Show Me a Story

Abstract

User-generated videos (UGVs) are stories, and stories reflect how we experience the world. This chapter explores the story-like nature of UGVs by applying narrative analysis to deconstruct a tourism destination's Instagram Reels, revealing their influence on user engagement. Posted comments for each of 20 Reels are coded based on their representation of cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions of engagement as they relate to the story elements of plot, character, and verisimilitude. Results indicate that the most engaging Reels feature all story elements, unique locations, and personalized stories. These fulsome video stories are most likely to provoke cognitive engagement, whereas UGVs with fewer elements provoke emotional engagement. This study uniquely connects destination engagement and narrative elements in user-generated storytelling videos to guide destination social media marketing effectiveness.