Content and sharingEvidence check: 2.5/5
Berger, J., & Milkman, K. L. (2012). Journal of Marketing Research, 49(2), 192–205.
Plain-English take: Positive content was more viral than negative content overall, but arousal helped explain the pattern: high-arousal emotions such as awe, anger and anxiety were associated with more sharing, while lower-arousal sadness was associated with less. For your marketing: Use as a hypothesis source for testing emotional framing in content.
Question: How are emotion and other content characteristics associated with the sharing of online articles?
Design: Observational content analysis with follow-up experiments. Articles published and shared through nytimes.com during the study period; the outcome was online sharing/virality in the newspaper context, not SaaS conversions or product adoption.
Positive content was more viral than negative content overall, but arousal helped explain the pattern: high-arousal emotions such as awe, anger and anxiety were associated with more sharing, while lower-arousal sadness was associated with less. Experimental results supported a causal role for activation in sharing.
Journal of Marketing Research · 201210.1509/jmr.10.0353Publisher abstract; full article access may vary
Content and sharingEvidence check: 3.5/5
Salonen, A., Mero, J., Munnukka, J., Zimmer, M., & Karjaluoto, H. (2024). Industrial Marketing Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2024.02.002.
Plain-English take: Content judged relevant to a particular customer-journey stage increased engagement with both the selling firm and its content. For your marketing: Map content to the reader's current task and test different sequences rather than enforcing one universal funnel.
Question: How does the relevance of firm-generated social content to a buyer's current journey stage affect B2B engagement?
Design: Experimental study of B2B content relevance across journey stages. B2B content and customer-journey scenarios; the abstract does not disclose sample size or full recruitment details.
Content judged relevant to a particular customer-journey stage increased engagement with both the selling firm and its content. The study found no universally correct sequence for presenting content because preferences differed across individuals.
Industrial Marketing Management · 202410.1016/j.indmarman.2024.02.002Publisher abstract
Content and sharingEvidence check: 3.5/5
Balaji, M. S., Behl, A., Jain, K., Baabdullah, A. M., Giannakis, M., Shankar, A., & Dwivedi, Y. K. (2023). Industrial Marketing Management, 113, 111–125.
Plain-English take: Employee-generated content produced more social media engagement intentions and behaviors than firm-generated content. For your marketing: For technical B2B audiences, test employee-authored perspectives against corporate-account posts.
Question: How do the source and content of a B2B social media post affect audience engagement?
Design: Four experiments on B2B social media messages. Participants across four experiments involving B2B social-media messages; the accessible abstract does not report combined sample size.
Employee-generated content produced more social media engagement intentions and behaviors than firm-generated content. Content-based trust and engagement-based trust were identified as mechanisms; emojis had a greater effect in employee messages than in firm messages.
Industrial Marketing Management · 202310.1016/j.indmarman.2023.06.011Publisher abstract
Content and sharingEvidence check: 3.5/5
Chawla, Y., & Chodak, G. (2021). Journal of Business Research, 135, 49–65.
Plain-English take: The experiment reports that placing the web link in the comments rather than the caption was more lucrative in the studied campaign. For your marketing: This is a concrete example of testing small post-format decisions against business outcomes.
Question: How does the placement of a web link in an organic Facebook post affect marketing outcomes?
Design: Facebook post-link placement experiment. Facebook organic posts and linked content in the study's business setting; the accessible abstract does not provide a full sample count.
The experiment reports that placing the web link in the comments rather than the caption was more lucrative in the studied campaign.
Journal of Business Research · 202110.1016/j.jbusres.2021.05.055Publisher abstract
Content and sharingEvidence check: 3.5/5
Babić Rosario, A., Sotgiu, F., De Valck, K., & Bijmolt, T. H. A. (2016). Journal of Marketing Research, 53(3), 297–318.
Plain-English take: Looking across the studies, stronger online word of mouth effects for tangible goods that are new to the market; product life cycle did not moderate the effect for services. For your marketing: Measure the amount and sentiment of customer discussion separately and connect both to sales outcomes.
Question: How do platform, product and measurement choices moderate the relationship between electronic word of mouth and sales?
Design: Meta-analysis of empirical eWOM-sales research. Cross-study evidence covering online platforms, product types and eWOM measures; the publisher abstract reviewed here does not report the number of studies.
The synthesis reports stronger eWOM effects for tangible goods that are new to the market; product life cycle did not moderate the effect for services. eWOM volume had a stronger effect on sales than valence in the analyzed studies.
Journal of Marketing Research · 201610.1509/jmr.14.0380Publisher abstract and author record
Content and sharingEvidence check: 3.5/5
Jung, M., Ryu, S., Han, S. P., & Cho, D. (2023). Journal of Marketing Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429221143329.
Plain-English take: Immediate reminders reduced review posting relative to a randomized immediate control group without a reminder. For your marketing: Test the timing of review requests after users experience value.
Question: When should firms send prompts asking customers to post an online review?
Design: Two field experiments. The publisher and university research summaries describe marketplace customers, including a major South Korean online apparel marketplace; the abstract reviewed does not provide sample sizes.
Immediate reminders reduced review posting relative to a randomized immediate control group without a reminder. The authors interpret this as evidence that reactance to an immediate prompt can outweigh the memory benefit in that setting.
Journal of Marketing Research · 202310.1177/00222429221143329Publisher abstract; full text access may vary
Content and sharingEvidence check: 3.0/5
Trusov, M., Bucklin, R. E., & Pauwels, K. (2009). Journal of Marketing, 73(5), 90–102.
Plain-English take: Word-of-mouth referrals had longer carryover effects than traditional marketing actions in this study. For your marketing: Instrument referral activity and evaluate its delayed contribution alongside paid or event-driven acquisition.
Question: How does member-to-member word of mouth compare with traditional marketing in driving signups at an online social network?
Design: Longitudinal observational analysis using vector autoregression. One Internet social networking site with observable invitations and promotional activity; the paper analyzes signup dynamics and marketing events over time.
Word-of-mouth referrals had longer carryover effects than traditional marketing actions in this setting. The estimated long-run signup elasticity for word of mouth was 0.53 and substantially exceeded the estimated elasticities for marketing events and media appearances.
Journal of Marketing · 200910.1509/jmkg.73.5.90Publisher record and author-hosted paper
Content and sharingEvidence check: 4.5/5
Cosme, D., Scholz, C., Chan, H.-Y., et al. (2023). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(1), 253–267.
Plain-English take: Self-relevance and social relevance were each positively associated with intentions to share. For your marketing: This is a prompt for testing whether a technical article explains why it matters to the reader and to someone they work with.
Question: Are people more willing to share messages they see as relevant to themselves or to people they know, and does the audience context matter?
Design: Six online studies, including a preregistered experiment. 3,727 adult participants in the United States rated 362 messages, producing 30,954 message ratings. Topics included COVID-19, voting, general health and climate change; formats included social posts and news articles.
Self-relevance and social relevance were each positively associated with intentions to share. A preregistered framing experiment found that making relevance salient causally increased sharing intentions; the relative pathways differed between broadcasting broadly and sending directly to someone.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · 202310.1037/xge0001270Publisher record and accepted manuscript
Content and sharingEvidence check: 3.0/5
Koob, C. (2021). PLoS ONE, 16(4), e0249457.
Plain-English take: Clear strategy and organizational commitment, content aligned with audience needs and journalistic quality norms, regular measurement, and supporting specialized roles and processes were positively associated with reported effectiveness. For your marketing: This is a practical checklist for content operations: define the audience need, set editorial quality expectations, measure performance, and assign ownership.
Question: Which organizational conditions are associated with effective content marketing?
Design: Cross-sectional survey and regression analysis. 263 executives from medium and large organizations in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, across services, industrial, finance, and trade sectors.
Clear strategy and organizational commitment, content aligned with audience needs and journalistic quality norms, regular measurement, and supporting specialized roles and processes were positively associated with reported effectiveness. Media count and paid promotion budget were not significant in the reported models.
PLoS ONE · 202110.1371/journal.pone.0249457Open access full text
Content and sharingEvidence check: 4.5/5
Sun, C. (2025). Marketing Science, 44(6), 1217–1231.
Plain-English take: Trending keywords increased chance of buying by 10.4% and spending by 8.8% versus an empty search bar. For your marketing: This may be useful for designing search suggestions and content discovery on a site or product.
Question: How do prefilled search suggestions affect product discovery, search behavior, and purchases?
Design: Randomized field experiment. 72,587 consumers on a large e-commerce platform.
Trending keywords increased purchase incidence by 10.4% and spending by 8.8% versus an empty search bar. Personalized keywords increased these outcomes by 21% and 17%, respectively, but also reduced self-entered queries; niche terms had little impact.
Marketing Science · 202510.1287/mksc.2024.0793Publisher abstract; full text may require access
Content and sharingEvidence check: 4.0/5
Gong, S., Zhang, J., Zhao, P., & Jiang, X. (2017). Journal of Marketing Research, 54(6), 833–850.
Plain-English take: Company tweets directly increased viewing. For your marketing: Suggests testing informative content and distribution source separately: a company's own posts may drive direct response while third-party sharing may grow the audience.
Question: Do firm tweets and influential-user retweets affect TV show viewing and audience growth?
Design: Randomized social-media field experiment. Tweets promoting TV shows on a Chinese social network; the abstract does not state the number of users or shows.
Company tweets directly increased viewing. Influencer retweets increased viewing when the original tweet was informative and were more effective at gaining new followers, which indirectly supported viewing.
Journal of Marketing Research · 201710.1509/jmr.14.0348Publisher abstract; full text may require access
Content and sharingEvidence check: 2.5/5
Järvinen, J., & Taiminen, H. (2016). Industrial Marketing Management, 54, 164–175.
Plain-English take: The case illustrates how behavioral targeting and personalized content can generate higher-quality sales leads and connect marketing content to B2B selling processes. For your marketing: This is a concrete operating model for connecting content behavior with sales follow-up.
Question: How can B2B companies integrate useful digital content, marketing automation, and sales processes?
Design: Single-company case study. One industrial company with established content-marketing and automation practices.
The case illustrates how behavioral targeting and personalized content can generate higher-quality sales leads and connect marketing content to B2B selling processes. Personalizing content around individual customer needs was also challenging.
Industrial Marketing Management · 201610.1016/j.indmarman.2015.07.002Publisher abstract and university repository record
Content and sharingEvidence check: 2.5/5
Jason Y. C. Ho, Melanie Dempsey (2010). Viral Marketing: Motivations to Forward Online Content. Journal of Business Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2009.09.010.
Plain-English take: The need to belong, be individualistic, be altruistic, and seek personal growth are identified as motivations associated with forwarding; relative importance differs across users. For your marketing: Use it as a behavioral mechanism or experiment-design reference, not a direct forecast for a SaaS funnel.
Question: What motivations lead consumers to forward online content?
Design: Survey-based empirical study using motivational constructs to predict forwarding of online content.. Online users who forward online content; measures cover belonging, individualism, altruism, and personal-growth motives.
The need to belong, be individualistic, be altruistic, and seek personal growth are identified as motivations associated with forwarding; relative importance differs across users.
Journal of Business Research · 201010.1016/j.jbusres.2009.09.010Publisher abstract/metadata retrieved; full text may require access.