How Memes Affect Constituents’ Social Approval and Intention to Support Firms

Theorists have suggested that firms seek to maintain or increase their social approval—defined as constituents’ general affinity for a firm—due to the belief that such approval significantly influences support for the firm and other important firm outcomes. However, the mechanisms underlying changes in constituents’ social approval and the translation of such approval into intention to support the firm remain unclear. In addition, most social approval research has focused on traditional media, whereas constituents increasingly get their news about firms from social media. To address these omissions, we use rhetorical theory to theorize that two characteristics of social media content—emotionality and satire—persuade constituents to change their social approval evaluations of firms and that changes in social approval affect constituents’ intention to support firms. We test the framework using memes in three online surveys that allow us to isolate these effects while maintaining ecological validity. Our results indicate that positive negative emotionality in social media content increases and decreases an individual’s approval of a firm, respectively, and satire amplifies these effects. Changes in approval similarly affect intention to support the firm. We also find a spillover effect for positive content but an individuating effect for negative content. We contribute to social approval and social media research by showing the power of social media content to change constituents’ approval of firms. Our findings advance social approval and social media research in management as new forms of media content emerge and shift how individuals evaluate and subsequently support firms.