Audience Engagement on Social Media – A Study on how Wendy’s Use Different Forms of Audience Engagement in their Social Media Posts Emma Kauppila Pro gradu-avhandling i engelska språket och litteraturen Handledare: Brita Wårvik Fakulteten för humaniora, psykologi och teologi Åbo Akademi (2019) ÅBO AKADEMI – FAKULTETEN FÖR HUMANIORA, PSYKOLOGI OCH TEOLOGI Abstrakt för avhandling pro gradu Ämne: Engelska språket och litteraturen Författare: Emma Kauppila Arbetets titel: Audience Engagement on Social Media – A Study on how Wendy’s Use Different Forms of Audience Engagement in their Social Media Posts Handledare: Brita Wårvik Handledare: Abstrakt: Social media have acquired important roles in both private and public matters. While creating different networks for people to connect with each other, social media also create networks where businesses can connect with their consumers and create and maintain an online relationship with them. In order to create a valuable relationship the businesses need to know how to interact with their online audience. The businesses also need to listen to their audiences so that they learn what the audience actually is expecting from the business. This leads to the need of audience engagement, i.e. interactive communication between the business and the audience. In order to create a situation where engagement is likely to take place, online users can use different forms of audience engagement in their online content. The purpose of this thesis is to study the language used online on social media and how that language can be used to create audience engagement. The research questions the thesis attempts to answer are 1. What forms of audience engagement can be found and defined? 2. What forms of audience engagement do Wendy’s use in their social media posts? and 3. What kind of similarities, differences and patterns can there be detected regarding the use of forms of audience engagement on the different social media platforms? The study is a qualitative research that defines the different forms of audience engagement through previous research and then identifies the use of those forms in the business Wendy’s social media content. The social media platforms that are central to this study are Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Ten posts from each platform are analysed by looking at the use of different forms of audience engagement. The analysis is then discussed regarding notable similarities, differences and patterns in the use of the forms on the different platforms. The results show that Wendy’s use different forms of audience engagement on all three platforms on several occasions. While no clear pattern can be distinguished between the uses of forms of audience engagement, specific similarities and differences can still be recognised. A result that clearly stands out is the difference between the messages and themes on Twitter and the messages and themes on Facebook and Instagram. Twitter is used to discuss humorous themes and through those themes possibly manage the relationship the business has with its audience. Facebook and Instagram on the other hand focus more on promotional content and content that can give more value to the business and possibly create more revenue. Different forms of audience engagement used in Wendy’s online content do however not limit other content that can also be engaging but mainly supports the message the business tries to communicate online. Nyckelord: Social media, audience engagement, forms of audience engagement, online communication, language of advertising, online discourse Datum: 13.5.2019 Sidoantal: 98 Abstraktet godkänt som mognadsprov: Table of Contents 1 Introduction...............................................................................................................1 2 The discourse of advertising ....................................................................................3 2.1 Advertising dialogue ..........................................................................................7 2.2 Persuasion in advertising...................................................................................8 3 Online communication ...........................................................................................10 3.1 Social media platforms ....................................................................................10 3.2 Social media as a tool for online communication ..........................................11 3.3 Social media as a marketing tool ....................................................................12 3.3.1 User-generated content .............................................................................14 3.3.2 Paid social media versus organic social media........................................15 4 Defining the Audience ............................................................................................18 4.1 Online identity ..................................................................................................20 4.2 Target audiences ..............................................................................................21 5 Audience engagement .............................................................................................22 5.1 Defining engagement........................................................................................23 5.2 Defining audience engagement .......................................................................25 5.3 Forms of audience engagement.......................................................................26 5.3.1 Comments, replies, likes or reactions, shares, and views.......................27 5.3.2 Calls to action .............................................................................................28 5.3.3 Pronouns .....................................................................................................29 5.3.4 Interests ......................................................................................................30 5.3.5 Emotions .....................................................................................................32 5.3.6 Humour.......................................................................................................33 5.4 Summary of forms of audience engagement..................................................34 6 Methods and data....................................................................................................36 6.1 Methods.............................................................................................................36 6.2 Wendy’s.............................................................................................................37 6.3 Social Media Platforms....................................................................................38 6.3.1 Twitter ........................................................................................................38 6.3.2 Facebook .....................................................................................................39 6.3.3 Instagram ...................................................................................................39 7 Results ......................................................................................................................41 7.1 Twitter...............................................................................................................41 7.2 Facebook ...........................................................................................................54 7.3 Instagram ..........................................................................................................62 8 Comparative Analysis and Discussion ..................................................................71 8.1 Similarities between platforms and the use of forms of audience engagement ................................................................................................................71 8.2 Differences between platforms and the use of forms of audience engagement ................................................................................................................73 8.3 Detectable patterns between the use of forms of audience engagement and engagement metrics...................................................................................................74 8.4 Other thoughts..................................................................................................77 9 Conclusion ...............................................................................................................79 10 Summary in Swedish – Svensk sammanfattning ...............................................82 10.1 Introduktion ...................................................................................................82 10.2 Reklamspråk ..................................................................................................82 10.2.1 Dialog inom reklamer..............................................................................83 10.2.2 Övertygande inom reklamer...................................................................83 10.3 Onlinekommunikation...................................................................................84 10.4 Onlinepublik ...................................................................................................85 10.5 Publikengagemang .........................................................................................86 10.5.1 Former av publikengagemang................................................................87