Influencing for the greater good: Data mining of social media influencers’ social cause communication

Abstract

Recently, social media influencers have promoted social campaigns and movements, contributing to heightened interest and concern among the public about social causes. This study explores influencers’ social cause communication to understand message attributes, which may be catalysts in increasing public attention to the message and engagement in social causes. Data from Instagram were collected, and data mining with sentiment and semantic network analyses was conducted to discover the patterns of sentiments and themes used in influencers’ social cause communication. The results were then compared with the corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication framework proposed by a previous study. Influencers’ message contents comparable to effective CSR communication were found, as well as their distinct features (e.g. emotional expressions with sentimental words and product promotions). The study provides a foundational understanding of influencers’ communication practices, which may contribute to future research investigating the impacts of those message factors on public perceptions.