Understanding the Effect of Information Shared by Other Customers on Social Media on the Performance of Merchant Advertising: Why and How to Do

Many merchants are keen to boast of their products in advertisements. With the emergence of social media platforms, many consumers seek information shared by other users on those platforms to inform their purchasing decisions. However, existing research predominantly dwells on the influence of social media on consumer decision-making, and few studies have examined how advertising performance is influenced by information shared by other consumers on social media. Using restaurant advertisements as an example, this research investigates how the information shared by other consumers on social media affects merchants’ advertising performance with two studies, drawing upon the expectation confirmation theory. In Study 1, the proposed research model is tested with 220 effective data by using partial least squares technique. The results show that the confirmation level of expectation aroused by advertisement affects the perceived quality and satisfaction of consumers, which in turn affects their purchase behavior. In Study 2, an experiment of one-factor (advertising expression: very good vs. good vs. control condition) design with 120 participants is conducted. The results show that the expression of “good†enhances the desire to buy more than “very good.†The findings enrich the research on advertising performance by integrating the effect of social media information, expand the scope of the expectation confirmation theory, contribute novel knowledge to advertising language research, and hold implications for enterprise advertising strategies in the era of social media.