Investigating the Determinants of meme Behavior on Social Media

Abstract

The use of social media has become one of the important things in people’s daily life, and various meme activities on social media are a potential marketing approach to communicate with consumers. However, few studies focus on how to utilize the meme activity on social media for marketing promotion and thus there is an academic gap. Based on the two-step flow of communication theory and source credibility theory, this research chooses Instagram as the research target to investigate the effects of meme activities on viral advertising by conducting two studies. In Study 1, the results confirm that the indirect effect of advertising source on consumers’ participation in meme activities via source credibility would be moderated by the condition of the account authenticity. In Study 2, the results verify that the indirect effect of advertising source (influencer vs. company) on consumers’ participation and engagement in meme activities via source credibility would be moderated by product type (hedonic vs. utilitarian). The findings provide several implications. (1) This research extends the two-step flow of communication theory to the context of meme activity on social media and confirms the mediating role of source credibility and moderating roles of the verified badge and product type, (2) The different advertising sources have different effects on the source credibility, and when the advertising publisher's account has a verified badge, it can improve the source credibility and further enhance consumers’ intentions of participation intention. (3) For practitioners, it is suitable to choose influencers as the advertising publisher when promoting hedonic products.

Keywords: Meme behavior, Two-step flow of communication theory, Source credibility, Influencer, Instagram