“I Usually Love Your Posts, but I didn’t Like This One … ” the Role of Masspersonal Factors and Valence of Follower Communication on Influencer Responses, Mood, and Job Satisfaction

Social media influencers engage in masspersonal communication to build relationships with their audiences, and their followers reciprocate that engagement. These bidirectional interactions can provide the SMI with feelings of support yet may instead elicit psychological harm when interactions are negative. This study tests a masspersonal approach to understanding the effects of negative communication on influencers (N = 229), manipulated in a 2 (valence: positive vs negative) x 2 (accessibility: high vs low) x 2 (personalization: high vs medium) between-subjects factorial design experiment. Valence of communication impacted outcomes, such that those in the positive condition experienced significantly more positive mood and increased likelihood of "liking" or writing a response to the audience communication. Interestingly, job satisfaction was significantly higher for those who viewed negative communication. Highly accessible communication (e.g. comments) were more likely to receive a written response, however, masspersonal factors did not impact any other outcomes.