The Impact Of Tie Strength On The Relative Effectiveness Of Donation Appeals

With the rapid development of mobile Internet and Internet finance,social crowdfunding has became a new trend of public participation in public welfare.However,in recent years,repeated scandals of fraudulent donations have cast a shadow on the products of such a new era,and the initiative and enthusiasm of the public is no longer the same to its past.Nowadays,when we open the circle of Wechat friends and face the overwhelming information of people asking for help,the public has been unable to read the response one by one.Therefore,the public's donation decision at this time often depends on its subjective factors.The donation appeal information attached to messengers' reposted links is just such a factor.summarizing the content of relevant texts,we find that some donation appeals emphasize the magnitude of the help that is needed,while others emphasize the fact that many people have already donated.Based on the phenomena and theories,and from the perspective of the messenger,the applicability of two types of donation appeals based on social platform donation is discussed and empirically analyzed,and the possible situational factor of the tie strength between the messenger and the recipient is put forward.In this study,we used ANOVA and Bootstrap mediation analysis to verify the experimental assumptions.The results of the three experiments show that:(1)The interaction between different types of donation appeals and the tie strength of the relationship between the messenger and the recipient will affect recipients' donation decisions.(2)When the tie strength between the messenger and the recipient is strong,the recipient responds more positively to the need-focused appeals than to the bandwagon appeals,which is manifested by the higher willingness and larger amount of donation in the former situation;when the tie strength between the messenger and the recipient is weak,the recipient responds more positively to the bandwagon appeals than to the need-focused appeals.The specific performance is that recipients' willingness to donate is higher and the amount of money is larger in the former situation.(3)Perceived responsibility plays a mediating role in the interaction between donation appeal and tie strength on recipients' donation decisions.When the tie strength between the messenger and the recipient is strong,the perceived responsibility mediates the influence of different types of donation appeals(need-focused vs.bandwagon)on donors' decision-making;when the tie strength between the messenger and the recipient is weak,the perceived responsibility mediates the influence of different types of donation appeals(need-focused vs.bandwagon)on donors' decision-making.It is worth mentioning that,when people have little a prior interest in the individuals being helped and sympathy does not play a major role in donation decisions,the above effects are obvious.This study takes into account both theoretical and practical significance.Firstly,this paper makes a good theoretical supplement to the existing research in the field of individual donation behavior.At the same time,in order to enhance the willingness and amount of donation of netizens under the social platform,this study starts from the perspective of the messenger and provides some effective donation strategies.