Managing perceptions of credibility and social attraction: expectations of university presidents on Twitter

Through deliberate communication and enactment of marketing strategies, university presidents act as institutional brand representatives. One way in which these leaders communicate with their stakeholders is through social-networking sites (SNS). Extant research, however, shows that not only do SNS serve as sources of information, but they also provide cues that receivers, such as student stakeholders, can use to form impressions of senders, such as university presidents. Using a six-condition experiment, we sought to understand how student stakeholders respond to tweets sent by university presidents, depending on the university president’s apparent gender (male/female/undefined) and whether the university president employed the use of a public relations (PR) team to tweet on their behalf. Results indicate that (a) female university presidents are perceived as less credible but more socially attractive than their male or undefined counterparts and (b) university presidents may be able to employ PR teams to tweet on their behalf, without risking their credibility.