Reaching Out to Consumers: An Analysis of CEO Tweeting Styles
(A2021-92992)

AUTHORS

Tong Wu, Sun Yat-sen University; Jonathan Reynolds Reynolds, University of Oxford; Jintao Wu, Sun Yat-sen University; Bodo Schlegelmilch, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business

ABSTRACT

This research aims to draw the attention of both marketing practitioners and academics to the potentially influential role of chief executive officers (CEOs) as ambassadors of their firms on social media. In particular, building on dual-processing persuasion theories, the study examines the effect of three CEO tweeting style factors, i.e., content professionalism, language professionalism and interactional effort, on consumer engagement. The study finds that a CEO’s language professionalism on Twitter increases consumers’ positive perception of the CEO, which, in turn, increases consumer affective engagement. Moreover, when interactional effort is high, we find a CEO’s content professionalism increases consumer affective engagement, which then increases consumers’ cognitive and behavioral engagement.

REFERENCES

The research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.71802201 and No.71672200).