Understanding social media users’ unfollow intentions: take WeChat subscriptions as an example
| Published date | 11 November 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-10-2018-0293 |
| Pages | 1081-1097 |
| Date | 11 November 2019 |
| Author | Ge Zhang,Liang Ma,Xin Zhang,Xiao Yan Ding,Yi Ping Yang |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
Understanding social media users’
unfollow intentions: take WeChat
subscriptions as an example
Ge Zhang
School of Information,
Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing, China and
Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan, China
Liang Ma, Xin Zhang and Xiao Yan Ding
Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan, China, and
Yi Ping Yang
School of Information,
Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing, China
Abstract
Purpose –An increasing number of users join and become immersed in WeChat official accounts, but many
users quit using these services as well. Nevertheless, most of the previous studies mainly focussed on the
usage behavior. The purpose of this paper is to fill the gap by examining factors affecting users’unfollow
intentions for WeChat subscriptions in a Chinese context.
Design/methodology/approach –Structural equation modeling is used in our study. A field survey with
260 WeChat users is conducted to test the research model and hypotheses.
Findings –The results show the following interesting key findings: first, the effect of actual cost on users’
unfollow intentions is larger than the effect of opportunity cost; second, users’unfollow intentions will
decrease with the increase of users’perceptions of information usefulness; third, the results of the control
variables showed that only landing frequency has a negative effect on users’unfollow intentions; and fourth,
users’demographic differences are also examined in regard to how they may affect users’unfollow intentions.
Originality/value –First, this paper studies factors influencing users’unfollow intentions for WeChat
subscriptions from a social exchange theory perspective; the authors considered both extraneous factors and
users’internal perception factors potentially affecting users’unfollow intentions, which has rarely been
researched. Furthermore, the authors examined significant differences among users’demographic characterist ics
in affectingusers’unfollow intentions. The results of the study provide a more comprehensive understanding of
the influencing factors of users’unfollow intentions.
Keywords Perceived usefulness, Actual cost, Opportunity cost, Unfollow intentions
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
With the development of social media, the users’behavior has caught the attention of both
scholars and managers. Living in an information society, we receive a lot of social media
information each day. In 2016, 67 percent of the world’ssocialmediauserswereonFacebook.
In China, 77.3 percent of people 20–29 years old and 61.4 percent of people 30–39 years old
utilized social media in 2017. China’s WeChat had 938m active monthly users, ranking it fifth in
the world. Social media platforms are tools for people to share ideas, experiences and opinions
witheachother,andplayanimportantroleinpeople’s work, study and daily entertainment.
This study focussed on the most popular social media application in China, WeChat.
WeChat, first released in 2011, provides multiple mobile services including voice messaging,
pictures and text, friend space (Moments), a public platform and other services (Gan, 2017). Online Information Review
Vol. 43 No. 7, 2019
pp. 1081-1097
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-10-2018-0293
Received 5 October 2018
Revised 9 May 2019
1 August 2019
Accepted 12 August 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
This research was supported by National Social Science Foundation of China (No. 17BGL198) and a
project of Shandong Province Higher Educational Science and Technology Program ( J17KA066).
1081
Social media
users’unfollow
intentions
Apart from posting messages and uploading pictures in their friend space, one of the most
important parts of WeChat is that users can follow and read articles from official accounts of
WeChat subscriptions and gain knowledge; and users can also generate unfollow behavior
when they dislike the official account subscriptions. Particularly, WeChat subscription
accounts, also known as WeChat official accounts, are a platform that can push messages
and articles to users who follow these accounts (Guo et al., 2017). Following a WeChat
subscription means users add specific WeChat subscription accounts to their platform list to
receive article information. An unfollow means users move specific WeChat subscription
accounts out of the list so that they will not receive the information pushed by specific
WeChat subscription accounts. The problem is that there are so many official WeChat
subscription accounts, that users cannot read all the information they receive. This excess
supply of information exceeds their capacity to process received information, resulting in
negative stress and anxiety (Bobby et al., 2016), and many users even quit using the services
altogether (Zhang, Li, Wu and Li, 2016; Zhang, Zhao, Lu and Yang, 2016).
Scholars have done a lot of research on social media users’behavior (Lien and Cao, 2014;
Lien et al., 2017;Zhang, Li, Wu and Li, 2016; Zhang, Zhao,Lu and Yang, 2016; Ma, Zhang and
Ding, 2018). However, one of the most important aspects ignored by scholars is social media
users’unfollow behaviors. More importantly, the existing literature cannot explain the
formation of WeChat users unfollow behavior. As Zhang, Li, Wu andLi (2016), Zhang, Zhao,
Lu and Yang (2016) state, an increasing number of users join and immerse themselves in
WeChat official accounts, but many users quit using these services. When users quit using
WeChat subscriptions, it is a huge loss for the WeChat official account operators. Thus, the
factors influencing users’intentions to quit become particularly important. The outcomes of
this study may helpsocial networks such as WeChat to attractmore users to official accounts.
Many scholarsfound that there was a significantdifference in the formationof users’behavior
intentions (Guo et al., 2015); however, whether there really is a significant difference in the
formation of WeChatusers’unfollow behavior is not clear. Users’behavior intentionmay not
be determined solelyby the attributes of one’s perceptions. Instead,behavior intentions were
theorized to be a functionof both group and individual perceptionsand characteristics. Thus,
the following research questions were put forward:
RQ1. What factors (internal and external) affect WeChat knowledge recipients’
unfollow intentions?
RQ2. Do users’demographic differences influence WeChat knowledge recipients’
unfollow intentions?
To answer these questions, based on social exchange theory (SET), this study analyzed factors
affecting WeChat users’unfollow intentions for WeChat subscriptions and whether user s’
demographics affected these intentions. This study offers several contributions. First, the
factors influencing users’unfollow intentions for WeChat subscriptions were examined from a
SET perspective; we considered both extraneous factors and users’internal perceptions
potentially affecting users’unfollow intentions, which have rarely been researched.
Furthermore, we examined significant differences among users’demographic characteristics
in affecting users’unfollow intentions. Theresults of the study provide a more comprehensive
understanding of the influencing factors of users’unfollow intentions.
Theoretical background and hypotheses
Social exchange theory
SET which views interpersonal communication from a cost-benefit perspective is very
similar to economic exchange theory, except that social exchange deals withthe exchange of
intangible social costs and benefits such as respect, honor, friendship and caring and is not
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