Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to test the influence of various content cues and characteristics on the followers’ online expressions of relationship quality. Second, the research aims to understand the moderating effects of content curation.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample comprised of 100 posts and 29,000 comments that were sourced from the Facebook pages of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The content was coded using the prior literature. Comments were manually coded using a deductive approach and captured the dimensions of relationship quality. Multiple regression was used to confirm the hypotheses.
Findings
Visuals, content popularity, volume of comments and content’s length have a positive effect on voters’ expressions of relationship quality. However, source credibility, argument quality, valence and interactivity did not have an impact. Additionally, content curation negatively moderated the effects of length and interactivity on expressions of relationship quality.
Practical implications
The findings emphasise the use of peripheral cues rather than the central route. Curating interactive and lengthy content should be avoided, however, curation of images and videos is well received.
Originality/value
The research contributes to the literature by understanding the role of marketer-generated content in building online relationships. Additionally, it explores the distinct impacts of created and curated content.
The relationship that develops between voters and political entities on social media is under-researched. This study offers insight into this contemporary phenomenon by exploring the factors that initiate and drive social media-enabled voter relationships. Data were collected by conducting three focus groups with young voters. Uses and gratifications theory was used to explore the motivations that stimulate young voters to follow political entities on social media. Secondly, the drivers of the resulting relationship were explained using the concept of the psychological contract. Lastly, the various online interactions that underpin this relationship were investigated using the concept of service-dominant orientation. The findings reveal that social, informational and entertainment gratifications are the primary initiators of this relationship. Further, developmental, individuated, relational and ethical interactions fortify online voter relationships. However, a lack of trust, unmet expectations and an absence of individuated interactions are major challenges. The study recommends humanising politicians through social and emotional content, along with an educational approach towards social media marketing.
We focus on political marketing and conduct a systematic literature review of journal articles exploring political marketing on social media. The systematic literature review delineates the current state of political social media marketing literature. It spans six databases and comprises sixty-six journal articles published between 2011 and 2020. We identify and categorize the variables studied in the literature and develop an integrative framework that links these variables. We describe the research themes that exist in the literature. The review demonstrates that the field is growing. However, the literature is fragmented, along with being predominantly based in the US context. Conceptual and theoretical shortcomings also exist. Moreover, the literature ignores pertinent contemporary topics such as co-creation, influencer marketing, and political advertising on social media. Nevertheless, a nascent domain with growing practical significance, political social media marketing provides various exciting avenues for further research, which we outline in this study.
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