Consequences of customer engagement behavior: when negative Facebook posts have positive effects
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RESEARCH PAPER
Consequences of customer engagement behavior: when negative Facebook posts have positive effects Sofie Bitter 1 & Sonja Grabner-Kräuter 1
Received: 23 March 2015 / Accepted: 11 March 2016 # The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract Sharing product information has become an integral part of today’s online social networking world. This research study addresses the effects of customer engagement behavior in online social networks on other consumers in order to understand how online social connections impact decision making. We investigate how different variations of a brand-related Facebook post trigger different response reactions. In particular, we analyze under which conditions negative posts can have positive consequences. The results of two online experiments set in a restaurant context suggest a difference when the user knows the restaurant brand. For users who are familiar with the restaurant brand, a positive effect of negative information posted by distant acquaintances is found with regard to the visiting intention of the user. The results of both experiments demonstrate that information posted by a close friend is perceived to be more diagnostic. For users not familiar with the restaurant brand, negative posts from strong ties induce the highest diagnosticity levels. Keywords Social networking sites . Facebook . Customer engagement behavior . Valence . Tie strength . Diagnosticity JEL Classification M31 Marketing
Responsible Editors: Ulrike Baumöl and Linda Hollebeek Sofie Bitter and Sonja Grabner-Kräuter contributed equally to this work. * Sofie Bitter [email protected]; [email protected]
1
Universitätsstrasse 65-67, 9020 Klagenfurt, Austria
Introduction Online social networking is more popular than ever before and increasingly impacts consumer purchase decisions. Resulting in a facilitated access to other consumers’ feedback, the proliferation of social networking sites offers fundamentally new ways of engagement and interaction among existing as well as potential consumers and brands (e.g., Hess et al. 2011; Kabadayi and Price 2014). Nowadays, it is impossible to imagine online life without engaged and active users. Following this, the concept of customer engagement behavior, defined by van Doorn et al. as Bcustomer’s behavioral manifestations that have a brand or firm focus, beyond purchase, resulting from motivational drivers^ (2010, p. 254), has become an issue that is currently the focus of much attention and activity. For both marketers and academics, it is of interest to understand the consequences of customer engagement in online social networks (OSNs). Nonetheless, there is a paucity of scholarly research related to a coherent understanding of how social connections in OSNs impact decision making (Takac et al. 2011). In other words, little is known about Bthe relationship between customer behavioral engagement and other proximal constructs^ (Gummerus et al. 2012, p. 858); for example, to what extent the formation of cons
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