The more the better? Strategizing visual elements in social media marketing

Visual elements in social media marketing must be strategically designed and leveraged to elicit viewers’ interest, desire, and action. This study aimed to complement the social media marketing literature by investigating how different visual strategies, including visual volume, variety, and dynamism, interactively affect viewers’ emotional and behavioral responses to social media posts. Extending the AIDA (awareness, interest, desire, action) model, this study revealed the underlying mechanisms driving the positive effect of visual volume on viewers’ intention to visit restaurants after viewing social media posts about the restaurants. Furthermore, consumers' memory of the post content was found to be a significant predecessor of their cognitive (interest), affective (desire), and conative (action) responses to the restaurant. The effect of visual volume was moderated by visual variety and visual dynamism. The positive indirect effect of visual volume on consumers’ responses was significant only when the other two visual strategies were not used. This study provides important theoretical and practical contributions to visual social media marketing.