ORIGINAL ARTICLE
SCARCITY-DRIVEN FOMO MARKETING IN FACEBOOK
PROMOTIONAL COPY: A QUALITATIVE CONTENT
ANALYSIS OF RETAIL ADVERTISING
Misael Aldo Walangitan1*.
Floren Agnesia Sinaga2.
Bervie Fransel Rondonuwu3.
Immanuel Christian Pontorondo4.
Arief Perdana Kumaat5 Politeknik Negeri Manado.
Indonesia *Corresponding Author: walangitanmisael1@gmail.
ABSTRACT
Social media retailers increasingly use scarcity-oriented copy to make promotional offers appear urgent, limited, and socially desirable.
This study aimed to identify and explain how Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)-related cues are linguistically constructed in Facebook retail promotional copy.
A qualitative descriptive content analysis was conducted on 24 purposively selected public Facebook advertisement posts from retail sellers in North Sulawesi.
Indonesia.
The unit of analysis was each caption or visual-text expression that represented time scarcity, quantity scarcity, or social proof.
Data were transcribed, anonymized, and coded using an operational codebook adapted from persuasion and FOMO literature.
The analysis identified 29 cue occurrences across the 24 posts.
Time scarcity was the most frequent cue with 14 occurrences, mainly expressed through same-day offers, promo deadlines, and limited promotional periods.
Quantity scarcity appeared 13 times through remaining-stock statements, limited-unit claims, and first-come-first-served expressions.
Social proof appeared only twice and did not stand independently, as both occurrences were combined with time scarcity.
These findings indicate that local Facebook retail copy constructs FOMO primarily through temporal and quantitative limitation cues rather than through social validation alone.
The study contributes to digital marketing communication by clarifying how scarcity-driven FOMO cues are textualized in local promotional discourse.
Its limitation is that it analyzes advertising texts, not consumer responses.
therefore, behavioral effects require further research.
Keywords: Copywriting.
Digital Marketing.
Facebook Advertising.
FOMO Marketing.
Retail Advertising.
INTRODUCTION
The development of information and communication technology has moved promotional communication from conventional channels to digital and interactive spaces.
In Indonesia, social media has become an everyday marketplace where sellers and buyers meet through captions, images, comments, direct messages, and platform algorithms.
This transformation creates new opportunities for micro, small, and local retail businesses because a simple post can circulate beyond the physical location of a store.
At the same time, the speed and density of social media information make attention a scarce Users scroll through feeds quickly, compare offers continuously, and evaluate promotional messages in seconds.
In this environment, copywriting is not merely decorative language.
it is a strategic textual device that frames value, urgency, trust, and the risk of losing an opportunity.
Facebook remains important for local retail promotion because it accommodates several forms of selling communication at once, including captions, marketplace listings, group posts, page announcements, visual banners, and comment-based negotiations.
For retail sellers, the platform allows a combination of textual and visual persuasion.
Promotional copy may present price information, product benefits, delivery arrangements, stock availability, and calls to action within one short post.
The effectiveness of such copy often depends on how quickly it turns a passive viewer into an interested This is why many sellers employ urgent phrases, capital letters, numerical stock claims, short deadlines, emojis, and informal local language to make an offer appear immediate and difficult to ignore.
The growth of digital promotion also requires consumers to have adequate digital literacy.
Digital literacy is important not only for accessing information, but also for evaluating persuasive messages, recognizing promotional pressure, and making informed consumption decisions.
Pontorondo et al.
emphasize the importance of information awareness in digital environments, while Agnesia et .
show that managing and evaluating digital information is a necessary competence in contemporary communication.
In retail advertising, this competence becomes relevant because promotional messages often merge factual information with psychological cues.
A phrase such as Auonly EDUCATIONE: Journal of Education Research and Review | 747
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
todayAy or Auonly three leftAy may provide useful information, but it may also construct pressure that narrows the time available for reflection.
One persuasive strategy that has become prominent in digital marketing is Fear of Missing Out, widely known as FOMO.
Przybylski et al.
conceptualize FOMO as apprehension that others may be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent.
Zhang et al.
broaden this understanding by linking FOMO to self-concept and the fear that missing an opportunity will make a person feel left behind personally or socially.
In marketing communication.
FOMO is not directly observable as a consumer emotion unless psychological or behavioral data are collected.
What can be observed in advertising copy is the set of cues that may invite FOMO, such as urgency, scarcity, social validation, and the framing of an offer as a time-sensitive opportunity.
Therefore, this study uses the term FOMO-related cues to refer to textual devices that represent scarcity-driven opportunities in promotional posts.
The conceptual distinction between FOMO, scarcity, urgency, and social proof is crucial.
FOMO is a psychological response or anticipated anxiety.
Scarcity appeal is a message strategy that emphasizes limited availability.
Urgency cue is a linguistic signal that limits decision time, whereas quantity cue limits perceived availability.
Social proof refers to validation derived from the behavior, approval, or success of others.
Cialdini .
explains that scarcity and social proof are powerful principles of persuasion because people tend to value what is limited and often look to others when evaluating uncertain choices.
In retail copy, these principles may work together.
For example, an advertisement may state that a promotion is valid Autoday onlyAy while also claiming that many buyers have already obtained the product.
Such copy does not prove that consumers feel FOMO, but it does show how advertisers create textual conditions under which FOMO can be anticipated.
Previous research has confirmed that FOMO is associated with consumer behavior and digital marketing outcomes.
Suhartini and Maharani .
argue that FOMO can influence purchase decision processes, and Lim et al.
demonstrate its relevance in curiosity-driven consumption.
Tubalawony et al.
connect FOMO, social media marketing, and purchasing decisions in food and beverage contexts, while Habib and Almamy .
position FOMO as a mediator between social media engagement and impulse buying in lifestyle products.
Siregar .
discusses the use of content marketing and FOMO marketing to strengthen consumer loyalty among younger consumers, and Dioh et al.
highlight the use of FOMO as a marketing strategy among culinary microbusinesses.
These studies help establish FOMO as a relevant construct in marketing scholarship.
However, much of the existing literature treats FOMO as a psychological variable, a consumer response, or a predictor of purchase intention.
Less attention has been given to how FOMO is constructed at the level of advertising language, especially in local retail Facebook copy that combines Indonesian, local expressions, informal spelling, emojis, capital letters, and short-order instructions.
This creates a gap between knowledge about FOMO as a consumer phenomenon and knowledge about the micro-linguistic cues through which advertisers invite that phenomenon.
The gap is important because social media advertising does not operate only through product features or price reductions.
also operates through compressed linguistic signals that frame time, availability, and social desirability.
This study addresses that gap by examining scarcity-driven FOMO cues in Facebook retail promotional copy.
The focus is not to measure consumer fear, intention, clicks, or purchase decisions.
Instead, the study identifies how promotional texts present opportunities as limited, urgent, or socially The research question guiding this article is: how are FOMO-related cues linguistically constructed in Facebook retail promotional copy? Accordingly, the objective of the study is to identify, classify, and interpret the use of time scarcity, quantity scarcity, and social proof cues in selected Facebook advertisement posts.
The contribution of this study lies in its operational codebook, anonymized textual evidence, and interpretation of local copywriting practices as part of digital marketing discourse.
METHOD
This study used a qualitative descriptive content analysis design.
Content analysis is appropriate because the research problem concerns how meaning is constructed in textual material rather than how consumers respond behaviorally to advertisements.
Krippendorff .
defines content analysis as a EDUCATIONE: Journal of Education Research and Review | 748
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
technique for making replicable and valid inferences from texts and other meaningful materials to their contexts of use.
The approach was also informed by qualitative coding procedures that emphasize data reduction, pattern identification, and interpretive explanation (Miles et al.
, 2.
Because the study examined public advertising copy, the analysis focused on manifest textual cues such as deadline phrases, remaining-stock statements, numerical limits, social validation claims, capitalization, and codemixed expressions.
The corpus consisted of 24 public Facebook advertisement posts created by retail sellers operating in the North Sulawesi context.
The posts were selected purposively because the aim was not to estimate platform-wide frequency, but to examine information-rich examples of scarcity-driven promotional Data were collected from publicly accessible Facebook sales posts during March 2026, including caption text and text embedded in promotional images.
Search and observation were guided by Indonesian and local retail-promotion terms such as promo, diskon, ready, sisa, terbatas, hari ini.
Manado, and product-related keywords.
Posts were considered active when the content remained accessible during the observation window and still presented an offer, product, service, or ordering The inclusion criteria were that the post had to be a retail or service promotional post on Facebook, use Indonesian, local language, code-mixed language, or informal local spelling, and contain at least one cue associated with time scarcity, quantity scarcity, or social proof.
The exclusion criteria were posts that contained no promotional offer, posts without readable textual copy, reposts or duplicate materials from the same seller, non-retail announcements, and posts whose account names, contact numbers, or personal information could not be adequately anonymized for reporting.
The final corpus contained 24 Because a single post could contain more than one FOMO-related cue, the total number of coded cue occurrences exceeded the number of posts.
The unit of analysis was each linguistic expression in the caption or visual text that signaled a scarcity-driven or social-validation cue.
Thus, the unit was not the whole post only, but the specific phrase, clause, sentence, number, or claim that carried persuasive meaning.
For example, a phrase such as Aupromo cuma ini hariAy was coded as time scarcity, whereas Ausisa 3 toplesAy was coded as quantity A claim such as Autelah mewujudkan ribuan pasanganAy was coded as social proof because it used previous achievements and the presence of many beneficiaries as validation.
Non-FOMO information such as price, address, ordering channel, or delivery instruction was transcribed for context but not counted as a cue unless it contained a relevant scarcity or social proof marker.
The coding process followed three stages.
First, all eligible posts were transcribed, and visible account names, telephone numbers, addresses, and identifiable personal details were removed or Second, the transcribed expressions were coded using an operational codebook based on scarcity and social proof principles in persuasion theory (Cialdini, 2.
and FOMO literature (Przybylski et al.
, 2013.
Zhang et al.
, 2.
Third, the research team discussed ambiguous cases through peer debriefing and consensus coding.
Code-recode checking was used to ensure that the same expression would be classified consistently when examined again after an interval.
These procedures strengthened credibility and reduced the risk that categories were assigned only through subjective Ethical precautions were applied because Facebook posts can contain identifiable information even when they are publicly accessible.
The manuscript does not reproduce seller names, profile photos, contact numbers, precise addresses, or direct account identifiers.
The screenshots in the first draft were replaced by textual transcriptions and anonymized excerpts because the reviewers noted that the images were difficult to read and raised privacy concerns.
The study reports copywriting patterns rather than evaluating individual sellers.
Therefore, the analysis treats the posts as examples of public promotional discourse and not as personal data about the owners of the accounts.
Figure 1.
Research procedure for the qualitative content analysis EDUCATIONE: Journal of Education Research and Review | 749
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Table 1.
Operational codebook for FOMO-related advertising cues Code Operational definition Linguistic markers Time scarcity A cue that presents an Deadline words, todayoffer as limited by time only phrases, or promotional period.
countdowns, month/year promo labels, urgent temporal adverbs.
Quantity A cue that presents a Remaining-stock product or service as numbers, limited units, limited by stock, units, first-come-first-served quota, or availability.
Auwhile stock lastsAy claims.
Social proof A cue that validates the Claims about many offer through previous customers, thousands buyers, achievements, served, best sellers, high popularity, testimonials, demand, or realized or collective approval.
Decision rule Code when the copy restricts the opportunity by time, even when the exact date is informal.
Code when the copy restricts opportunity by amount, quota, or physical availability.
Code when the copy uses other peopleAos actions or business achievement as persuasive validation.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The analysis identified 29 FOMO-related cue occurrences across 24 Facebook advertisement posts.
The number of cue occurrences was higher than the number of posts because five posts contained more than one coded cue.
The findings show that scarcity-driven copy was not evenly distributed across the three categories.
Time scarcity appeared most frequently, followed closely by quantity scarcity, while social proof appeared only in two cases.
This pattern indicates that local retail Facebook advertisers relied more on temporal and physical limitation than on collective validation as the main structure of persuasive pressure.
Table 2 summarizes the analytic corpus and clarifies the scope of the data.
The table also responds to the methodological issue raised during review by distinguishing the number of posts from the number of coded cue occurrences.
This distinction is essential because one Facebook post can include several persuasive cues within the same caption or visual copy.
For instance, a wedding service advertisement may present a yearly promotional package while also claiming that the business has helped many In such a case, one post contributes both time scarcity and social proof to the coding result.
Table 2.
Corpus scope and analytic decisions Aspect Description Platform and source Public Facebook promotional posts, including captions and text embedded in images Geographic business context Retail sellers and service providers operating in North Sulawesi.
Indonesia
Observation window
March 2026 public posts and accessible promotional materials Final analytic corpus
24 advertisement posts that met inclusion criteria
Analytic unit
A phrase, clause, sentence, number, or claim that signaled a FOMOrelated cue
Total coded cue occurrences 29 occurrences across the 24 posts Posts with multiple 5 posts contained two cues in the same promotional material Privacy treatment
Accounts, telephone numbers, addresses, and personal identifiers were anonymized EDUCATIONE: Journal of Education Research and Review | 750
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Table 3.
Frequency distribution of FOMO-related advertising cues Indicator Frequency Percentage Dominant textual realization Time scarcity Same-day offers, promo deadlines, month/year promotional windows, countdown-style language Quantity scarcity 13 Remaining-stock statements, limited-unit claims, quota restrictions, first-come-first-served Social proof Claims of previous customers, realized outcomes, or business achievement used as Total One post could contain more than one coded cue Time Scarcity as the Dominant Urgency Cue Time scarcity was the most frequent indicator, with 14 occurrences or 48.
28% of all coded cues.
This finding suggests that local Facebook retail copy often constructs urgency by making the promotional opportunity appear temporary.
Time scarcity was realized through expressions that restricted the offer to the current day, framed the promotion as a special period, or presented a deadline that required quick The phrase Aupromo cuma ini hari,Ay for example, does not simply inform readers that a promotion exists.
it frames the opportunity as expiring soon.
In discourse terms, the offer becomes valuable because it is temporally bounded.
This pattern is consistent with the scarcity principle in persuasion theory.
Scarce opportunities tend to appear more valuable because access to them is restricted (Cialdini, 2.
In social media copy, the restriction is often compressed into short phrases because Facebook users encounter posts among many competing pieces of content.
Temporal markers such as Autoday,Ay Authis month,Ay or Auonly for this promo periodAy reduce the perceived time available for comparison.
However, the present study does not claim that such phrases caused purchases.
The data support a more precise claim: the copy rhetorically constructs a situation in which delay is represented as a risk.
The local style of time scarcity was also visible in informal spelling and capitalization.
The phrase AuSALE MURAH SKALI BARANGG BARUU PROMO CUMA INI HARI YAhAy combines price emphasis, new product framing, and same-day urgency.
The use of capital letters, repeated letters, and colloquial spelling makes the copy resemble conversational selling rather than formal advertising.
This is important because local Facebook retail communication often occurs in semi-personal spaces such as public groups, pages, and comment threads.
Urgency is therefore not only a marketing technique, but also part of an informal conversational register that encourages readers to respond through inbox.
WhatsApp, or comments.
The dominance of time scarcity may also reflect the affordances of Facebook itself.
A post can quickly disappear from a userAos immediate feed as new content appears.
Sellers may therefore emphasize time-limited opportunities to make the post feel current and actionable before it is buried by other This interpretation aligns with digital marketing research that emphasizes the importance of engaging content and real-time interaction in social media environments (Ashley & Tuten, 2015.
Stephen, 2.
For local retailers, a same-day promotion can function as a simple and low-cost tactic to signal freshness, urgency, and availability at the same time.
Quantity Scarcity and the Construction of Limited Availability Quantity scarcity appeared 13 times or 44.
83% of the coded cues.
It was realized through explicit remaining-stock statements, limited unit claims, and first-come-first-served expressions.
The clearest example in the corpus is the phrase AuSisa 3 toples nehh, siapa cepat dia dapat,Ay which states that only three jars remain and that the fastest buyer will obtain the product.
This expression is more direct than a general statement such as Aulimited stockAy because it provides a number.
The number creates an appearance of concreteness, while the phrase Ausiapa cepat dia dapatAy turns stock availability into a competition among potential buyers.
EDUCATIONE: Journal of Education Research and Review | 751
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Quantity scarcity differs from time scarcity because the opportunity is not limited by clock time alone, but by the number of available items.
The risk presented to consumers is not that the promotion will expire, but that other buyers may take the remaining stock first.
In this sense, quantity scarcity overlaps conceptually with competition.
It also creates a subtle social comparison because the reader is asked to imagine other potential buyers acting faster.
This is where scarcity-driven copy becomes closely related to FOMO: missing the product is framed as a result of hesitation while others take advantage of the opportunity.
The phrase AuSisa 3 toples nehhAy also demonstrates the role of local and informal language in Facebook retail copy.
The spelling AunehhAy functions as a conversational particle that softens the statement while maintaining urgency.
The seller does not present the message as a formal inventory report, but as a direct conversational update.
This language style may fit the relational nature of local online selling, where trust and familiarity are often built through informal interaction.
Such linguistic features would be missed if analysis focused only on the semantic category of scarcity without examining spelling, tone, and local expression.
The findings also indicate that quantity scarcity was frequently used without precise numbers.
Some posts signaled limited availability through general claims such as stock limitations or fastest-order quota This variation matters ethically.
A precise remaining-stock statement can be informative if accurate, but vague scarcity claims can be used manipulatively when sellers create artificial limitation.
Marketing ethics literature has long noted that scarcity appeals can increase perceived value, but they can also reduce consumersAo ability to deliberate when the scarcity is exaggerated or unverifiable (Aggarwal et al.
, 2011.
Eisend, 2.
Therefore, the practical implication is not that all scarcity copy should be avoided, but that advertisers should use scarcity claims truthfully and transparently.
Social Proof as a Supporting Rather Than Independent Cue Social proof was the least frequent cue, appearing only twice or 6.
90% of all coded occurrences.
More importantly, the social proof cues did not stand independently.
Both were combined with time scarcity in the same promotional material.
In the wedding-service example, the copy states that the organizer has helped realize thousands of couples in Manado while also promoting a AuPaket Pernikahan Ay The claim about thousands of couples is a social proof cue because it uses previous outcomes as The promotional year label functions as a time-related cue because it frames the package within a limited promotional period.
This finding is conceptually significant.
Social proof can reduce uncertainty by showing that many people have trusted, used, or benefited from a service.
In the corpus, however, social proof was not the central source of urgency.
It functioned as a credibility layer attached to an already time-framed offer.
This supports the interpretation that local Facebook retail copy in the dataset prioritized immediate scarcity over reputation-based persuasion.
Retailers may prefer deadline and stock cues because they are shorter, easier to write, and more directly connected to action.
Social proof requires evidence or a credible achievement claim, while scarcity can be expressed in one phrase.
Another possible explanation is the type of products and services represented in the corpus.
Social proof may be more common in service categories, event services, beauty services, education, or highinvolvement purchases where trust and previous customer experience are important.
In contrast, fastmoving retail goods such as food or daily products may rely more on stock and time cues because the purchase decision is comparatively simple.
The current dataset is too small to determine platform-wide patterns, but the low occurrence of social proof provides a useful direction for future research.
Comparative studies across product categories could examine whether social proof becomes more prominent when the purchase is expensive, risky, or highly identity-related.
The low frequency of social proof also shows why the title and claims of the study must be precise.
The data do not indicate a comprehensive FOMO marketing strategy that equally integrates scarcity and social validation.
Rather, the evidence points to scarcity-driven FOMO cues in which social proof plays a secondary role.
This distinction addresses an important reviewer concern: the manuscript should not collapse FOMO, scarcity, and social proof into one undifferentiated concept.
The revised analysis therefore positions time scarcity, quantity scarcity, and social proof as textual cues that may invite FOMO, not as direct evidence of consumers experiencing FOMO.
EDUCATIONE: Journal of Education Research and Review | 752
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Table 4.
Representative anonymized excerpts and coding justification Post
Original excerpt
English translation Code
P01
SALE MURAH SKALI
Very cheap sale, new Time
BARANGG BARUU
items, the promo is PROMO CUMA INI only for today.
HARI YAh P02 Sisa 3 toples nehh, siapa cepat dia dapat Only three jars left.
whoever is fastest gets it.
Quantity P02 Masih ready Rempeyek Mama Ira Mama Ira crackers are still available.
Contextual P03
Promo Paket Pernikahan Wedding package Time
P03
telah wujudkan Ribuan Pasangan di Kota Manado has helped realize thousands of couples in Manado.
Social proof
P03
Untuk Pemesanan/reservasi bisa langsung ke .
For ordering or reservation, contact Call to Coding justification The phrase Auonly for todayAy limits the offer by immediate time and constructs The number Au3Ay signals remaining stock and the firstcome phrase frames hesitation as risk.
This line supports availability context but is not counted as FOMO unless combined with the limited-stock phrase.
The year-based promotion frames the offer as attached to a specific promotional The claim uses many previous beneficiaries as validation of service credibility.
This line directs response but is not counted as FOMO because it lacks scarcity or social Double Indicators and Local Copywriting Style Five posts contained multiple indicators.
Three posts combined time scarcity and quantity scarcity, while two posts combined social proof and time scarcity.
The combination of time scarcity and quantity scarcity can be described as double scarcity because it exposes readers to two limitation frames at once:
the promotion may end soon and the stock may run out.
This does not prove that the consumer will buy immediately, but it does show how the copy narrows the perceived opportunity.
The reader is positioned as someone who must act before time or availability disappears.
The two social proof cases were different because social proof did not create urgency by itself.
supported credibility and reduced uncertainty, but the urgency came from the time-related cue attached to the same post.
This suggests that, in the corpus, social proof was used as a supporting proof strategy rather than a primary pressure mechanism.
The distinction is relevant for copywriting practice.
A seller who claims Authousands of customers servedAy may build trust, but unless the claim is attached to a timesensitive offer or limited availability, it may not produce the same urgency as Autoday onlyAy or Auonly three left.
Ay Across the corpus, local copywriting style was characterized by informality, direct address, code mixing, capital letters, repeated letters, emojis, and conversational ordering instructions.
These features are not trivial.
They indicate that Facebook retail advertising in this context operates between formal promotion and interpersonal selling.
The text often sounds like a direct message from seller to buyer
EDUCATIONE: Journal of Education Research and Review | 753
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
rather than a polished corporate advertisement.
This hybrid style may make scarcity cues feel less institutional and more immediate.
A phrase written in a local conversational register can appear as a timely update from a familiar seller, which may intensify the perceived relevance of the offer.
At the same time, the use of informal urgency creates ethical challenges.
Scarcity messages can be legitimate when they communicate real deadlines or actual stock limitations.
They become problematic when they create artificial pressure, hide important conditions, or exaggerate social validation.
The ethical issue is especially relevant on platforms where posts can circulate quickly and consumers may respond through private channels without comparing alternatives.
Advertisers should therefore ensure that scarcity and social proof claims are accurate, verifiable, and proportionate.
For consumers, digital literacy remains important because persuasive language can make an ordinary offer appear unusually Relation to Previous Studies The findings support previous studies that connect FOMO and scarcity with digital consumer behavior, but they also refine that relationship at the textual level.
Studies by Suhartini and Maharani .
Lim et al.
, and Tubalawony et al.
indicate that FOMO is relevant to purchase decision processes and social media marketing.
The present study does not measure those outcomes.
instead, it shows how promotional copy makes FOMO available as a possible interpretive response.
The empirical contribution is therefore discourse-oriented: it explains how local advertisers encode urgency and limitation through language.
The findings also complement research on social media marketing content.
Ashley and Tuten .
De Vries et al.
, and Tafesse and Wien .
highlight that content characteristics shape engagement and brand communication.
The present study adds that scarcity cues are one such characteristic in local Facebook retail promotion.
The cues are not only strategic in a marketing sense, but also linguistic in form.
Capitalization, numerical statements, informal spelling, and code-mixed particles help turn scarcity into a conversational message.
This textual perspective can help bridge marketing communication, digital discourse analysis, and consumer psychology.
Finally, the study contributes to method by offering an operational codebook that separates FOMOrelated cues.
This distinction is important because a study that labels every urgent message as FOMO may overstate its findings.
A more careful approach is to identify observable textual cues and then interpret how those cues may relate to FOMO.
This approach avoids causal claims that the data cannot support and makes the analysis more replicable for future studies.
Researchers can apply the codebook to other platforms such as Instagram.
TikTok Shop.
WhatsApp Business, or marketplace listings to test whether the same scarcity pattern appears in different digital environments.
CONCLUSION
This study concludes that scarcity-driven Fear of Missing Out cues in Facebook retail promotional copy are constructed mainly through time scarcity and quantity scarcity, while social proof functions as a secondary cue.
From 24 public advertisement posts, the analysis identified 29 coded cue occurrences:
14 time scarcity cues, 13 quantity scarcity cues, and two social proof cues.
Time scarcity was expressed through same-day promotions, deadline wording, and promotional periods, whereas quantity scarcity was expressed through remaining-stock numbers, limited availability claims, and first-come-first-served Social proof appeared only in combination with time scarcity, indicating that validation claims were used to support credibility rather than independently create urgency.
The revised analysis clarifies that the study examines textual cues, not consumer emotions or purchase behavior.
therefore, the findings should be understood as evidence of rhetorical construction rather than causal impact.
The study contributes an operational codebook, anonymized examples, and a local digital marketing interpretation of scarcity-based copywriting.
Its limitations include the small purposive sample, single-platform focus, regional context, and absence of behavioral data such as clicks, comments, purchase intention, or sales Future research should compare platforms, product categories, and consumer responses to determine whether scarcity-driven FOMO cues influence actual decision-making.
EDUCATIONE: Journal of Education Research and Review | 754
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
REFERENCES