Bad Outcomes from Good Practice within Emergent Negative Online Engagement

Social networking sites (SNS) represent an efficient, cost effective and convenient communication channel for customer and organisations however emergent SNS communication practices remain under-theorised. This paper identifies where practices are being contested between brands and customers on Facebook. Findings indicate that contested brand practices are humour and social media triage. The empirical work advances the theoretical concept of contested space when establishing a new practice. This work has implications for social media brand management as an emergent practice.