Abstract

In the context of social commerce, content creators increasingly rely on attention-grabbing titles to attract users and enhance performance. However, the effectiveness of such strategies remains unclear, particularly regarding their impact on commercial outcomes. This study examines how title–content semantic alignment influences sales revenue and whether this relationship exhibits a nonlinear pattern. Using a large-scale dataset and a two-way fixed effects model, we find a U-shaped relationship between semantic alignment and revenue. Specifically, both low and high levels of alignment are associated with higher revenue, while moderate levels lead to lower performance. Furthermore, we investigate the moderating role of visual cues in titles. The results show that emojis mitigate the effect of semantic alignment, whereas punctuation strengthens the impact of semantic divergence. These findings extend the literature on clickbait and content strategies by linking semantic design to commercial outcomes and highlighting the role of visual presentation in shaping user responses.

Download

Share

COinS