Social media platforms are increasingly used to disseminate social marketing messages about mental health and wellbeing. This study presents a range of message appeals used in social media enabled mental health promotion and stigma reduction messages. Furthermore, it examines the relationship between the type of message appeals and audience engagement. A content analysis of 65 organisation-generated YouTube videos about depression and anxiety and stigma reduction was conducted. The most utilised message appeal was Sorrow, followed by Affiliation, Ease/Convenience, Hope, Humour, Guilt/Shame, Heroic/Successful, and Fear. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between the type of message appeals and audience engagement in terms of the number of likes, comments, and shares. The analysis revealed that Sorrow is the most useful message appeal for generating audience comments. However, Sorrow is negatively associated with the number of likes and shares. The results suggest that mental health promotion messages may engage a larger audience through Affiliation and Hope as they have a positive impact on the number of shares. This could, in effect, turn audiences into vocal advocates for mental health promotion and stigma reduction messages.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of different reward programs on in‐role and extra‐role behaviour; and to investigate whether specific reward programs can be designed to enhance both in‐role and extra‐role behaviour simultaneously.Design/methodology/approachSemi‐structured in‐depth interviews were conducted on a total of 11 employees from four different fashion retail outlets. Informants consisted of employees from different positions within these organizations (i.e. store manager, assistant store manager and sales associates) to provide researchers with possibly differing viewpoints. Interviews were content analysed and classified, according to emerging themes.FindingsCertain reward programs, namely individual and group financial incentives motivated sales associates to engage in both in‐role and extra‐role behaviour simultaneously. Further, compared to formal recognition programs, informal reward programs (individual financial incentives, individual social recognition and group social recognition) appeared to be more effective in motivating sales associates to enhance their in‐role and extra‐role performance.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to a better understanding of the effects of different reward programs and their administration on in‐role and extra‐role performance of retail sales associates.

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