Social Media & Digital Behavior
Decoding how social platforms reshape the trust equation between brands and consumers.
Social media and digital behavior research examines how platform-mediated interactions shape consumer attitudes, brand relationships, and information processing in online environments. This area encompasses the study of brand trust formation on social platforms, luxury brand engagement strategies, online review dynamics, digital word-of-mouth, and the evolving role of social media in news consumption and knowledge construction. My research demonstrates that social media has fundamentally altered the trust equation between brands and consumers by introducing peer validation, source similarity effects, and community identification as mediating forces. Using survey methods, content analysis, and experimental designs, I have investigated how consumers evaluate brand messages, process online reviews, and develop relationships with brands in networked digital environments.
Why This Matters Now
Social media platforms continue to evolve rapidly, with short-form video, AI-generated content, and algorithmic curation reshaping how consumers encounter and evaluate brand messages. The credibility crisis facing traditional media has elevated social platforms as primary information sources, making the study of digital trust and persuasion more critical than ever. Brands investing in social strategies need empirically grounded guidance on what drives engagement, when online reviews are persuasive, and how community dynamics shape brand outcomes.
Dr. Pentina's Contribution
My work in this area has generated several high-impact contributions. My study of social media engagement with luxury brands, published in the Journal of Advertising with over 250 citations, identified distinct engagement behavioral patterns and demonstrated that brand identification and community identification are key drivers of active participation. My research on Yelp review persuasiveness revealed that source similarity between reviewer and reader significantly enhances persuasion, while receiver regulatory focus moderates the impact of review valence. A particularly influential study published in Computers in Human Behavior explored how social media transforms news consumption from passive information receipt to active knowledge construction, accumulating over 240 citations. I have also investigated brand relationship quality in online social networks, showing that self-congruity and partner quality drive relationship strength, which in turn predicts loyalty and positive word-of-mouth. My cross-cultural studies on social media behavior, including comparative research on Twitter and Weibo, have demonstrated that platform usage motivations and trust dynamics differ significantly across cultural contexts.
Key Findings
- Consumers engage with luxury brands on social media through distinct patterns of consuming, contributing, and creating content, each driven by different psychological factors
- Source similarity between online reviewer and reader significantly enhances review persuasiveness, moderated by the reader's regulatory focus
- Social media transforms news consumption from passive information receipt to active collaborative knowledge construction
- Brand relationship quality in online social networks is driven by self-congruity, partner quality, and information quality
- Usage motivations for social media platforms differ significantly across cultures, as demonstrated in comparative US-China studies
- Social support dynamics on platforms like Facebook influence emotional disclosure behavior differently than in face-to-face contexts
Selected Publications
Exploring Social Media Engagement Behaviors in the Context of Luxury Brands
Journal of Advertising, vol. 47
From "information" to "knowing": Exploring the role of social media in contemporary news consumption
Comput. Hum. Behav., vol. 35
Antecedents and consequences of trust in a social media brand: A cross-cultural study of Twitter
Comput. Hum. Behav., vol. 29
Motivations and Usage Patterns of Weibo
Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, vol. 15
Drivers and Outcomes of Brand Relationship Quality in the Context of Online Social Networks
International Journal of Electronic Commerce, vol. 17
Exploring effects of source similarity, message valence, and receiver regulatory focus on yelp review persuasiveness and purchase intentions
Journal of Marketing Communications, vol. 24
Friend, mentor, lover: does chatbot engagement lead to psychological dependence?
Journal of Service Management
Mobile Application Adoption by Young Adults: A Social Network Perspective
Research Summary
Dr. Pentina's social media research investigates how digital platforms reshape brand-consumer relationships, information processing, and trust formation. Her work reveals that social media engagement operates through distinct behavioral patterns driven by brand identification and community belonging. She has demonstrated that online review persuasion depends on source-receiver similarity and individual regulatory orientation, and that social media fundamentally changes how consumers construct knowledge from news. Cross-cultural studies comparing US, Chinese, Ukrainian, and French users show that platform motivations and trust antecedents are culturally contingent. With publications in the Journal of Advertising, Computers in Human Behavior, and International Journal of Electronic Commerce, this research stream provides a comprehensive framework for understanding digital consumer behavior.