LAUSR

Abstract Despite the influence of social media marketing, little is known about how branded messaging characteristics affect consumer engagement. We fill in this gap by assessing how readability interacts with brand hedonism to affect consumer engagement with brands based on our analysis of branded tweets for 96 of the most valuable brands according to Forbes Media. Drawing on processing fluency, we challenge the paradigm that reading ease enhances consumer responses universally. The effect of a tweet's readability is instead sensitive to a brand's perceived hedonistic nature, the degree to which it offers fun and enjoyable benefits. For less hedonic brands, tweets perceived as easy to read tend to result in greater engagement, and for more hedonic brands, tweets perceived as difficult to read tend to result in greater engagement. These findings offer insights for brand communication and social media strategy.