Purpose Social media allow for observing different aspects of human behaviour, in particular, those that can be evaluated from explicit user expressions. Based on a data set of posts with user opinions collected from social media, this paper aims to show an insight into how the readers of different news portals react to online content. The focus is on users' emotions about the content, so the findings of the analysis provide a further understanding of how marketers should structure and deliver

more »

... ommunication content such that it promotes positive engagement behaviour. Design/methodology/approach More than 5.5 million user comments to posted messages from 15 worldwide popular news portals were collected and analysed, where each post was evaluated based on a set of variables that represent either structural (e.g. embedded in intra- or inter-message structure) or behavioural (e.g. exhibiting a certain behavioural pattern that appeared in response to a posted message) component of expressions. The conclusions are based on a set of regression models and exploratory factor analysis. Findings The findings show and theorise the influence of social media content on emotional user engagement. This provides a more comprehensive understanding of the engagement attributed to social media content and, consequently, could be a better predictor of future behaviour. Originality/value This paper provides original data analysis of user comments and emotional reactions that appeared on social media news websites in 2018.