•Consumer Decision Model and the Regulatory Focus Theroy are the theoretical bases.•To examine consumer behavior in the social media context, taking restaurant search for example.•Fit between tangibilization cue messages and consumer regulatory focus increases purchase intentions.•Affective trust information performs better to facilitate consumer purchase behavior. This study uses the consumer decision model to establish a research framework to identify consumer purchase behaviors in the social media context. To this end, taking restaurant search as the study case, Experiment 1 aims to explore the effects of operation-based tangibilization cues (OBTCs) and marketing-based tangibilization cues (MBTCs) from mobile communities and their fit with consumers’ regulatory focus on purchase behavior. The results indicate that when the tangibilization cue messages fit with people’s regulatory focus, such messages enhance purchase intentions. Experiment 2 further investigates the moderating effect of different types of perceived trust (cognitive and affective trust) on the link between promotion/prevention regulatory fit and purchase intention. The results suggest that affective trust information is more effective than cognitive trust information in facilitating consumer purchase behavior under both the promotion and prevention regulatory fit conditions. Based on these findings, theoretical and managerial implications are provided.