Informational vs. emotional B2B firm-generated-content on social media engagement: Computerized visual and textual content analysis

Abstract

While social media marketing plays an increasingly significant role in the B2B context, there is still limited research examining how to increase B2B social media engagement. The need for more research is becoming more pressing given the recent shift in social media content from text-centric to image-oriented experience. Building on the elaboration likelihood model and employing computerized visual and textual analysis tools, the present research investigates how informational and emotional cues in B2B social media content influence viewer engagement. By analyzing 5362 single-image posts from the Instagram accounts of 10 B2B companies across five industries, this research demonstrates that informational cues are more effective than emotional cues in driving viewer engagement, and that informational cues are even more effective when presented in visual content, as compared to textual content. The findings of this research contribute to the literature on B2B social media literature and offer managerial implications for B2B social media marketing.