质量还是位置?微信公众平台文章传播效果的双因素比较研究

Quality or Position?A Two-factor Comparative Study on the Communication Effect of WeChat Official Accounts’Articles

微信公众平台在中国公众的信息传播中发挥着重要作用。本文尝试构建了一种微信公众号文章质量的计算方法,并且通过对五个不同类型的公众号发布的28454条文章数据进行分析,探究微信公众平台推送中,推送位置与文章质量这两个因素对传播效果的影响。研究发现,虽然位置与信息质量对阅读量的影响比重在不同类型的公众号之间稍有差异,但总体而言,公众号推送的文章安排在靠前的位置比文章本身拥有高质量更有利于阅读量的提升。对于每次最多发布8条信息的微信公众号而言,位置排在第6条是质量和信息差异的拐点,第7条和第8条信息的质量对阅读关注度的贡献更大。此外,不同类型的公众号之间也存在差异,体育类公众号用户的信息选择受位置影响最大,而科技类公众号用户受位置影响最小,复杂信息的理解需要更多的理性,可能在一定程度上削减了位置效应。总体而言,位置的这种议程设置效果对于每次同时发布多条信息的平台而言具有积极的指导意义。

In China,WeChat plays an important role in information dissemination.This paper attempts to construct a method for calculating the quality of articles on WeChat official accounts.By analyzing a total number of 28454 articles released by five different types of official accounts,this study explores the impact of the two important factors,namely position and quality on the communication effect of articles pushed by official accounts.The findings are as follows,although there is a slight difference in the influence of position and quality on reading quantity,in general,being pushed in an upper position is more conducive to the improvement of reading quantity than having a higher quality of the article.For WeChat public accounts that publish a maximum of 8 articles at a time,the 6th position is the turning point for the difference of reading quantity made between quality and position.After the 6th,quality contributes more than position to reading quantity.In addition,there are also differences between types of official accounts.The selection of articles in sports official accounts is most affected by position,while technology official accounts are least affected by position.The need for more thinking may have reduced this difference in position effect to some extent.In general,this agenda setting effect of position has great significance of guidance for platforms that release multiple pieces of information each time.