Engaging audiences on social media: Identifying relationships between message factors and user engagement on the American Cancer Society’s Facebook page

•User engagement was measured through number of likes, shares, and comments.•Cancer-related posts received more user engagement than posts not related to cancer.•Posts by ACS received more user engagement than posts by businesses, nonprofits, and individuals. In this study, a content analysis was conducted with posts from American Cancer Society’s (ACS) Facebook page to explore the relationship between message relevance, source characteristics, and message features with the number of likes, comments, and shares received by them. Limited Capacity Model for Motivated Mediated Message Processing (LC4MP) was used as the theoretical foundation for the study. Findings showed that cancer-related posts received more likes, comments and shares than posts that were not related to cancer. Also, posts by the American Cancer Society received more likes, comments, and shares than other source categories. Findings also indicated that though message features were related to likes, comments, and shares, the nature of relationship and the role of different features varied with each measure. Overall, findings highlight the role of motivational activation through message factors in eliciting user response in social media environments.