Film industry study stresses value of user-generated content from fans

The study, entitled ‘The Ripple Effect of Firm-Generated Content on New Movie Releases’, is published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Marketing Research. It analyses more than 145,000 firm-generated and 5.9-million user-generated Twitter posts associated with 159 movies.

The conventional belief has been that social media allows marketers to influence the purchase behaviour of their followers directly. 

However, the research team’s findings show that the way firm-generated content works in new product releases is indirectly – through the user-generated content or word of mouth spread by followers of firms’ social media accounts.

Even multiple firm-based accounts are not as effective

“Interestingly, even when multiple social media accounts from the movie’s actors, directors and studio are used to promote a new movie, the firm-generated content from the main movie account is more effective than other firm-related accounts in driving sales,” says Shijie Lu, lead author and Associate Professor of Marketing at Notre Dame.

“But the user-generated content resulting from that main account sells even more. So, firm-generated content from celebrity actors and directors who are active on social media does not improve box office performances nearly as much as user-generated content from the fans.”

Lu adds: “This suggests that movie executives should focus on creating firm-generated content that sparks conversations among followers when new movies are released.

“The ‘Barbie’ movie’s recent retweet of a father who dressed in a Barbie costume when taking his daughter to watch the movie is a good example of getting followers to talk about the movie spontaneously.”

Although the study focused on movies, Lu believes the findings can be generalised to other products – including TV shows, games, music and books.

You can find out more about the research here.