Purpose This research study aims to investigate consumer usage motivations for three of the top social media platforms today: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Additionally, through understanding various platform distinctions, firms can understand which social media platforms consumers prefer to use to co-create with brands online. Design/methodology/approach An exploratory qualitative study is first conducted to understand consumer motivations for using different social media platforms. The main study tests five hypotheses related to consumer usage intentions and social media co-creation behavior across three social media platforms. A survey is conducted with 1,050 social media users with a comparison of mean responses using multivariate analysis of covariance. Findings Results support significant differences between platforms in terms of use and co-creation behaviors. For informational purposes, consumers gravitate toward Twitter. For social purposes, Twitter and Instagram are preferred. Instagram is the primary platform for entertainment motivation as well as co-creating with brands via social media. Surprisingly, Facebook shows the lowest usage intentions and co-creation despite being the largest platform and network most widely used by marketers. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to take a multi-platform approach to understanding consumer social media use and co-creation with brands. The results highlight that marketing academics and practitioners must segment the various social media platforms as each offers unique value propositions to consumers.

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Prior research has established the positive effect of green marketing on purchase intentions. Less well known is why. Two empirical studies were conducted to investigate trust as an important mediator explaining the relationship between green marketing and purchase intentions. In study one, we successfully replicate prior research, again finding higher purchase intentions for companies that engage in green marketing. Additionally, trust in the company was found to mediate this relationship. Study two then examines the underlying mechanisms of expertise and prosocial orientation on the relationship between green marketing and trust, and then serially to purchase intentions. Demographic boundary conditions of age and gender were also investigated. Despite previous research indicating that gender affects perceptions of sustainable marketing, gender was not found to influence trust through perceptions of expertise and prosocial orientation. Interestingly, consumer age was found to influence perceptions of the company's expertise but not prosocial orientation. Younger consumers, specifically those about 38 and younger, believe that companies using green marketing display more expertise compared to those that do not, ultimately increasing perceptions of trust in the company.

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