Customer-to-customer value co-creation and value co-destruction practices in social media health communities

This study explores customer-to-customer co-creation and co-destruction practices within social media health communities, focusing on diabetes-related customer interactions on Facebook and YouTube. Based on the existing understanding of C2C interaction, the study explores how individuals integrate resources within social media health communities to enhance well-being. The study adopts a netnography approach and analyses 536 textual posts along with nested comments (spanning 28,965 words). The findings reveal three dimensions, encompassing nine co-creative and co-destructive customer-to-customer practices in online social media health communities. The findings provide implications for healthcare providers, social media moderators, and policymakers, emphasizing the need to empower patients while safeguarding against potential harm on social media platforms. This study contributes to health marketing by theorizing how peer-to-peer interactions simultaneously generate value and risk in loosely regulated digital health environments.