Content marketing · Four experiments on B2B social media messages
Effectiveness of B2B Social Media Marketing: The Effect of Message Source and Message Content on Social Media Engagement
Industrial Marketing Management · 2023
Summary
Employee-generated content produced more social media engagement intentions and behaviors than firm-generated content.
For your marketing
Possible founder application
For technical B2B audiences, test employee-authored perspectives against corporate-account posts. Tie engagement experiments to meaningful follow-on outcomes such as visits, signups or conversations.
Reported result
What the study found
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.
Research question
What the authors investigated
How do the source and content of a B2B social media post affect audience engagement?
Design
Four experiments test firm-generated versus employee-generated messages and content features such as emojis and objective information.
Sample and setting
Participants across four experiments involving B2B social-media messages; the accessible abstract does not report combined sample size.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
Engagement is not the same as qualified demand or sales, and experimental message settings may not reproduce every platform or company context. The abstract does not report effect sizes.
Research sources
Industrial Marketing Management publisher abstract and DOI record; four experiments and central outcomes are reported directly.