Communication and Conversation: An Empirical Study on the Influencing Factors of Brand Information Value on Social Media

This study explores the impact of content topic, media form, and conversation principle on brand information value (emotion, reputation, and relationship value). Data were collected from 14 brands through a web crawler and processed with coding and sentiment analysis. Empirical results from non-parametric tests and multiple linear regression (MLR) show that content containing community-building topics greatly influences brand information value. Compared to content that merely provides an information-providing topic, content with an action-encouraging topic has a greater effect on brand information value. There were significant differences in reputation value among the three communication modalities, but no notable variances in relationship value. The high modality was stronger for emotion value than the moderate or low modalities. For conversation features, post frequency, readability, relevance, and brand response positively influence brand information value. This study utilizes the 5W communication model as its foundational framework, extends the conversation principle to this model, and enriches content marketing theories by taking a more comprehensive brand perspective. Additionally, this study finds the relationship between the driving factors and brand information value by leveraging big data from online platforms, offering insights and a research foundation for future studies on online brand value.