Convergent Practices in Social Media Videos: Examining Genre Conventions in Business-to-Consumer Content

Abstract

Purpose: Technical communication (tech comm) and marketing communication (marcomm) are converging in business-to-consumer (B2C) contexts. Convergent videos integrate practices from both genres to address ever-changing digital audiences. In this paper, we review available literature and analyze tech comm and marcomm social media videos to demonstrate traditional genre conventions. We then analyze a select couple of convergent social media videos to delineate genre conventions across genres. We end by considering four unique convergent strategies that these videos used in combining elements of the tech comm and marcomm genres. Methods: We selected several social media videos produced by large home improvement brands to analyze the generic practices they employ in relation to accepted best practices in the literature from scholars in tech comm and marcomm. We then analyze videos that fit neither genre in light of recent publications by Adobe discussing genre convergence and note several distinct genre practices that can be ascribed to convergent videos. Results: We find that convergent characteristics are distinct from tech comm and marcomm. The brands employ convergent practices in some social media videos that blend genre conventions from tech comm and marcomm video production.Specifically, we identify four ways that these genres converge: using technical tasks as marketing opportunities, balancing corporate branding with mundane user ethos, layering content pathways across the interface, and capturing attention with relevance. Conclusion: Convergence represents a new genre in that it purposefully attempts to engage users across the product lifecycle in single videos. This approach is a departure from traditional marcomm and tech comm video production. Though limited in scope, this analysis provides examples of how convergent videos attempt to achieve this goal. We end by noting our limitations and offering suggestions for future research.