Understanding Social Media Monitoring and Online Rumors

Abstract

In order to investigate the impact of social media monitoring on a firm’s market understanding and performance, and how to manage online rumors, two complementary studies are conducted on visitors’ engagement and three aspects of engagement. The first study indicates that conversations and inbound traffic positively affect visitors’ engagement, which, along with referrals, influences social media monitoring’s impact on market understanding. Next, the impact of social media monitoring on a firm’s performance is affected by social media monitoring’s impact on market understanding. The second study indicates that first, online rumors from direct engagement are more likely to be true than those from indirect engagement, second, online rumors’ spreading shows similar engagement patterns, third, a firm’s quick and frank reaction to rumors can reduce their influence, and fourth, adding contents to online rumors increases cognitive engagement, and a company’s support or denial of online rumors affects all engagement dimensions.