The race for clicks and shares risks undermining customer wellbeing. It’s time for a more responsible approach to social media engagement
Writing Raffaele Filieri
Engagement is the metric every marketer is taught to chase. Likes, comments, shares and follows are read as proof that a brand has captured attention, built affinity and created a relationship worth having. The logic is seductive: the more customers interact, the stronger the bond, loyalty and love.
However, a new study* on customer engagement on social media, which I led with a team of European colleagues, suggests that this logic is dangerously incomplete. Focusing on luxury houses, whose Instagram and TikTok feeds attract some of the highest engagement rates of any sector, we found that engagement can come at a cost.
In a study of more than 1,000 UK luxury-brand customers, we found that engaging with luxury brands on social media quietly erodes customers’ self-esteem, inflames their materialism and deepens a compulsive pull back to their screens. Each of these effects, in turn, pushes people toward impulsive, unplanned purchases. The very behavior brands celebrate may be undermining the wellbeing of the customers they depend on most.
When aspiration backfires
The explanation lies in what a luxury feed actually shows. Scroll through one and you see a stream of perfect homes, designer wardrobes, first-class travel and effortless beauty – a life most followers cannot match. Seeing it again and again invites an unflattering comparison between their life and the one on screen. Psychologists call that gap self-discrepancy, and the wider it grows, the more inadequate people tend to feel.
Our study demonstrated how that discomfort takes shape. The more customers engaged with luxury brands on social media, the lower their self-esteem fell, the more materialistic they became, and the more compulsively they used the platforms to make impulse buys. Engagement with brands’ social media content did not simply accompany these states; it helped drive them.
Customers who were low in self-esteem made purchases to lift their mood. Those high in materialism bought to close the gap between their lifestyles and the lifestyles they desired. The more addicted they were to scrolling, the closer they were to their next purchase. Materialism proved the strongest driver of impulsive spending, followed by addiction and then self-esteem.
Our findings suggest a cycle that is hard to break. Engagement makes customers more aware of the gap between their real selves and their ideal selves. That gap pushes them to buy. But buying only eases that discomfort briefly, and the feeling returns – as does the pull of the feed. The cycle begins again.
A gender twist
One of the more striking findings challenges a long-held assumption: that women are more exposed to the emotional pressures of status consumption, while men are more rational shoppers. In our study, the pattern looked different.
Among the men in the sample, low self-esteem and high materialism both significantly predicted impulsive buying. Among the women, neither did. For men, particularly younger ones, luxury engagement appears to activate status anxiety and pressure to display material success, making wounded self-esteem and material values direct triggers for unplanned spending. The men were, in effect, buying their way out of feeling inadequate.
This matters for any brand that segments audiences or designs campaigns on the assumption that the psychological risks of aspirational marketing primarily affect women. The evidence suggests that young male customers are now a highly exposed group – one that most brands are not watching closely enough.
Why this matters for brands
There is a clear reputational risk here. Brands that build customer loyalty by quietly amplifying inadequacy will be left exposed the moment that the mechanism becomes visible. Regulators are becoming increasingly focused on influencer marketing and digital wellbeing, and a gap between a brand’s stated values and its actual effect on customers poses a real reputational liability.
There is also the question of what happens after the purchase. Impulse buying is often followed by regret or guilt. A customer base built around mood-repair spending is likely to be more fragile – and more prone to buyer’s remorse – than one built on considered, confident purchases. Short-term conversion can disguise a slower erosion of trust.
Finally, there is the question of talent and legitimacy. Younger consumers and employees increasingly expect brands to act responsibly. A marketing model that relies on making people feel worse sits awkwardly with the ethical positioning that many brands now claim.
Three principles for responsible engagement
The answer is not to retreat from social media; engagement can still build genuine loyalty. The challenge is to pursue it with greater care, via three principles. First, shift the message away from pure status. Content that emphasizes craftsmanship, quality, longevity and meaning closes the aspiration gap rather than widening it, and tends to produce more confident, less regretful buyers.
Second, identify and protect vulnerable segments. If self-esteem and materialism are driving impulsive spending among younger male followers, that group deserves greater care, not more triggers.
Third, invest in digital wellbeing – and do so visibly. Usage prompts, healthier content design and partnerships with mental health organizations are no longer fringe gestures. They differentiate a brand as responsible and can deepen loyalty precisely because they signal that the brand values its customers beyond their wallets.
Ultimately, brands must ask themselves what kind of engagement they are really creating. If online interaction strengthens a relationship while making customers feel worse about themselves, something is wrong. The answer is not to abandon engagement, but to build it more responsibly – in ways that leave customers feeling better, not worse.
Dr Raffaele Filieri is professor of digital marketing at Audencia Business School
* Bazi, S, Filieri, R and Gorton, M (2026) ‘The dark side of customer engagement on social media: effects on self-esteem, materialism, technology addiction, and impulsive buying’, Internet Research
