Motivational factors for users’ reposting behavior in different mobile UGC online communities

Abstract

With the popularity of mobile user-generated-content (UGC) online communities, it is important to explore why the same users behave differently in different UGC communities. This study was conducted to investigate motivational factors for users’ reposting behavior in two UGC communities with Chinese young adults. A field experiment was conducted, where users were required to interact with two high fidelity prototypes of mobile UGC community applications. The results indicated that interface usability, information credibility, information usefulness, affect and community reputation had both direct and indirect effects on users’ reposting behavior. In addition, several factors exerted differential effects for the two UGC communities. Information usefulness was important for higher reputation in the UGC community that was featured by its quality of content, while interface usability focused more on quality of interfaces. This study has important implications for the understanding of key factors that influence viral diffusion of online content through different UGC communities.