Title:
ACHIEVING PROMOTION THROUGH CONSTRUCTING PRAGMATIC IDENTITIES IN ANTHROPOMORPHIC SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING – A CASE STUDY

Authors:
Dongheng Yang

Abstract:
As a large number of companies adopt anthropomorphic marketing approaches to share information and promote products on social media, this paper examines the role of identities constructed by these companies on such platforms in enhancing their marketing endeavors. Utilizing three e-commerce official accounts on Weibo, a prominent Chinese social media platform, this research delves into the linguistic perspective to uncover how diverse pragmatic identities constructed by these accounts can impact their promotional efforts. A tailored analytical framework, integrating pragmatic identity theory with rapport management theory, is developed to reflect their projected identities and elucidate the strategies employed in their construction across discourse, stylistic, and illocutionary dimensions. Under the content analysis of a self-built mini-corpus, this study shows that their identities, which belong to pragmatic identities, are defined in three dynamic and interactive aspects: good bargain promoter, beautiful life sharer, and e-commercial media introducer. Each identified identity is subsequently exemplified with authentic posts, providing an understanding of their promotional facilitation functions. Finally, the feasibility of constructing various pragmatic identities within social media contexts is discussed.

Keywords:
identity construction, pragmatic identity, promotion, anthropomorphic social media marketing, rapport management

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37500/IJESSR.2024.7408

Date of Publication: 05-08-2024