Engagement with Social Media and Social Media Advertising: The Differentiating Role of Platform Type

TLDR

The study investigates how consumers’ engagement with different social media platforms influences their engagement with embedded advertising and the subsequent evaluation of that advertising. A survey of 1,346 adults aged 13 and older collected data on users’ engagement experiences across Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat, as well as their advertising experiences and evaluations. Findings indicate that engagement is highly platform‑specific, with distinct experiences on each platform linked to advertising evaluations, and that engagement with the advertising itself mediates the relationship between social media engagement and evaluation, underscoring that there is no single “social media” construct.

Abstract

This study examines how consumers’ engagement with social media platforms drives engagement with advertising embedded in these platforms and, subsequently, evaluations of this advertising. Our survey (N = 1,346, aged 13 and older) maps social media users’ engagement experiences with Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat and their experiences with and evaluations of advertising on these platforms. Our findings show that engagement is highly context specific; it comprises various types of experiences on each social media platform such that each is experienced in a unique way. Moreover, on each platform, a different set of experiences is related to advertising evaluations. It is further shown that engagement with social media advertising itself is key in explaining how social media engagement is related to advertising evaluations. The general conclusion is that there is no such thing as “social media.”