How Online Incivility Affects Consumer Engagement Behavior on Brands’ Social Media

• Published in: Journal of service research : JSR 2023-02, Vol.26 (1), p.103-119
• Main Authors: Wolter, Jeremy S., Bacile, Todd J., Xu, Pei
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Brand management; Consumer behavior; Ostracism; Social networks; User generated content
• ISSN: 1094-6705; 1552-7379
• DOI: 10.1177/10946705221096192

Research on consumer engagement in social media is flourishing. However, online incivility is rampant and its effect on consumer engagement is unknown. The current work posits long-term consumer engagement with a brand is decreased when consumer-to-consumer uncivil interactions take place on brands’ social media channels. Using behavioral data from Facebook, the first study documents that a consumer’s incivility to another consumer increases the victim’s engagement in the short term but decreases their engagement over the long term. Further, a brand’s response mitigates these effects. Two follow-up studies using scenario-based experiments provide evidence that consumer injustice perceptions mediate a confrontation coping strategy, while ostracism perceptions mediate an avoidance coping strategy. The experiments also evidence that a brand response mitigates some of the effects of incivility. However, an uncivil interaction from a brand advocate can ostracize a victim despite a brand response. Together, our work furthers consumer engagement and consumer incivility theory while also suggesting that practitioners should manage incivility on brands’ social media pages. Graphical Abstract