In a massive analysis of 893,054 tweets from 122 S&P 500 companies, researchers found that emotional, appreciative messaging drives more social media shares than informational or directive content. The study, published in the Journal of Business Research, shows that ingratiation tactics, thanking followers, showing warmth, and expressing shared values, outperformed both fact-based internalization and call-to-action compliance strategies in prompting consumers to share brand messages.
Three Tactics, Three Outcomes
The team, led by Guowei Huang, Heiner Evanschitzky, and Hai-Anh Tran, used a fine-tuned BERT machine learning model to classify brand tweets into three influence categories:
- Internalization, sharing objective information or expert recommendations
- Compliance, making promises or issuing calls to action
- Ingratiation, expressing gratitude, praise, or emotional connection
All three approaches boosted retweet rates, but ingratiation produced the largest effect. This emotional tactic requires less cognitive effort from readers, making it easier to process and more likely to spread in a crowded social media feed.
“Thank you so much for helping us reach 100,000 followers. Our fans are the best!” (Example of an ingratiation tactic tweet from the study)
Consistency and Variety Both Work
Interestingly, the study found that the way brands sequence their messaging also matters. When a series of posts showed either very high consistency (using the same tactic repeatedly) or very high variation (switching tactics dramatically), retweet rates climbed. Moderate variation, however, was less effective, neither reinforcing the brand identity nor offering enough novelty to stand out.
Brand Name Gender Matters
The researchers also explored how the perceived gender of a brand name changes the impact of each tactic. Feminine-sounding brand names gained more from ingratiation, while masculine-sounding names performed better with compliance tactics. Internalization showed no significant difference based on brand name gender.
Why It Matters
With U.S. firms spending more than $300 billion on social media marketing in 2024, understanding what makes messages shareable is critical. Shares expand reach, deepen brand-consumer connections, and amplify marketing investments without additional cost. The findings suggest that brands can boost their message spread by:
- Leveraging ingratiation when aiming for maximum sharing
- Choosing high consistency or high variation across post sequences
- Aligning tactic choice with brand name gender perception
Looking Ahead
This research provides a framework for integrating persuasion theory with real-world social media strategy. By blending emotional resonance, strategic sequencing, and brand identity alignment, companies can better cut through the noise of the digital landscape and inspire followers to amplify their message.
Journal of Business Research. DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2025.115497
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