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Purpose Focusing on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication context, the present research aims to understand when and why featuring pride versus empathy in a hospitality brand’s social media post can effectively boost consumers’ loyalty intention. Design/methodology/approach Two experimental studies examined the congruence effects between emotional appeal and sense of power, where power was made situationally salient within the social media post (Study 1) or measured as a personality trait (Study 2). Findings Emotional appeals featuring pride (vs empathy) will lead to higher loyalty intention for individuals with a situational or chronic sense of high (vs low) power. A further examination into the psychological mechanism reveals that such congruence effects are serially mediated through consumers’ perceived brand authenticity and brand trustworthiness. Practical implications Understanding how the sense of power may influence consumer response to social media posts using different emotional appeals can provide useful guidance for marketers about how to creatively segment customers and curate appropriate targeting messages for effective CSR communication and relationship building on social media. Originality/value Extending the message framing research on schema congruity, this research is the first to reveal the congruence effects of emotional appeal and sense of power in CSR communications and uncover the serial mediating roles of perceived brand authenticity and brand trustworthiness in relationship marketing on social media.

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