Nonprofit organization advertising on social media: The role of personality, advertising appeals, and bandwagon effects

Author(s):  
Hayoung Sally Lim ◽  
Lindsay Bouchacourt ◽  
Natalie Brown‐Devlin
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 12-34
Author(s):  
Kaitlin E. Thomas

This article considers the impact of memes shared among Millennial and Generation Z–oriented Latino/a social media outlets during the years 2014–17, and proposes reading memes as viable microliterary texts. Through the examination of many dozens of memes and hundreds of Facebook posts from the nonprofit organization UndocuMedia, I have identified two themes that reoccur with notable frequency: (in)visibility and knowledge. As expressed within the memetic platform, these themes have cultural functions beyond superficial banter: humor detracts from political absurdity, arguing points permits one to assume defensive and protective postures, and connecting with friends expands the network of allies. I first define memes and explain how they might be read as socially conscious microliterary texts. I then examine selected meme examples to illustrate how they are shared with the intent to challenge the social and political marginalization that has long plagued the undocumented Latino/a demographic in the United States and to debunk long–held fossilized myths. I conclude by discussing the role of accompanying hashtags and emoji in the process of transplanting online activism to the offline world.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Yang ◽  
Mengtian Jiang

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the kinds of ad appeals and brand types that contribute to perceived ad–media congruence on Instagram and how such congruence influences consumers’ engagement intentions via the interaction of self-related congruence constructs. Additionally, ad intrusiveness was studied as a mediator of the relationship between ad–media congruence and consumers’ behavioral engagement intention. Design/methodology/approach An online 2 (Ad appeal: hedonic vs utilitarian) × 2 (Brand type: hedonic vs utilitarian) between-subject experiment was conducted with four versions of mock-up Instagram in-feed native ads. Findings Results showed that hedonic advertising appeals contributed to ad–media congruence on Instagram, which yielded a lower level of ad intrusiveness and further resulted in higher consumer behavioral engagement intentions. The brand type did not significantly influence participants’ perceptions of ad–media congruence. Moreover, the findings indicate individuals’ brand-self congruence and ad-self congruence were significant moderators in interactions with ad–media congruence in influencing consumers’ behavioral engagement intentions. Practical implications Both brand managers and social media providers can leverage this study’s findings to improve ad effectiveness and consumer experiences in their respective social media landscapes. Specifically, knowing what kind of ad is more congruent and less intrusive, as well as how to better tailor targeting strategies in digital media spaces by building higher ad self- and brand self-congruence, can help them achieve persuasive effects when complying with the Federal Trade Commission disclosure guideline. Originality/value The current study advances extant literature on native advertising by examining the core characteristic of ad–media congruence and its relation to the key metric of social media marketing success – consumer engagement intentions. The findings also extend the congruence theory by examining the interaction effect of media- and self-related congruence constructs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-513
Author(s):  
Ruobing Li ◽  
Michail Vafeiadis ◽  
Anli Xiao ◽  
Guolan Yang

PurposeSponsored social media content is one of the advertising strategies that companies implement so that ads appear as native to the delivery platform without making consumers feel that they are directly targeted. Hence, the current study examines whether prominently featuring corporate information on social media ads affects how consumers perceive them. It also investigates whether an ad's evaluation metrics on Twitter (e.g. number of likes/comments) influence its persuasiveness and consumers' behavioral intentions towards the sponsoring company. Underlying cognitive and affective mechanisms through which sponsored content operates are also investigated.Design/methodology/approachA 2 (corporate credibility: low vs high) by 2 (bandwagon cues: low vs high) between-subjects experiment was conducted.FindingsThe findings showed that corporate credibility and bandwagon cues can influence social media ad effectiveness. Sponsored content from high-credibility companies – evoked more favorable attitudes and behavioral intentions – is perceived as less intrusive, and elicits less anger than equivalent posts from low-credibility companies. Furthermore, it was found that bandwagon cues work via different pathways. For high-credibility corporations, a high number of bandwagon cues improved ad persuasiveness by mitigating consumers' anger towards intrusive sponsored content. Conversely, for low-credibility corporations high bandwagon cues enhanced ad persuasiveness, and this triggered more positive attitudes towards it.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to test corporate credibility and bandwagon effects in social media ads, while also exploring consumers' cognitive and affective responses to sponsored content. Implications for how companies with varying popularity levels should promote products on social media are discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohsen Pashna ◽  
Mohammad Rahim Esfidani ◽  
Seyed Mohammad bagher Jafari

Until now, no study has proposed strategies for social media advertising, scrutinizing the differential interaction of user involvement, different kinds of user involvement, product category involvement, and advertising appeals considering the unique characteristics of social media users in the Middle East. The present study addresses this issue by introducing two detailed advertising effectiveness grids in 20 situations for social media advertising in the Middle East context (Iran) and revised the previous grids and findings proposed for Western and Eastern countries in the area of traditional media advertising effectiveness. In all, 552 students of the University of Tehran, who are social media users were randomly selected, and questionnaires were distributed via an online platform. In order to explore the hypotheses, a mixed 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design was employed, followed by assessment of the validity and reliability of the measures. Surprisingly, some findings were contrary to traditional findings and grids both in the West and in the East and suggest different and new strategies; however, some were in line with traditional studies.


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