Purpose: In social marketing, sharing reward program (SRP) is a common way to improve the marketing effect. However, few studies have explored the impact of consumers’ self-presentation and face consciousness on enterprise SRP. This study aims to explore the influence of these two factors on the optimal SRP.
Methods: A Stackelberg game between enterprises, sharers and potential consumers is developed to study the impact of sharers’ face consciousness on enterprise’s SRP. In order to discuss the impact of face consciousness on SRP in detail, we introduced status identity of commodity information, sharer’s self-presentation preference and commodity price as exogenous variables in the research.
Results: The results have shown that when the face consciousness of sharers is high, enterprises are advised to adopt the strategy of low reward and low requirement. But when the face consciousness is low, it would be better for them adopt the strategy of high reward and high requirement. In addition, with the low face consciousness, the optimal SRP is also affected by the relationship between the price of goods and the number of WeChat friends of sharers.
Conclusion: The results suggest that when enterprises make incentive policies, considering consumers’ self-presentation preference and face consciousness, the profit level can be effectively improved.
Keywords: face consciousness, sharing behavior, marketing strategy, game model, reward program