Reasoning by truth or touching with heart, how does recommendation type affect consumer reaction?

Purpose Influencer marketing has become a new area of concern for traditional marketing managers. As a potential marketing channel, as a bridge between products and consumers, social media influencers (SMIS) have great potential to spread product information and drive consumption. However, in practice, it is found that SMIS’ recommendations can get consumers’ response, while some cannot. What kind of recommendation is more effective? Reasoning by truth or touching with heart? Design/methodology/approach According to the theory of language expectation and the consumer decision journal, this work investigated whether recommendation type could shape consumer responses to SMIS’ recommendations by affecting the perceived diagnosticity. Four online experiments were conducted to test the research hypothesis. Findings The results showed that the interaction between recommendation type and SMIS’ identity, as well as the interaction between recommendation type and recommendation intention, would affect consumers' product attitude and purchase intention, and perceived diagnosticity played a mediating role. Originality/value Our findings provide a possible explanation for the contradictory conclusions of previous studies on the effectiveness of objective information and subjective information and deepen understanding of the drivers of perceived diagnosticity. Besides, we offer suggestions for how to develop more persuasive SMIS’ recommendation.