How Racial Minority Representation in Brand Communication Affects Social Media Engagement

Abstract Consumers increasingly appreciate racial diversity in brand communication, though the ultimate impact of racial minority representation remains ambiguous. Previous research typically finds a positive effect among racial minority target groups, but it generally ignores or offers conflicting effects for (larger) nonminority groups. We aim to address this gap by establishing the overall effect of racial minority models on social media engagement. Our multimethod approach combines large-scale field data (more than 14,000 posts by 75 brands) with a series of four experiments and a conjoint study ( N = 1,456) and offers consistent evidence of a positive relationship between racial minority representation and social media engagement, including among nonminority groups. The results also provide evidence for a mediating role of brand morality, such that consumers (regardless of racial background) perceive brands with greater minority representation as more moral. Brand motive acts as a boundary condition, such that the positive effect of racial minority representation disappears with an external (stakeholder-driven) motive. These findings provide compelling implications for the development of inclusive social media content.