Schadenfreude and Sympathy: Can Brands Win When Consumers Fight?

If you manage your brand’s social media channels – particularly the replies to your post — you’ve probably seen the comments. One person complains about something, then a second person replies to THAT making fun of the original commenter.

What do you, as the brand manager do? Do you hide the reply? Hide both? Or let them stand.

The answer has largely depended on your brand’s personality and, sometimes, let’s face it, the mood that day of the social media manager.

But what if there IS a right answer here — if we care about the hard metrics like purchase intent, how should we handle a series of negative comments on social media?

That’s what Todd Bacile and his colleagues set out to discover. He is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Loyola University in New Orleans. The paper is called “Schadenfreude and Sympathy: Observer Reactions to Malicious Joy During Social Media Service Recovery” — it was published recently in the Journal of Interactive Marketing.

Today in this deep-dive episode, Tod interviews Dr. Bacile about his findings.

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Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin and produced by engageQ digital on the traditional territories of the Snuneymuxw First Nation on Vancouver Island, Canada. Associate producer: Steph Gunn.

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