Social value in online reviews: the role of sentiment and social language in consumer engagement

Abstract This study examines how linguistic cues in online review text are associated with the social value of online reviews. Using more than 172,000 Yelp reviews of leading quick-service restaurant (QSR) brands in the United States, we examine how sentiment polarity and social language are associated with social engagement, measured through Cool votes. We find that positive sentiment is associated with more Cool votes, whereas negative sentiment is associated with fewer Cool votes. Higher levels of social language are also positively associated with Cool votes. Comparing these findings with information value, measured through Useful votes, reveals a valence asymmetry: positive sentiment is associated with greater social value but lower informational value, whereas negative sentiment shows the opposite pattern, being associated with greater informational value but lower social value. Overall, these findings demonstrate that sentiment valence is differentially associated with the social and informational value of online reviews. The study contributes to research on online review engagement by identifying valence asymmetry as a key feature of how sentiment relates to different forms of review value and offers implications for digital marketing strategy, review platform design, and customer experience management in the QSR sector.