Social media platforms have become increasingly attractive targets for phishing attacks, yet the psychological mechanisms underlying users’ susceptibility to such attacks remain understudied. This research investigates how persuasion techniques influence users’ response behavior to phishing attacks through the lens of persuasion theory, social influence theory, and online trust mechanisms. Through a scenario-based experimental design involving 387 social media users, we examined the relationship between persuasion techniques and users’ response to phishing, with online trust mediating and social cues moderating variables. Using regression analysis, our findings reveal that persuasion techniques significantly increase users’ response behavior to phishing, primarily through enhanced online trust. Contrary to our hypotheses that strong social cues would strengthen the effect of persuasion techniques, we found a surprising result: the impact of persuasion techniques on online trust was significant only when social cues were weak. This unexpected finding suggests that social cues weaken the direct effects of persuasion techniques in establishing online trust. Unlike traditional email-based phishing, our results demonstrate that social media phishing leverages unique platform characteristics that alter user response patterns. These insights advance our understanding of digital deception while offering practical implications for improving social media platform security. We finally conclude by addressing study limitations and proposing future research directions.