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.

中文翻译：

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网络不文明行为如何影响消费者在品牌社交媒体上的参与行为

关于消费者参与社交媒体的研究正在蓬勃发展。然而，在线不文明行为猖獗，其对消费者参与的影响尚不清楚。目前的工作假设，当品牌的社交媒体渠道上发生消费者对消费者的不文明互动时，消费者与品牌的长期互动会减少。使用来自 Facebook 的行为数据，第一项研究记录了消费者对另一消费者的不文明行为会在短期内增加受害者的参与度，但从长远来看会降低他们的参与度。此外，品牌的反应减轻了这些影响。使用基于情景的实验进行的两项后续研究提供的证据表明，消费者的不公正认知调节了对抗应对策略，而排斥认知调节了回避应对策略。实验还证明品牌反应减轻了一些不文明行为的影响。然而，品牌拥护者的不文明互动可能会排斥受害者，尽管品牌会做出回应。总之，我们的工作促进了消费者参与和消费者不文明理论，同时还建议从业者应该管理品牌社交媒体页面上的不文明行为。