Emotional Language: A Key to Online Engagement
When publishing content online, brands may find it difficult to get exposure and maintain an audience’s attention. Whether advertising, providing business updates, or posting a listing, sellers want to hold audience attention and make sure readers engage with and remember their content. It turns out that the strategies required to capture sustained engagement can be different from the strategies which will garner clicks and initial exposure.
Our studies examine the factors that contribute to holding an audience’s attention, especially with the use of emotional language and textual simplicity in a piece of content. We find that the use of anxious, exciting, and hopeful language holds attention, while sad language discourages it. Additionally, we find that the use of simple words and sentence structures helps to hold people’s attention better than complex or unfamiliar language.
The Study
To determine what types of language best hold attention and drive engagement, we used a natural language processing (NLP) algorithm to examine over 600,000 reading sessions from more than 35,000 pieces of content in controlled experiments. We received data from a major content intelligence company on a representative random sample of page consumption events over a two-week period from nine sites that cover a wide range of topics. At the time of data collection, all of these sites had fixed layouts, did not contain ads, and were not reformatted between mobile, desktop, or other devices. This allowed us to analyze the content of the text through natural language processing and compare it to how far in the articles readers typically continued reading. Our first study involved analyzing data using NLP to determine what types of language people tended to engage with the longest.
In our second study, we designed an experiment in which we had participants read an article about the stock market with key words alternating between sad, anxious, and angry meanings before asking them if they wanted to continue reading or switch to a different article. For our third study, we conducted an experiment similar to that in our second, but used words for the positive emotions of excitement, hope, and contentment.
The Results
As we expected, all three of these studies confirmed that words that elicited higher levels of arousal and uncertainty (anger, anxiety, excitement, and hope) tended to hold readers’ attention better than words associated with lower levels of either (sadness or contentment). This effect held true for both the positive and negative emotions we studied, suggesting that the elements of arousal and uncertainty are primary drivers of emotional engagement with online content.
Our second two studies supported our previous findings, suggesting that the change in emotional language is a key driver of engagement and not merely evoked as a result of some other variable. By keeping the topics consistent between articles and changing only select emotional words, we were able to confirm the causal effect of this relationship.
In addition, our first study revealed that articles which use simple grammar and short, recognizable words are better able to retain an audience’s attention. We refer to this variable as a whole as processing ease, and our NLP model supported the fact that easier-to-process information is able to sustain engagement at a greater level than more complex writing.
Real Estate Implications
The results of our study can be applied to any industry where publishing online content is a key element of business, and real estate is no exception. Whether publishing home listings, social media posts, market reports, or other online content, it’s important to keep emotional motivation and processing ease in mind. The emotions to capitalize on are those which elicit high levels of uncertainty and arousal. The emotions used in our studies which met those criteria are excitement, hope, anxiety, and anger, but other highly evocative words are also possibilities. The point is to keep readers asking questions throughout your content and keep them invested through language which evokes emotional arousal.
As for processing ease, strategies to keep in mind are to use simple sentence structures and familiar, concrete language. Some general rules to keep in mind are that shorter sentences are generally easier to read, and fewer complex structures are preferred. As for word choice, it’s best to use short words that are easily recognizable to the audience. Also, avoid using any language that is unnecessarily uncommon, hard to pronounce, or especially long.
Remember, too, that anxious, exciting, or hopeful language sustains attention. For most consumers, the risk and the excitement of real estate purchasing lends itself well to words that evoke such emotional response and sustained interest.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Recommended Reading
Berger, Jonah, Wendy W. Moe, and David A. Schweidel (2023), “What Holds Attention? Linguistic Drivers of Engagement,” Journal of Marketing, 87(5), 793-809.
Berger, Jonah (2023), Magic Words: What to Say to Get Your Way, Harper Business.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
About the Authors
Jonah Berger, PhD
Professor of Marketing, University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Jonah Berger (PhD – Stanford University) is an internationally bestselling author of multiple books including Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Invisible Influence, and The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind. He has published dozens of articles in top academic journals, teaches Wharton’s highest rated online course, and popular accounts of his work often appear in places like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review. He is a popular speaker at major conferences and events and consults for a range of Fortune 500 companies and startups.
Wendy W. Moe, PhD
Dean’s Professor of Marketing, University of Maryland
Dr. Wendy Moe (PhD – University of Pennsylvania) is a widely published researcher and author, with works appearing in journals such as the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Information Systems Research, Marketing Science, Decision Support Systems, among many others. She has also been invited to speak at a number of conferences such as the American Marketing Association Conference, European Advertising Academy ICORIA Conference, 11thTriennial Invitational Choice Symposium, and more. In addition to her research and contributions at conferences, Dr. Moe is the author of the book Social Media Intelligence, has consulted for numerous corporations and government agencies, and has served as an expert witness in litigation related to online consumer behavior, data tracking and analytics, and online marketing and advertising.
David A. Schweidel, PhD
Rebecca Cheney McGreevy Endowed Chair and Professor of Marketing, Emory University
Dr. David Scweidel (PhD – University of Pennsylvania) is an extensively published researcher and author, with works appearing in journals such as Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science, International Journal of Research in Marketing, and more. He is also a co-author of the book Social Media Intelligence, and author of Profiting from the Data Economy: Understanding the Roles of Consumers, Innovators and Regulators in a Data-Driven World, among others. He has presented at numerous conferences, and in the classroom focuses on Data & Analytics, Marketing Research, Data Monetization, and more. He has received numerous awards and grants for his work, including a Faculty Fellowship from the AMA-Sheth Doctoral Consortium three times, Emory University Innovation of 2019, Caldwell Research Award, and many more.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Download this Article
KCRR 2024 Dec - Emotional Language: A Key to Online Engagement (Berger).pdf
