Content and sharing · Randomized social-media field experiment
Tweeting as a Marketing Tool: A Field Experiment in the TV Industry
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.
How much weight to give this
4.0/5 Useful evidence with meaningful caveats
The 1–5 evidence-check score is a practical reading aid, not a formal peer review or a probability that a conclusion is true. It combines design strength (2 points), sample reporting (1), comparison/control clarity (1), and how much of the paper could be checked (1). Access affects how confidently this directory can assess a study, not the study's underlying quality. Blinding is reported separately because it is not relevant to every design.
Random assignment provides a strong comparison for effects in the tested setting.
A usable sample size is not stated in the profile's accessible source.
Randomized comparison; confirm the control condition and analysis in the paper.
This profile could be checked against an abstract or metadata, not the full paper.
Double-blind? Blinding is not reported in the source reviewed; that does not establish whether blinding was or was not used.
Research question
What the authors investigated
Do firm tweets and influential-user retweets affect TV show viewing and audience growth?
Design
Randomized field experiment on Sina Weibo with a major media company, testing company tweets and recruited influencers' retweets.
Sample and setting
Tweets promoting TV shows on a Chinese social network; the abstract does not state the number of users or shows.
Reported result
What the study found
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.
This is a paraphrase of the source. Check the original paper for definitions, estimates, statistical uncertainty and analysis details.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
TV programming and Sina Weibo are context-specific; the abstract gives no sample size. Attention and viewing outcomes do not map directly to SaaS demand or pipeline.
Possible founder application
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. Evaluate both with downstream outcomes.
Evidence access
Publisher abstract; full text may require access
SAGE publisher abstract retrieved with Firecrawl; study design and reported effects were visible on the page.
If only an abstract or metadata was available, the profile is limited to claims supported there. A paper's paywall does not change its evidentiary status, but it limits what we can substantiate from accessible text.