The Power of Evil: The Damage of Negative Social Media Strongly Outweigh Positive Contributions

Media activities generated by consumers or communities that are neither paid for nor induced by brand owners are claimed to have a potentially game-changing impact on communication and brand building. In this study, the authors propose a rigorous methodology to assess the impact of this type of social media activities on the actual performance of brands in the market. The article begins by developing a four-step process to condense the complex reality of micro-social-media events for a brand into a manageable set of social media indicators (SMI). These SMI subsequently are used as a subset of the drivers, together with more traditional marketing-mix elements -- in a general market-response model -- to estimate their relative impact on brand performance in the market. This methodology is illustrated with two real-world examples -- one in the flat-screen-television market and the other in the set of Internet broadband-service providers. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]