Revisiting the Task Media Fit Model in the era of Web 2.0: Twitter use and interaction in the healthcare sector

•The Task Media Fit Model is used to examine companies’ the functional use of Twitter and elicited followers’ interactions.•The main functions (tasks) of Twitter are information sharing and signaling problem solving.•The followers' elicited responses do not vary with the Twitter function (task).•Followers' Facebook interactions with the Twitter link are influenced by the function of the link and the type of link.•A revised Task Media Fit Model is proposed specifically for Twitter and its embedded links.

Advances in technology have led to the development of social media and subsequently new channels of communication. This paper refines the established Task Media Fit Model in light of such changes, using business marketers' use of Twitter and followers' responses to tweeted messages for this preliminary conceptual development. Results show that business marketers use different embedded media according to the function of a tweet message. Follower responses to those messages do not vary with the task performed by the tweet, while responses differ with the type of embedded link. Findings from this investigation are used to develop a modified version of the Task Media Fit Model specifically for Twitter.