Impact of Expressed Emotions (EE) in TikTok Beauty Influencers' Content on the Degree of Engagement: the Moderating Effect of Inclusive Marketing Factors (IMF)

Abstract

Nowadays, companies using social media are looking for innovative ways to improve engagement on their pages. Previous studies show the positive effect of eliciting emotions on engagement in image- and text-based platforms. This study uses TikTok, a short-form, video-based application, to investigate the effect of verbal- and non-verbal emotional expressions (EE) in video content on social media engagement and examines the moderating effect of Inclusive Marketing Factors (IMF) on this relationship by analyzing the videos published by the top 20 American beauty influencers in TikTok. Results show that using Emojis, an indicator of non-verbal EE, can positively influence the number of likes and shares. Additionally, Emotional Intensity (EI), as an indicator of verbal EE, has a positive, significant effect on the number of likes. However, the presence of IMF negatively moderates the relationship between EI and the number of likes, and EI and the number of shares.