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To enhance the understanding of consumer engagement with brand content on social media, this study examines how pronoun choices affect different types of consumer engagement (e.g., likes, comments, shares) by simultaneously exploring five different pronoun types (first‐person singular, first‐person plural, second person, third‐person singular, and third‐person plural). Furthermore, this study explores how the effects of these linguistic (pronoun) choices vary across two brand classifications: characteristics (hedonic vs. utilitarian) and offerings (goods vs. services). The proposed multivariate Poisson regression model, analyzing 15,788 unique brand posts from Facebook over an 8‐month period, reveals differences in engagement due to pronoun usage across brand classifications. These results offer a deeper understanding of how the way brands talk to consumers on social media platforms influences consumers' attitudes (likes), propensity to engage with the brand (comments), and willingness to share branded content with their social networks (shares) across different brand classifications.

Purpose -This research aims to investigate the message strategies most likely to promote online "word-of-mouth" (WOM) activity for business-to-business (B2B)/business-to-consumer as well as product/service Facebook accounts. Design/methodology/approach -Using content analysis and HLM, the authors measure the relationship between three types of message strategies and Facebook message "Likes" by analyzing 1,143 wall post messages of 193 Fortune 500 Facebook accounts. Findings -Research findings suggest that B2B Facebook account posts are more effective if they include corporate brand names and avoid "hard sell" or explicitly commercial statements. Furthermore, results suggest that including emotional sentiments in Facebook posts is a particularly effective social media strategy for B2B and service marketers. Originality/value -This study advances the knowledge of social media and online WOM behavior, as well as B2B and service advertising/communication literature, by relating message content to message popularity. In terms of managerial implications, this research provides explanations and support for the implementation of effective social media message strategies that are likely to promote WOM activity.

Academic interest in brand community research has burgeoned in the past two decades. Despite its importance, there has been a paucity of effort in reviewing the growing research. Drawing on the Theory‐Context‐Characteristics‐Methods (TCCM) review framework, this research provides a comprehensive understanding of the dominant theories, contexts (i.e., industries and countries), characteristics (i.e., key variables and their relationships), and methods (i.e., research approaches and analysis techniques) employed in brand community research over last two decades (2001–2020). A systematic analysis of 285 articles reveals a focus on consumer‐specific theories and a scant application of multi‐disciplinary theories. Though the literature covers an array of industries to understand brand communities, there is a need for more research in the B2B context and the service industries. Furthermore, we detect a need for more research on the influence of brand/marketer‐related variables on brand communities, underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions for the key relationships in this area. This research presents four different stages of the evolution of brand community research over the years. Finally, we apply the TCCM framework to suggest fertile areas for future research.