Ted Matherly, Jared Watson and Kalinda Ukanwa, “Dynamic Effects of First-Person Pronouns on Content Engagement,” under review at the Journal of Marketing Research.
With increased competition in the attention economy, content creators need sustainable strategies for cultivating consumer engagement. Prior research has shown that using first-person singular pronouns (FPP), such as “I” or “me” can build relationships and increase engagement, but this has not been tested dynamically. However, we argue that the effects of FPP change as the relationship evolves. Through a unique Twitter dataset tracking creator-audience dyads over three years, a naïve analysis neglecting the dynamic nature of these relationships finds no association between FPP usage and engagement. But a model incorporating dynamic effects reveals that a 10% increase in FPP usage is associated with a 29.2% increase in engagement initially. This positive association of FPP with engagement attenuates after eight months and becomes negative after fourteen months. We propose this pattern is consistent with the notion that continued use of FPP increasingly suggests self-focus to audience members, rather than the relationship-building motivations initially inferred. We show converging evidence through moderation tests and exploration of boundary conditions. Our results suggest that neglecting relationship duration may underestimate the effectiveness of FPP in generating engagement, but content creators should consider the mix of recent versus long-term followers in their communication strategies.
Cover photo by bixentro, licensed Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0 DEED).