From communication to support: a sequential mediation model of awareness of and trust in social enterprises

Introduction Social media is increasingly used by social businesses to engage stakeholders and organize support, but little is known about the processes that transform communication into supporting behavior. This study creates and evaluates a sequential mediation model that uses public knowledge and trust to transform social media communication into public support intention. The research uses structural equation modeling, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and survey data from 400 active social media users in an urban Indian setting to investigate the suggested links. The results show that public knowledge and trust are greatly increased by social media communication, and that public support intention is largely predicted by trust. Public knowledge functions via trust rather than directly influencing support intention. The association between social media communication and awareness is somewhat mediated by trust, while the relationship between communication and support intention is entirely mediated by awareness and trust combined, according to the mediation analysis. These findings demonstrate how communication effects develop along a cognitive–relational route, highlighting the crucial role that trust plays in transforming awareness into support. By verifying a mechanism-based model of stakeholder involvement in digital settings and providing useful insights for creating trust-oriented social media strategies, this study adds to the literature on communication and social entrepreneurship.