The impact of social cues and effectiveness in check-in advertising

Purpose – Check-in based advertising is growing dramatically as the popularity of social media increases. The purpose of this paper is to explore which social cues are appropriate for check-in based advertising in social media based on media richness theory and how content effectiveness affects content generation intention based on achievement motivation theory. Design/methodology/approach – A laboratory experiment was performed to evaluate the effects of social cue strategies on content effectiveness of attitude toward the ad and self-efficacy on recall. The influence of effectiveness on content generation intention are also measured in the experiment. Findings – The results of a laboratory experiment indicated that a strategy of using plentiful social cues has high effectiveness as measured by the concept of attitude toward the ad. Content effectiveness measured by attitude toward the ad and self-efficacy on recall can directly affect user intentions to generating check-in based advertisements. Research limitations/implications – Although check-in based advertising is driven by the customers themselves rather than by the company, companies can encourage their customers to follow an appropriate check-in content generation strategy to improve effectiveness. Practical implications – The findings of this study provide useful information for designing the content of social media designed to facilitate the promotion of products and companies in online marketing. Originality/value – In theoretical contribution, this study integrates media richness theory and achievement motivation theory to explore how users intent to generate check-in advertising according to social cues effectiveness.