What drives liking different brand-related social media content?

Purpose The purpose of this study is to analyze the interrelationships between incentives and social media users' intentions to like different brand-related social media content. The study is based on the uses and gratification (U&G) theory and investigates three types of incentives i.e. communal, self-interest, and reward incentives which act as antecedents of customers' intentions to like three types of brand-related content (commercial messages, personal opinion messages, and lifestyle messages). Design/methodology/approach A data set of 415 effective responses was collected and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for analyzing the data. Findings The obtained results indicate that communal and reward incentives enhance the intentions to like brand-related commercial, personal opinion, and lifestyle content. Self-interest incentives reduce the intentions to like three types of analyzed brand-related content with the strongest negative influence on intentions to like lifestyle content. Regarding the content type, the main drivers for liking lifestyle content and commercial content are reward incentives, whereas liking personal opinion content is mostly motivated by communal incentives. Originality/value This study provides valuable insights about users' motivation to like brand-related content on social media with a focus on different types of brand-related content. The study has strong theoretical contributions as well as practical implications.