An empirical investigation into social and platform endorsement of user-generated content in the online Q&A community

Online communities employ recognition mechanisms to signal their acknowledgment of and support for the contributions of their members. These endorsements usually take the form of platform conferment, such as badges, or user interactions via social media, such as Facebook's "Like" button. Although previous research has shown that both types of endorsements can significantly impact users' online contributions, little attention has been paid to the relative effectiveness of and interaction between these two common endorsement formats. By analyzing a sample collected from China's largest online social Q&A platform and conducting multiple robustness checks, we demonstrate that while both social and platform endorsements positively impact users' online contributions, the formers are largely more effective than the latter in driving user contributions. Moreover, we find a complementary relationship between social and platform endorsements, suggesting that the combination of the two can further stimulate content generation. Our findings offer practical insights for content providers seeking to encourage content generation in online communities.