Expressive communication skills: impact on content engagement and personal branding in Jordan

This study examines how expressive communication skills influence content engagement and personal branding among university students in Jordan. A quantitative, cross-sectional survey was administered online to 400 Jordanian university students. The measurement model comprised three constructs-expressive communication skills, content engagement, and personal branding-measured using established multi-item scales and analyzed with Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results showed that expressive communication skills had a significant positive effect on content engagement (β = 0.214, t = 2.900, p = 0.004) and personal branding (β = 0.543, t = 11.962, p < 0.001). Expressive communication skills explained 4.6% of the variance in content engagement and 29.5% of the variance in personal branding. These findings indicate that expressive communication skills contribute to online interaction but play a substantially stronger role in personal branding. The study concludes that expressive communication skills are an effective component of digital communication and identity construction among university students in Jordan, while content engagement is also shaped by additional content-, platform-, and audience-related factors.