I’m a believer! Believability of social media marketing

Abstract

Many firms use social media marketing and implement different message frames as a strategy to persuade consumers, enhance engagement, and to purchase their products. How firms frame social media content to be more believable, however, is not well understood. The main aim of this paper is to understand how social media content can be framed to enhance believability, and how this ultimately leads to improved social media outcomes. Drawing on Prospect Theory and Construal Level Theory and utilizing data from the field in the form of social media posts (n = 1756), and four experimental studies (n = 1141 total participants), and a critical incident study (n = 263 participants) the current research shows that self-gain frame combinations contribute to significantly higher levels of believability. Furthermore, believability was found to mediate the impact of social media message framing on purchase intentions and social media engagement. The practical implications of these findings and exciting new avenues for research are also discussed.