Table of Contents. Social Media Marketing – Summary of all Articles [2021]
[p.2] Article 1 - Valuable Virality – Akpinar & Berger
[p.5] Article 2 - Reviews Without a Purchase: Low Ratings, Loyal Customers, and
Deception – Anderson & Simester
[p.8] Article 3 - Word of Mouth and Interpersonal Communication – Berger
[p.13] Article 4 – Uniting the Tribes: Using Text for Marketing Insight – Berger, Humphreys,
Ludwig, Moe, Netzer, & Schweidel
[p.17] Article 5 - Improving Consumer Mindset Metrics and Shareholder Value Through Social
Media: The Different Roles of Owned and Earned Media – Colicev, Malshe, Pauwels, &
O’Connor
Article 6 - The Structural Virality of Online Diffusion – Goel, Anderson, Hofman, & Watts
Removed from literature list for exam.
[p.20] Article 7 - Brand Buzz in the Echoverse – Hewett, Rand, Rust, & Van Heerde
[p.24] Article 8 - Watch Your Tone: How a Brand's Tone of Voice on Social Media Influences
Consumer Responses – Barcelos, Dantas, & Sénécal
[p.27] Article 9 - Scheduling Content on Social Media: Theory, Evidence, and Application –
Kanuri, Chen, & Sridhar
[p.31] Article 10 - Psychological Targeting as an Effective Approach to Digital Mass
Persuasion – Matz, Kosinski, Nave & Stillwell
[p.34] Article 11 - Online Product Opinions: Incidence, Evaluation, and Evolution – Moe &
Schweidel
[p.36] Article 12 - How Language Shapes Word of Mouth’s Impact – Packard & Berger
[p.39] Article 13 - What You Feel, Is What You Like Influence of Message Appeals on
Customer Engagement on Instagram – Rietveld, Van Dolen, Mazloom, & Worring
[p.42] Article 14 - Listening In on Social Media: A Joint Model of Sentiment and Venue
Format Choice – Schweidel & Moe
[p.45] Article 15 - Disclosing information about the self is intrinsically rewarding – Tamir &
Mitchell
[p.47] Article 16 - Cutting through Content Clutter: How Speech and Image Acts Drive
Consumer Sharing of Social Media Brand Messages – Ordenes, Grewal, Ludwig, De
Ruyter, Mahr, & Wetzels
[p.51] Article 17 - Deconstructing corporate hypocrisy: A delineation of its behavioral, moral,
and attributional facets – Wagner, Korschun, & Troebs
[p.54] Article 18 - Tempting Fate: Social Media Posts, Loss of Followers, and Long-Term
Sales – Wang, Greenwood, & Pavlou
[p.57] Article 19 - Post, Eat, Change: The Effects of Posting Food Photos on Consumers'
Dining Experiences and Brand Evaluation – Zhu, Jiang, Dou, & Liang
1
,Article 1 - Valuable Virality – Akpinar & Berger
Given recent interest in social media, many brands now create content that they hope consumers
will view and share with peers. Rather than focusing on paid media, in which a brand pays to
advertise, brands are devoting more and more attention to earned media, in which
consumers are the communication channel. Not all ads are equally likely to be shared.
Surprising, funny, or entertaining content is more likely to be passed on, and the more an
ad seems like a blatant sell attempt, the less people will share it. Companies design ads with
these aspects in mind, thereby sacrificing advertising effectiveness, as content aspects
that increase sharing seem to decrease effectiveness. While some campaigns indeed go "viral,"
their value to the brand is limited if they do not boost brand evaluation or increase purchase.
Consequently, a key question is how to create valuable virality, or content that is not only shared
but also beneficial to the brand.
• RQ = “What leads an ad both to be shared and to generate value for the company
that created it?”
Two types of advertising appeals:
• Emotional appeals: designed to appeal to emotions by using moo, music, and other
emotion-eliciting strategies.
o More likely to be shared than informational appeals. Emotional arousal
increases social transmission and people may share surprising or interesting
content because it makes them look good.
• Informational appeals: designed to appeal to cognition by using objective information
describing a brand’s attributes or benefits.
o Often boost brand evaluation and purchase intent. Consumers evaluate
informative appeals as fairer and less manipulative. Informative persuasion
attempts are direct by nature (e.g., explicit presentation of product features), so
inferences about persuasive attempts should be more positive.
Inferences about persuasion attempts is measured by: 'The way the ad tries to persuade
seems acceptable to me," and "The advertiser tried to be persuasive without being excessively
manipulative.”
This study’s proposed solution: making the brand an integral part of the content in emotional
appeals may boost brand-related outcomes, i.e. making sure that the advertised product or
brand is relevant to the emotional narrative in the advertisement.
Ad types = the type of ad can be emotional non-integral, emotional integral, or informative:
• Emotional non-integral ads: a situation in which the advertised product is not very
relevant to the narrative. Here, consumers likely think that the brand is just using
emotional tactics to convince them and may infer manipulative intent.
• Emotional integral ads: a situation in which the advertised product is very relevant
to the narrative. Here, the emotion-eliciting strategies seem less superfluous and it
seems less manipulative, which should make a consumer’s inferences about persuasion
attempts more favorable. Moreover, emotional integral appeals should boost brand
knowledge, because consumers learn more about the product/brand when it is related to
the narrative (just as in informative ads).
o Emotional integral ads increase brand knowledge by communicating product
features; and by conveying brand image or personality. This should indirectly
boost brand evaluation and purchase.
2
, • Informative ad: provide more information about the product or brand and thereby
lets consumers feel like they have a better sense of the product- and brand-relevant
features. Such increased knowledge should positively influence purchase intent as well
as brand evaluation.
This study thus compares how three ad types: (1) emotional integral, (2) emotional nonintegral,
and (3) informative, and their influence on sharing behaviour, brand evaluation, and purchase.
Methods: predictions are tested using a mix of field and laboratory investigations. First, actual
sharing of hundreds of online video ads is examined to document the actual distribution of ad
types based on ad-appeal and brand integralness. The data include the number times each video
is shared over various channels (e.g., YouTube, Facebook, Twitter) and social media more
generally. It is investigated whether certain ad types generate more virality.
Study 1 uses a controlled experiment to test how different ad types simultaneously influence
shares and brand-related outcomes. Study 2 uses a richer design and real sharing to rule out
alternative explanations and test external validity. Finally, Study 3 investigates the hypothesized
mechanisms (i.e., brand knowledge & inferences about persuasive attempts) behind the effects.
Examples of Ad Types =
- Informative ad ("Pure and Natural"): a woman and child use the soap, and product
benefits are explicitly stated. The ad noted that the soap is gentle on the skin, moisturizes
and refreshes, and is environmentally friendly.
- Emotional integral ad ("Foam City"): showed how a downtown area turns into a giant
bubble bath with whole streets filled with foam. The product (soap) was clearly relevant
and integral to the narrative (i.e., soap makes foam).
- Emotional non-integral ad ("Human Slingshot"): used a situation in which the product
(soap) was not very relevant to the narrative. In this ad, people are riding a raft down an
enormous slide next to a lake. The raft is hooked to a bungee cord and catapults them
through the air into the water.
Results =
Study 1 & 2 > There was no observed difference between emotional integral ads and emotional
nonintegral (as expected). However, compared with informative ads, both emotional integral
and emotional non-integral boosted actual sharing. There was no difference in brand
evaluations before watching the ads. However, as predicted, informative ads and emotional
integral ads increased brand evaluations after watching ads, compared with the emotional
non-integral ads. Next, the brand evaluation before and after ad exposure was compared: The
emotional integral appeal boosted brand evaluation, whereas the emotional non-integral appeal
did not change evaluations.
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