Exploring the Impact of Brands Roasting on Social Media

Brands regularly post content on social media and look for consumer engagement through these posts. However, this research uncovers a novel domain that shows increased consumer engagement but decreased persuasion: when brands resort to roasting on Twitter. We find that the perceived inappropriateness of the roasting posts lead to lower brand preference when brands choose to roast on social media and tease apart the difference between B2B and B2C roasting. This research establishes that not everything that goes viral leads to a favorable offline behavior. Social media managers of brands can use the findings of this research by understanding why conventional methods of highlighting the superiority of the product would be perceived more favorably than trends that seemingly garner more consumer engagement.