Manipulating Temporal Cues and Message Concreteness for Deal Communication: A Study on Microblogging Site

Introduction

Social media has attracted merchants’ attention due to its potential to provide business value (Culnan, McHugh, & Zubillage, 2010; Huang, Zhang, Li, & Lv, 2014). To achieve this value, merchants communicate and interact with consumers in social media brand communities (Goh, Heng, & Lin, 2013). The objective of doing so is to increase the likelihood that consumers purchase products from the communicating merchant (Xie & Lee, 2015). Amidst the much-anticipated prospect, for merchants, of tapping into social media to connect with their consumers (Culnan, McHugh, & Zubillage, 2010; Goh, Heng, & Lin, 2013; Lukoff, 2011; Xia, 2013), anecdotal evidence of sales generation through social media remains mixed¹. Central to this is less the quantification of the value of social media but more the pragmatic question of how to effectively communicate deal messages to consumers via such media (Stelzner, 2011). Mangold and Faulds (2009) echoed this viewpoint and indicated that the degree to which social media is effectively utilized determines its value realization. Merchants could communicate messages on social media with rich information in order to increase sales (Goh, Heng, & Lin, 2013). Similarly, actively responding to consumers’ messages in social media communications could positively affect a merchant’s market performance—but the intensity of such messages does not affect this (Chung, Animesh, Han, & Pinsonneault, 2014). Moreover, employing social media management tools, adopting broadcasting accounts, and using a conversational communication approach can improve the attitudinal loyalty of consumers, which is beneficial for a merchant’s sale performance (Risius & Beck, 2015).

Although some characteristics of social media messages (e.g., richness; intensity) and social media accounts (e.g., broadcasting; conversational approach) have been examined, the knowledge gap as to how merchants can successfully communicate on social media platforms—and which social media strategies they should pursue—remains to be filled (Aral, Dellarocas, & Godes, 2013). This study endeavors to take this research direction by seeking an answer as to how communication through social media can entice consumers better, in order to enhance product sales. Specifically, it investigates how the temporal cues and the concreteness of the promotional message affects consumers’ purchase intentions. Regarding consumers’ evaluation of merchants’ promotional messages, construal level theory (CLT) and its “fit” literature provide insights. It has been found that consumers’ evaluations could be strengthened when their construal of the messages is congruent with one of the four dimensions of psychological distance—namely, spatial, temporal, social, or hypothetical distance (Trope, Liberman, & Wakslak, 2007; Kim, Rao, & Lee, 2009). Moreover, the interaction effect of two dimensions of psychological distance has also been briefly explored—such as the interaction effect of social and temporal distance on consumers’ responses to peer recommendations (Zhao & Xie, 2011) and consumers’ evaluations to products (Kim, Zhang, & Li, 2008). However, two contextual cues from the same dimension—cues which are likely to be embedded in the deal promotional messages—have not been investigated. This study looks at such a case by focusing on the message promotional time and the deal expiration time, which are two temporal cues regularly embedded in promotional messages. The author further explores the effect that their interactions—together with message concreteness—have on consumers’ evaluations.