ENGAGING CONTENT AND CUSTOMER BACKLASH: HOW FOMO AND FATIGUE DRIVE NEGATIVE ENGAGEMENT ON DOUYIN
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14456/aamr.2026.7Keywords:
Direct Negative Customer Engagement, Social Media Fatigue, Social FOMO, Remunerative and Relational Content, Stressor-Strain-Outcome (SSO) FrameworkAbstract
While social media content is traditionally designed to foster brand-customer interaction, emerging evidence indicates that engagement-oriented strategies can unintentionally provoke severe customer backlash. Grounded in the Stressor-Strain-Outcome (SSO) framework, this study comprehensively investigates how remunerative and relational content strategies on Douyin trigger direct negative customer engagement. Analyzing survey data from 510 active Douyin users via partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), the research uncovers a dual serial mediation mechanism. The empirical results robustly demonstrate that continuous exposure to both remunerative and relational content significantly intensifies users' social fear of missing out (FOMO). This heightened psychological strain subsequently escalates into social media fatigue, a state deeply characterized by emotional exhaustion and cognitive overload. Ultimately, this fatigue directly precipitates negative behavioral outcomes, specifically including public complaints, brand criticism, and intentional avoidance. By illuminating how ostensibly engaging marketing messages operate as psychological stressors, this research significantly advances contemporary literature on the dark side of customer engagement. The findings provide marketing managers with critical, actionable insights into designing emotionally sustainable content strategies that actively mitigate reputational risks in highly saturated digital ecosystems.
Downloads
References
Ashley, C., & Tuten, T. (2015). Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1), 15-27.
Beyens, I., Frison, E., & Eggermont, S. (2016). “I don’t want to miss a thing”: Adolescents’ fear of missing out and its relationship to adolescents’ social needs, Facebook use, and Facebook related stress. Computers in Human Behavior, 64, 1-8.
Bright, L., Kleiser, S., & Grau, S. (2015). Too much Facebook? An exploratory examination of social media fatigue. Computers in Human Behavior, 44, 148-155.
de Masi, V., & Diviggiano, A. (2018). Social media in China: an overview. Asian Administration and Management Review, 1(1), 11-23.
Deci, E., & Ryan, R. (2012). Self-Determination Theory. In P. van Lange, A. Kruglanski, & E. T. Higgins (eds.). Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology (pp. 416-437). California: Sage.
Dolan, R., Seo, Y., & Kemper, J. (2019). Complaining practices on social media in tourism: A value co-creation and co-destruction perspective. Tourism Management, 73, 35-45.
Elhai, J., Levine, J., Dvorak, R., & Hall, B. (2016). Fear of missing out, need for touch, anxiety and depression are related to problematic smartphone use. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 509-516.
Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. (1981). Evaluating Structural Equation Models with Unobservable Variables and Measurement Error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39-50.
Hair, J., Hollingsworth, C., Randolph, A., & Chong, A. (2017). An updated and expanded assessment of PLS-SEM in information systems research. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 117(3), 442-458.
Hair, J., Hult, T., Ringle, C., & Sarstedt, M. (2014). A Primer on Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). California: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Hobfoll, S. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44(3), 513-524.
Hollebeek, L., Glynn, M., & Brodie, R. (2014). Consumer Brand Engagement in Social Media: Conceptualization, Scale Development and Validation. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 28(2), 149-165.
Hollebeek, L., Sarstedt, M., Menidjel, C., Sprott, D., & Urbonavicius, S. (2023). Hallmarks and potential pitfalls of customer- and consumer engagement scales: A systematic review. Psychology & Marketing, 40(6), 1074-1088.
Huang, Y., Bunchapattanasakda, C., Suo, L., & Boonmek, B. (2024). The Influence of Social Media Marketing on Purchase Intentions through Consumer Engagement. Asian Administration and Management Review, 7(2), 45-55.
Kock, N., & Lynn, G. (2012). Lateral collinearity and misleading results in variance-based SEM: An illustration and recommendations. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 13(7), 546-580.
Koeske, G., & Koeske, R. (1989). Work Load and Burnout: Can Social Support and Perceived Accomplishment Help?. Social Work, 34(3), 243-248.
Koeske, G., & Koeske, R. (1993). A Preliminary Test of a Stress-Strain-Outcome Model for Reconceptualizing the Burnout Phenomenon. Journal of Social Service Research, 17(3-4), 107-135.
Kulikovskaja, V., Hubert, M., Grunert, K., & Zhao, H. (2023). Driving marketing outcomes through social media-based customer engagement. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 74, 103445.
Lee, E., Lee, K., Sung, Y., & Song, Y. (2019). #DeleteFacebook: Antecedents of Facebook Fatigue. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 22(6), 417-422.
Liu, T., & Bunchapattanasakda, C. (2025). Social Media Beauty Marketing in Shanghai: How Internet Celebrity Characteristics and Social Comparison Drive Purchase Intentions through FOMO. Asian Administration and Management Review, 8(2), Article 16.
Naumann, K., Bowden, J., & Gabbott, M. (2020). Expanding customer engagement: the role of negative engagement, dual valences and contexts. European Journal of Marketing, 54(7), 1469-1499.
Ngamcharoen, P., Sakdapat, N., & Bhanthumnavin, D. (2025). Research and Development of a Cultural Intelligence Measurement Instrument for People in World Heritage Sites. Scientific Culture, 11(2), 64-83.
Pang, H. (2021). How compulsive WeChat use and information overload affect social media fatigue and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic? A stressor-strain-outcome perspective. Telematics and Informatics, 64, 101690.
Pang, H., & Ruan, Y. (2023). Determining influences of information irrelevance, information overload and communication overload on WeChat discontinuance intention: The moderating role of exhaustion. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 72, 103289.
Park, J., Hyun, H., & Thavisay, T. (2021). A study of antecedents and outcomes of social media WOM towards luxury brand purchase intention. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 58, 102272.
Przybylski, A., Murayama, K., DeHaan, C., & Gladwell, V. (2013). Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(4), 1841-1848.
Sakdapat, N., & Ngamcharoen, P. (2025). Correlation Analysis on Educational Level and Community Participatory Behavior in Grassroots Economy Promotion. Espacio Tiempo y Educación, 12(2), 1-27.
Shi, C., Yu, L., Wang, N., Cheng, B., & Cao, X. (2020). Effects of social media overload on academic performance: a stressor–strain–outcome perspective. Asian Journal of Communication, 30(2), 179-197.
Singh, S., & Banerjee, S. (2024). Examining the effects of fear of missing out on sustainable food consumption: a social identity perspective. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 36(10), 2726-2743.
Wang, P., Xie, X., Wang, X., Wang, X., Zhao, F., Chu, X., Nie, J., & Lei, L. (2018). The need to belong and adolescent authentic self-presentation on SNSs: A moderated mediation model involving FoMO and perceived social support. Personality and Individual Differences, 128, 133-138.
Wang, X., Wang, Y., Lin, X., & Abdullat, A. (2021). The dual concept of consumer value in social media brand community: A trust transfer perspective. International Journal of Information Management, 59, 102319.
Whelan, E., Islam, A., & Brooks, S. (2020). Applying the SOBC paradigm to explain how social media overload affects academic performance. Computers & Education, 143, 103692.
Xie, X., & Tsai, N. (2021). The effects of negative information-related incidents on social media discontinuance intention: Evidence from SEM and fsQCA. Telematics and Informatics, 56, 101503.
Yadav, R., Sangroya, D., & Pereira, V. (2025). Why consumers turn negative about the brand: antecedents and consequences of negative consumer engagement in virtual communities. Information Systems and e-Business Management, 23, 147-167.
Zhang, Y., He, W., & Peng, L. (2022). How Perceived Pressure Affects Users’ Social Media Fatigue Behavior: A Case on WeChat. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 62(2), 337-348.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Li YANG, Yuanfeng CAI
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
.png)
