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Social media content in B2B marketing: An experimental study on the effectiveness of organic and paid posts on LinkedIn
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
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en
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67
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Abstract
Despite the growing importance of social media in B2B marketing, academic research in this area remains limited compared to B2C social media research. This thesis addresses this gap by exploring the effectiveness of organic versus paid social media content on LinkedIn, focusing how different content types influence perceived trustworthiness, engagement and click-through intentions, and whether promotional intensity moderates these behavioural outcomes.
A scenario-based 2x2 between-subject factorial experiment was conducted with 114 participants, who viewed LinkedIn posts varying in promotional intensity and content type. Participants rated each post based on trustworthiness, engagement, and click-through intentions.
The results show that paid content is perceived as significantly less trustworthy than organic content. No significant differences were found based on content type on engagement or click-through intentions. Promotional intensity did not moderate the relationship between content type and the dependent variables. However, a direct effect of promotional intensity was observed for engagement and click-through intentions, particularly between medium and high-intensity content. A weak but significant negative relationship between participant age and trustworthiness was also identified.
This study contributes to the growing body of B2B social media research by offering practical insights for content strategy on LinkedIn and reinforcing the need for further research to better understand the differences in B2B and B2C marketing, and to explore how content and audience characteristics influence perceptions and behaviour in professional environments.