Firms must strategically manage their responses to user comments to keep users engaged on their social media business pages. The question of whether, how, and when a firm should respond to user comments to achieve favorable outcomes is of great interest to researchers and practitioners. We focus on these questions and study the effects of initial user comments and firm responses on subsequent user engagement on social media business pages. In particular, we theorize and examine how two features of initial user comments (i.e., sentiment and controversialness) and two features of firm responses (i.e., uniqueness and timeliness) jointly affect the volume and sentiment of subsequent user comments. By analyzing data from the Facebook business pages of multiple U.S. retailers (10,312 firm posts from 37 firms and over 1 million user comments), we found that firms are more likely to respond to negative comments (than positive or neutral comments) but less likely to respond to controversial comments (which evoke diverse opinions and emotions). Further, we found that engaging with negative and controversial comments and promptly responding to comments are linked to an increase in the volume of subsequent user comments but also to a more negative sentiment in these comments. We also found that providing unique responses improves the volume and sentiment of subsequent user comments. Our findings offer theoretical and practical insights into firms’ response management on social media.

中文翻译：

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在社交媒体商业页面上吸引用户：用户评论和公司回应的作用


公司必须战略性地管理对用户评论的响应，以保持用户对其社交媒体业务页面的参与度。研究人员和从业者对公司是否、如何以及何时回应用户评论以取得有利结果的问题非常感兴趣。我们关注这些问题，并研究初始用户评论和公司回应对社交媒体业务页面上后续用户参与度的影响。特别是，我们理论化并研究了初始用户评论的两个特征（即情绪和争议性）和公司响应的两个特征（即独特性和及时性）如何共同影响后续用户评论的数量和情绪。通过分析多家美国零售商 Facebook 商业页面的数据（来自 37 家公司的 10,312 个公司帖子和超过 100 万条用户评论），我们发现公司更有可能回应负面评论（而不是正面或中性评论），但不太可能回应负面评论。回应有争议的评论（引起不同的意见和情绪）。此外，我们发现，参与负面和有争议的评论并及时回复评论与后续用户评论量的增加有关，但也与这些评论中的负面情绪增加有关。我们还发现，提供独特的回复可以提高后续用户评论的数量和情绪。我们的研究结果为企业在社交媒体上的响应管理提供了理论和实践见解。