Abstract

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement ignited divergent social media reactions and conversations. Addressing the importance of message sources, this study aims to (1) compare audience reactions toward BLM content posted by brands and by influencers with brand sponsorship and (2) apply computational methods in influencer marketing to examine a large volume of social media texts qualitatively and quantitatively. A total of 32,702 comments on 110 Instagram posts on BLM were collected and analyzed through both human efforts and machine-learning algorithms. As a result, we found that black-influencer-created BLM attracted higher consumer engagement than posts by nonblack influencers and brands. Moreover, we generated seven different themes among which brands received the highest percentages of criticism, demands for more proactive actions, and purchase/boycott intentions. Influencers had more comments that reflected personal stories and emotion regarding BLM. Black influencers in particular received the highest percentage of praise and appreciation. Finally, comments on brands’ BLM posts embedded the highest proportion of negative sentiment, while those of black influencers’ posts were predominantly positive. Therefore, the comparisons of BLM sources elucidate the promising potential of influencers in communicating corporate social responsibility (CSR) messages of racial equality—a topic which engenders high relevance to every individual in our society.

摘要

Black Lives Matter (BLM) 运动引发了不同的社交媒体反应和对话。针对消息来源的重要性，本研究旨在 (1) 比较受众对品牌和有品牌赞助的影响者发布的 BLM 内容的反应，以及 (2) 在影响者营销中应用计算方法，以定性和数量上。通过人工和机器学习算法，共收集和分析了 BLM 上 110 个 Instagram 帖子的 32,702 条评论。结果，我们发现黑人影响者创建的 BLM 比非黑人影响者和品牌的帖子吸引了更高的消费者参与度。此外，我们生成了七个不同的主题，其中品牌受到的批评百分比最高，要求采取更积极的行动，和购买/抵制意图。影响者有更多的评论反映了有关 BLM 的个人故事和情感。尤其是黑人影响者获得了最高比例的赞扬和赞赏。最后，对品牌 BLM 帖子的评论嵌入了最高比例的负面情绪，而黑人影响者的帖子则主要是积极的。因此，对 BLM 来源的比较阐明了影响者在传播种族平等的企业社会责任 (CSR) 信息方面的潜力——这个话题与我们社会中的每个人都具有高度相关性。对品牌 BLM 帖子的评论包含最高比例的负面情绪，而黑人影响者帖子的评论主要是正面情绪。因此，对 BLM 来源的比较阐明了影响者在传播种族平等的企业社会责任 (CSR) 信息方面的潜力——这个话题与我们社会中的每个人都具有高度相关性。对品牌 BLM 帖子的评论包含最高比例的负面情绪，而黑人影响者帖子的评论主要是正面情绪。因此，对 BLM 来源的比较阐明了影响者在传播种族平等的企业社会责任 (CSR) 信息方面的潜力——这个话题与我们社会中的每个人都具有高度相关性。