Three Essays on Video-sharing Social Media

Abstract

As social media emerges as a major distribution and consumption platform for video contents, consumers behavior on video-sharing social media is getting important to marketers and researchers. However, compared with research on text-based social media channels such as blogs and microblogging service, studies on video-sharing social media have been limited. To fill the gap of current studies and enhance our understanding of social media, I attempt to analyze consumers behavior on video-sharing social media and its business implications in three essays. In Essay 1, I attempt to examine consumers video-sharing behavior on social media, focusing on viewer engagement and characteristics of video contents. To facilitate user activities, most of social media channels offer functions to share a link of particular post or video. However, though previous researchers attempted to find out motivation and antecedents of consumers sharing behavior, we have limited understanding on why consumers share video contents on video-sharing social media. Among diverse determinants on sharing behavior, Essay 1 investigates whether viewer engagement is an antecedent of video-sharing activities by consumers and emotionally-charged video contents are likely to be shared. Suggesting metrics of viewer engagement on videos and linking viewer engagement with video-sharing behavior, this research finds out that average watching time, the number of comments, and the ratio of like counts can be good indicators of viewer engagement on video-sharing social media. In addition, this research shows that hedonic videos are likely to be shared than utilitarian videos on video-sharing social media. As a starting point of viral marketing, it comes to be important to understand antecedents of consumers video-sharing behaviour on social media. Among various determinants in video-sharing behaviour, this research contributes to finding out how viewer engagement and hedonic characteristics in video contents work in viewers sharing behavior. In Essay 2, I examine the impact of sharing video contents on business performance, focusing on the effects of sharing movie trailers on box office revenue. In a marketing perspective, it has been argued that social influence affects consumers decision-making in purchase. In the context of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), a lot of social media research points out that text-based eWOM has an influence on business performance. However, though video-sharing social media emerged as a major consumption and distribution channel for entertainment goods such as music and movie, there has been limited research in terms of the impact of promotional video contents on actual sales. Essay 2 attempts to analyze whether consumers sharing activities of movie trailers make social influence and thus increase box office revenue. Focusing on movie trailers on video-sharing social media, this research finds out that sharing movie trailers has a positive impact on box office revenue. In addition, the study shows that sharing movie trailers has a greater impact on box office revenue in the early stage of movie release than in the later stage. Showing the positive relationship between sharing a movie trailer and box office revenue of the movie, this research reveals that promotion with social media can serve as an essential marketing tool for entertainment goods like movies. Also, contrary to conventional wisdom in offline environment, this research contributes to highlighting that sharing movie trailers has a greater impact on box office revenue in the early stage than in the later stage after movie release. Finally, in Essay 3, I investigate the role of video-sharing social media as a music consumption channel and its impact on tourism. Previous papers on tourism confirmed that cultural contents such as films and TV dramas have a positive impact on the influx of tourists. Though many tourism researchers examined the effects of media in various contexts, there has been limited research regarding the impact of social media on tourism. Especially, no studies investigated the role of social media as a music consumption channel and its impact on tourism. As video-sharing social media rapidly emerges as a major consumption channel of entertainment goods, it is required for researchers and practitioners to examine the impact of video consumption through social media in the context of tourism. Expanding current research horizon in social media and media-induced tourism, I attempt to analyse the impact of the social media on the music-induced tourism with a case of Korean pop music and inbound tourism to Korea. Controlling many of the determinants of tourism like population, trade, relative price, VISA waiver, and geographical distance, the study finds out that engagement of K-pop music video clips on video-sharing social media is a significant predictor for the flow of inbound tourists to Korea. This research contributes to expanding tourism research on social media and enriching a growing body of media-induced tourism research, while pursuing interdisciplinary research regarding music-consumption via social media and its impact on tourism. Also, this study suggests a new research method for media-induced tourism in terms of data collection. From a practical perspective, this research gives a practical implication for marketers how to attract international tourists through taking advantage of social media.