F.F.-H. Nah (Ed.): HCIB/HCII 2014, LNCS 8527, pp. 155–165, 2014. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 Social Media Marketing on Twitter: An Investigation of the Involvement-Messaging-Engagement Link Constantinos K. Coursaris, Wietske van Osch, and Brandon Brooks Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, USA {coursari,vanosch,brook205}@msu.edu Abstract. With the rise of social media marketing as an important domain of practice and research, a growing number of scholarly and practitioner articles have emerged highlighting best practices in social media marketing. Despite this proliferation of articles exploring the topic of social media marketing, no comprehensive frameworks exist that offer insight into the underlying compo- nents of effective social media marketing messages and the relations between them. Amalgamating constructs from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds— including marketing, advertising, communication, and information systems— this paper offers a theoretical framework and empirical investigation of the rela- tions between four message components, namely purchase involvement, mes- saging strategy, message content, and media types. Using longitudinal data from ten Fortune 500 companies, we validate our comprehensive framework and find support for all hypotheses, thereby validating the importance of using an integrated approach to social media message design. Implications for re- search and practice are outlined. Keywords: social media marketing, purchase involvement, media richness, content categories typology, Twitter. 1 Introduction Recent studies have revealed that companies have grown their social media marketing spending and are expected to continue to increase social media budgets in the next five years (Moorman, 2013), making social media one of the fastest growing market- ing platforms in the world. The popularity of social media for marketing purposes can be attributed to a number of advantages associated with social media when compared to traditional marketing channels. First, the scope of consumer markets that can be reached and served through social media platforms are nearly unlimited. Second, social media offer businesses significant cost advantages compared to traditional channels given its relatively free or low-cost nature. Third, social media enable perso- nalized marketing strategies and allow the targeting of small niche markets (Carpenter and Shankar, 2012). Finally, due to the social nature of these platforms, companies can benefit from accruing earned media exposures and referral markets in unprece- dented ways (Carpenter and Shankar, 2012).