Image Position and Layout Effects on User Engagement of Multi-image Tweets

Current researchers pay less attention to the image position and layout of tweets containing multiple images. This study explored the impact of image position and layout on user engagement on the Weibo platform. The XGBoost model trained on single-image tweet data was used to predict the “user engagement potential” of images in multi-image tweets. Then, the image position and layout effects on user engagement were analyzed through correlation analysis and OLS regression. It was found that the right position was more important in tweets with less than or equal to 4 images, and the position effects became symmetric with image adding. Layouts with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 images had positive effects on user engagement, while layouts with 7 and 9 or more images had negative effects. This study provides insights for user engagement with social media images and may help improve interaction.