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1. Introduction
There are 4.66 billion social media users worldwide, which equates to about 59.5% of the world’s population (Johnson, 2021). Users spend an average of 2.25 hours on social media platforms every day (Kemp, 2021). Recent reports show that people are spending 43% more time on social media due to COVID-19 (Chaffey, 2021). As social media are becoming increasingly integrated into our daily lives, they create tremendous opportunities for brands to draw in new customers and cultivate relationships with their existing customers.
Social media are also a powerful channel for hospitality brands to communicate their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and connect with their customers. While CSR has been shown to yield positive business outcomes, consumers often are unaware or skeptical of brands’ CSR activities (Du et al., 2010). This calls for research to explore effective strategies for brands’ CSR communications. Given the development of the mediascape in recent decades, it is not surprising that interactive social media have become even more important for brands’ CSR communications (Correa-Garcia et al., 2018). Previous research suggests that emotional content is effective in driving consumer engagement and increasing sharing (Berger et al., 2021). The present research aims to understand when and why featuring different types of emotions in a hospitality brand’s CSR communications on social media can effectively boost consumers’ loyalty intention.
Pride and empathy are two dominant representatives of the self-focused and other-focused emotions, respectively (Aaker and Williams, 1998). Hospitality organizations have adopted the emotions of pride and empathy in communicating their support of social causes on social media (Massis, 2020). Despite the prevalence of CSR practices in the hospitality industry, existing marketing literature provides little guidance on how to use emotional appeals strategically on social media to effectively influence consumers’ brand perceptions and subsequent loyalty intention. Specifically, we ask the following research questions:
How can hospitality brands frame their CSR messages with different emotions, such as pride and empathy, to leverage marketing effectiveness on social media?
Who might be more susceptible to emotional appeals featuring pride or empathy?
What is the psychological mechanism underlying such effects?
Answers to these questions will help hospitality brands to find effective CSR communication strategies to strengthen customer relationships.
Recent message framing research suggests that...