Are you for Real? Interplay of Firm and Consumer Generated Content on Social Media Platforms

Abstract

In today's social media landscape, brands struggle to determine effective strategies for sharing content and fostering positive consumer engagement. Drawing on the persuasion knowledge model, we argue that consumers perceive firm-generated content differently based on its mode of delivery. We distinguish between firm-to-many (FTM) communications, traditional firmgenerated content (FGC) directed at a broad audience, and firm-to-one (FTO) communications, which are spontaneous, personalized yet public responses to individual consumers. We demonstrate that FTO communications uniquely enhance consumer engagement through their genuineness, which is reflected in its authenticity, spontaneity, and approachability. Introducing and empirically validating genuineness as a mediating factor, we analyze 127,616 tweets from major financial institutions. Our findings reveal that (i) FTO communications exhibit higher levels of genuineness, (ii) genuineness mediates engagement with FTO communications, and (iii) the effectiveness of FTO and FTM communications varies by content type. Notably, informational content (e.g., marketing, promotions, events) that consumers often dismiss in FTM communications is well received in FTO communications, while emotional content, typically effective in FTM communications, is less impactful in FTO communications. Our research contributes to digital engagement, persuasion knowledge, and social media strategy, offering actionable insights for firms on crafting effective FTO communications.

Keywords: User generated content, firm generated content, broadcasting, narrowcasting, engagement, genuineness