The effects of content likeability, content credibility, and social media engagement on users’ acceptance of product placement in mobile social networks

Abstract

Nowadays, product placements are commonly presented on mobile social media but related studies are rare. The main purpose of the study is to investigate the effects of content likeability, content credibility, and social media engagement on users’ acceptance of product placement in mobile social networks. The results of the online survey indicate that content likeability is an antecedent of social media engagement and content credibility; social media engagement has an influence on content credibility; and content likeability, content credibility, and social media engagement both directly affect user acceptance of product placement in mobile social networks. Furthermore, social media engagement has an interaction effect with content likeability on the content credibility of mobile social networks. The results of the multi-group analysis indicate that young adults show differences with middle-aged adults in the direct effect of content likeability on social media engagement and in the interaction effect of content credibility and social media engagement on the acceptance of product placement in mobile social networks. The implications for practitioners are discussed on the basis of the empirical findings.