Online relationship marketing through content creation and curation

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to test the influence of various content cues and characteristics on the followers’ online expressions of relationship quality. Second, the research aims to understand the moderating effects of content curation. Design/methodology/approach: The sample comprised of 100 posts and 29,000 comments that were sourced from the Facebook pages of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The content was coded using the prior literature. Comments were manually coded using a deductive approach and captured the dimensions of relationship quality. Multiple regression was used to confirm the hypotheses. Findings: Visuals, content popularity, volume of comments and content’s length have a positive effect on voters’ expressions of relationship quality. However, source credibility, argument quality, valence and interactivity did not have an impact. Additionally, content curation negatively moderated the effects of length and interactivity on expressions of relationship quality. Practical implications: The findings emphasise the use of peripheral cues rather than the central route. Curating interactive and lengthy content should be avoided, however, curation of images and videos is well received. Originality/value: The research contributes to the literature by understanding the role of marketer-generated content in building online relationships. Additionally, it explores the distinct impacts of created and curated content.