How marketer-generated content characteristics affect consumer engagement? Empirical evidence from China's WeChat food marketing

Purpose Leveraging marketer-generated content (MGC) can increase firms' success. However, few studies uncover the effects of MGC-related attributes on consumer engagement in the context of food marketing. This paper aims to explore the influence of MGC characteristics (valence, content types, vividness and interactivity) on consumer engagement. Design/methodology/approach This study uses WeChat official account data of seven food companies from China and conducts negative binomial regression models. Findings The findings indicate that different MGC-related characteristics have separate impacts on consumer WeChat engagement. Title valence, transactional title content and title with punctuation vividness negatively affect consumers' consuming engagement. Knowledgeable or entertaining title content and title with interactivity both positively affect consumers' consuming engagement. Moreover, transactional body text content negatively influences consumers' contributing engagement, whereas entertaining body text content shows positive effects. Vivid and interactive MGC body text attributes enhance consumers' contributing engagement behavior. Originality/value This study contributes to social media research in food marketplaces and sheds light on the effect of different WeChat MGC characteristics on separate consumer engagement.