencing factors affecting information dissemination through WeChat official accounts and provided reference suggestions for the operators. We used data from nine official accounts of Beijing Sootoo Network Company as the research object and employed negative binomial regression. Our empirical results revealed that for entertainment and emotion official accounts, article titles that fit the account theme improved content spread, while they negatively affected traffic on news official accounts. We observed that the first article was advantageous when harnessed properly and that the number of images and amount of text was also crucial. Owing to time and manpower constraints, we only selected nine WeChat official accounts in this study.

Keywords: WeChat; Official accounts; Dissemination; Heuristic-systematic model; Content analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/s10660-022-09559-3

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