Social Media Advertising through Private Messages and Public Feeds: A Congruency Effect between Communication Channels and Advertising Appeals

This paper investigates the effectiveness of agentic and communal advertising appeals delivered through two IT enabled communication channels (private messages and public feeds) on social media. Drawing on the prior literature, we propose a congruency effect of advertising appeals and channels on advertisement effectiveness. The results of three experiments show that agentic appeals delivered through public feeds generate favorable advertisement attitudes, and the effect is mediated by consumer self-efficacy perception. Communal appeals delivered through private messages engender positive advertisement attitudes, and the effect is mediated by consumer social self-efficacy perception. The findings provide implications to firms in social media advertising strategies.