The Effect of Multimodal Compositions in Social Media Brand Posts on Purchase Intentions

Determining which images to use in social media brand posts, to engage consumers and boost purchase, in combination with textual information (e.g., caption), remains challenging for marketers; they might gain relevant insights from research on visual semiotics that explicates the influences of multimodal compositions. Study 1 shows that narrative images generate higher purchase intention compared to conceptual images, due to the greater degree of consumer mental involvement. When the caption is also narrative (vs. informative), the effect of narrative images on purchase intention is boosted further. Study 2 examines an ad context in which conceptual instead of narrative images can enhance social media content effectiveness. Our findings establish some basic heuristics that content managers can use to design effective, multimodal brand messages in different contexts.