Traces of mobility: Examining location disclosure on social networks with mobile location tagging

The prevailing adoption of mobile devices has facilitated individuals' engagement with location tagging; thus, location-based information sharing, which allows geolocation specificity and interaction on the Internet platforms, has become a popular activity in the space of social media. This spatiotemporal information provides a great potential opportunity for marketers as photos or videos shared among friends on social networking sites can be viewed as a type of word-ofmouth that may increase brand awareness and attract more users. Thus, understanding the underlying factors driving location tagging intentions provides significant value for practitioners. However, despite its importance, our understanding of this topic is limited. This research draws from social exchange theory and the theory of impression management to exemplify the underlying factors driving individuals to engage in photo or video sharing with location tagging on social media. Using an online survey, we recruited 402 users. We find that location tagging intention is driven by a facilitating route involving social benefits and functional benefits and an impeding route involving perceived risk related to privacy concerns. Our findings provide important academic and managerial implications.