Return on investment of social media: an exploratory study on the impact of message intention to the trust of followers on Twitter

Nowadays companies often use Twitter to communicate and create interaction with business partners and end-consumers. Question however, remains whether the use of Twitter is effective and results in a positive Return on Investment (ROI). On the basis of a provided ROI model by Favier (2012), this paper will explore the influence of the message intention of a Tweet on the trust level of the Twitter followers. A multiple regression analysis was conducted to explain the influence of the five types of message intention; expressive, conative, informative, phatic & meta-linguistic, and trust