The effects of social media based brand communities on brand community markers,value creation practices,brand trust and brand loyalty

Social media based brand communities are communities initiated on the platform of social media. In this article, we explore whether brand communities based on social media (a special type of online brand communities) have positive effects on the main community elements and value creation practices in the communities as well as on brand trust and brand loyalty. A survey based empirical study with 441 respondents was conducted. The results of structural equation modeling show that brand communities established on social media have positive effects on community markers (i.e., shared consciousness, shared rituals and traditions, and obligations to society), which have positive effects on value creation practices (i.e., social networking, community engagement, impressions management, and brand use). Such communities could enhance brand loyalty through brand use and impression management practices. We show that brand trust has a full mediating role in converting value creation practices into brand loyalty. Implications for practice and future research opportunities are discussed.     

Role of social media community in strengthening trust and loyalty for a university

As the increasing internationalization of higher education creates competition among the universities, many institutions are making use of social media communities to attract and retain students. We surveyed 206 users of a university Facebook page to investigate how it may be related to their identification with the university community and the university brand. We further investigate how this identification is associated with the trust and loyalty to the institution and is likely to be linked to positive behaviors such as promoting the university to their peers as an active member of the university community. Our results show that the perceived strength of the Facebook community is related to the identification with the university community and the university brand which in turn are related to trust and loyalty. Higher loyalty is linked to citizenship behaviors such as increased contribution to the educational process labeled in-role behaviors and providing positive word of mouth about the university labeled extra-role behaviors. With the challenges of a diverse and global student body which is expected to continue increasing, universities can benefit from use of social media in developing identity, loyalty and trust.     

Key values driving continued interaction on brand pages in social media: An examination across genders

Brand pages in social media provide companies with a competitive marketing tool to create added value for their firms and customers. Past studies suggest that understanding what customers really value in brand pages is the most vital step in promoting their continued interaction, and that the relative impacts of customer values on continued interaction are contingent on individual demographic factors such as gender. However, little research has examined the relationships between customer values and their intention to engage in continued interaction, and how these relationships are moderated by gender, in the context of brand pages. This study identified eight value factors to measure customer values on brand pages, then examined their impacts on customers' continued interaction intention, and studied gender effects on the latter relationship. Our proposed hypotheses are mostly supported by data collected from users of Sina Microblog brand pages and analyzed by partial least squares.     

Brand interactions and social media: Enhancing user loyalty through social networking sites

This paper aims to investigate how user loyalty can be achieved and maintained through social networking sites. More specifically, we intend to test the relationships between brands, user loyalty and social media. The research thus provides insights into user-brand relationships through social media and argues how loyal customers can be through social networking websites. Although there are considerable numbers of studies about loyalty; there exists very limited work studying user loyalty through social networking websites. This research presents clearly the reasons for engaging with brands online and examines user behaviors and loyalty. Research provided strong evidence that majority of the social network users follow brand fan pages via social media, even though they have different reasons to do so. The study also measures users’ behavioral and attitudinal loyalty behaviors. Their level of trust to the information they obtained about brands through social media is also established. The hypotheses tested show that brands and customer satisfaction are both positively related to users’ behavioral loyalty.     

Usability beyond the website: An empirically-grounded e-commerce evaluation instrument for the total customer experience

A customer's experience with an e-commerce environment extends beyond the interaction with the website, including delivery of products, post-sales support, consumption of products and services, and so on. It is the total customer experience that influences the customers' perceptions of value and service quality, and which consequently affects customer loyalty. In our cross-disciplinary research in human-computer interaction (HCI) and relationship marketing, we have been investigating how HCI and customer relationship management (CRM) strategies can be integrated in the design of e-commerce so as to engender customer retention, trust and loyalty. We have performed a series of empirical studies to understand customers' requirements and perceptions about service-quality from e-shopping and e-travel environments. From these studies, we have developed an empirically-grounded evaluation instrument, E-SEQUAL, which we discuss in this paper. The development team can apply it at different phases of an e-commerce development life-cycle to integrate customers' perceived dimensions of service quality into the design and evaluation of e-commerce.     

Can consumers be persuaded on brand microblogs? An empirical study

Building upon the persuasion theory in the social psychology literature, this study investigates how companies can use microblogging services to influence consumers’ participation and brand loyalty. We develop and empirically test our research model using an online survey in China. Our findings show that persuasion factors, including information quality, perceived similarity, and source credibility, increase community commitment. Perceived similarity and source credibility exhibit bias effects on information quality. Community commitment affects participation and brand loyalty, which is also influenced by participation. We expect that this research can contribute to the existing literature and provide marketers with important practical suggestions.     

Explaining behavior in brand communities: A sequential model of attachment,tribalism, and self-esteem

Given their societal presence, brand communities and tribes must, in some capacity, influence marketing strategy. With a player base exceeding 50 million and annual sales surpassing $12 billion, the massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) community is considered a burgeoning cultural and economic consumer segment. Yet, quantitative examination of MMORPG community members' consumptive processes is sparse. To help fill this research lacuna, the current study tests a sequential choice model of attachment, tribalism, and self-esteem on MMORPG-related behavioral outcomes. Using a sample 970 MMORPG players, support is offered for the posited model, indicating among others, that brand attachment antecedes MMORPG brand tribalism, which in turn, augments player self-esteem. Implications and future research directions are offered.     

Mobile social commerce: The booster for brand loyalty?

In view of the deficiencies in current literature, this study seeks to examine if mobile social commerce continuance usage influences brand loyalty among customers, and assessed the inhibitor role of privacy concern in mobile social commerce usage intention. Privacy concern was measured by using concern for social media information privacy (CFSMIP). Therefore, this study proposes and empirically validated a model that combines CFSMIP, brand loyalty, and Expectation Confirmation Model, in the Asian context. The results suggested that users' CFSMIP does not inhibit them from the continuous usage of mobile social commerce, and influences their perceived usefulness on mobile social commerce positively. Moreover, all the paths in the baseline model of Expectation Confirmation Model have been reconfirmed in this study. Besides, users' continuance usage and satisfaction on mobile social commerce are proven to be boosters for brand loyalty. Relevant managerial implications are then discussed.     

Exploring the effect of user engagement in online brand communities: Evidence from Twitter

Social media such as forums, blogs and microblogs has been increasingly used for public information sharing and opinions exchange nowadays. It has changed the way how online community interacts and somehow has led to a new trend of engagement for online retailers especially on microblogging websites such as Twitter. In this study, we investigated the impact of online retailers' engagement with the online brand communities on users' perception of brand image and service. Firstly, we analysed the overall sentiment trends of different brands and the patterns of engagement between companies and customers using the collected tweets posted on a popular social media platform, Twitter. Then, we studied how different types of engagements affect customer sentiments. Our analysis shows that engagement has an effect on sentiments that associate with brand image, perception and customer service of the online retailers. Our findings indicate that the level, length, type and attitude of retailers' engagement with social media users have a significant impact on their sentiments. Based on our results, we derived several important managerial and practical implications.     

How virtual community participation influences consumer loyalty intentions in online shopping contexts: an investigation of mediating factors

Extant studies generally recognise that virtual community building is an effective marketing programme for forging deep and enduring affective bonds with consumers. This study extends previous research by proposing and testing a model that investigates key mediating processes (via trust, satisfaction and identification) that underlie the relationship between virtual community participation and consumer loyalty intentions. The authors test the hypotheses using data obtained from three large online retailing stores. Virtual community participation significantly enhances loyalty intentions, through both social mechanisms (via community identification) and psychological mechanisms (via trust and satisfaction). Moreover, the findings provide insights into the complex relationship between the two mechanisms in online shopping settings. Community identification is a pivotal factor for enhancing customer loyalty intentions. The results advance understanding of the process by which virtual community building facilitates the development of business-to-consumer relationships in the computer-mediated environment. The authors discuss the managerial implications of the findings, as well as avenues for further research.     

Assessing flow experience in social networking site based brand communities

The sustenance of the Social Networking Site (SNS)-based brand communities relies on user retention and their active participation. Therefore, understanding the intrinsic aspects of user behavior in such communities is important for devising strategies to ensure user retention and active participation. Especially, information about the elements that induce flow experiences—the intrinsically enjoyable and immersive experiences—of users in SNS has become important for organizations that host online communities. In our empirical study, we chose to focus especially on SNS-based brand communities, as they are increasingly interesting from an organization-community interaction perspective, but they lack the instruments needed for measuring user experience. The present study addresses this gap by developing an instrument aimed at measuring the user’s flow experience on SNS-based brand communities. A cross-sectional survey with 577 Facebook brand community users was carried out. The findings show that enjoyment, concentration, and social interaction are the components that constitute a user’s flow experience. In addition to providing a valuable tool for business practitioners, the developed instrument offers several theoretical and practical implications for improving user experience of social media.     

Community engagement and online word of mouth: An empirical investigation

How customer engagement in a firm’s social media marketing platform ? online brand community ? might affect word-of-mouth behavior is an open research issue as well as a vital business problem in e-commerce. To this end, we collected a set of longitudinal data that include community engagement behavior, e-commerce transactions, and customers’ post-purchase reviews. Using a control function approach, we find that consumer engagement in a brand community not only increases the likelihood of generating post-purchase reviews but also increases the likelihood of posting positive online reviews. Furthermore, we find that customer tenure has a positive moderating effect.     

An app a day keeps a customer connected: Explicating loyalty to brands and branded applications through the lens of affordance and service-dominant logic

The rise of mobile apps is compelling ambitious companies to rush to market their own branded apps in hopes of building customers’ brand loyalty. By applying service-dominant logic, the lens of affordance, and two brand perceptions (brand competence and brand warmth), this study explores critical determinants of app continuance intention and brand loyalty among app users. Five affordances of branded apps are linked to value-in-use, which contributes both directly and indirectly to the two loyalty-related outcomes, through either brand competence or brand warmth. Data collected from 634 app users support all proposed hypotheses. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Brand followers’ retweeting behavior on Twitter: How brand relationships influence brand electronic word-of-mouth

Twitter, the popular microblogging site, has received increasing attention as a unique communication tool that facilitates electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). To gain greater insight into this potential, this study investigates how consumers’ relationships with brands influence their engagement in retweeting brand messages on Twitter. Data from a survey of 315 Korean consumers who currently follow brands on Twitter show that those who retweet brand messages outscore those who do not on brand identification, brand trust, community commitment, community membership intention, Twitter usage frequency, and total number of postings.     

Understanding brand fan page followers’ discontinuance motivations: A mixed-method study

As companies recognize the effectiveness of social media as a marketing channel, firms are leveraging brand fan pages (BFPs) to foster deeper relationships with their customers. While most extant studies focus on the motivations behind customers’ participation in BFPs, only little is known about the discontinuance behaviors of BFP followers. This study identifies a comprehensive inventory of BFP followers’ unfollowing motivations. By conducting a mixed-method study, the study develops and empirically validates a five-factor scale that measures BFP followers’ discontinuance motivations. The impact of the motivations on BFP users’ unfollowing intention is also examined. Theoretical and practical implications are subsequently discussed.     

The relationship between perceived e-service quality and brand equity: A simultaneous equations system approach

Using the data collected from the online banking users in Taiwan, we build a hierarchical model of e-banking service quality and investigate the relationships among e-service quality, trust, satisfaction, loyalty, and brand equity. Moreover, the simultaneous equations system approach is also applied to transfer the traditional satisfaction-loyalty path into the simultaneous relationships between trust and loyalty, and between satisfaction and loyalty. As the structural form coefficients demonstrate the direct relations between our research constructs, the reduced form estimates further disclose the total impacts of the quality of e-banking service on trust, satisfaction, loyalty, and brand equity, respectively. The results indicate that the perceived quality formed through interaction with an online banking service positively affects customer trust and satisfaction, which in turn influence loyalty and brand equity. The significant simultaneous relationships between trust and loyalty, and between satisfaction and loyalty, are confirmed by our data, implying that these relationships must be determined simultaneously, rather than sequentially.     

Positive and negative aspects of online community cultivation: Implications for online stores’ relationship management

We investigated how online community building might affect the development of relationships with customers of online stores. Adopting social identification and relationship marketing perspectives, we examined the positive and negative aspects of online community cultivation and tested the meditating mechanisms involved in member participation processes. A survey-based study, conducted with 913 online consumers, revealed that community interaction can lead to consumer power through community identification and relationship investments. Furthermore, we found that perceived e-tailer support negatively affected the relationship between identification and consumer power. We concluded with a discussion of the key managerial and research implications of our findings.     

Discovering Typed Communities in Mobile Social Networks

Mobile social networks,which consist of mobile users who communicate with each other using cell phones,are reflections of people’s interactions in social lives.Discovering typed communities(e.g.,family communities or corporate communities) in mobile social networks is a very promising problem.For example,it can help mobile operators to determine the target users for precision marketing.In this paper we propose discovering typed communities in mobile social networks by utilizing the labels of relationships between users.We use the user logs stored by mobile operators,including communication and user movement records,to collectively label all the relationships in a network,by employing an undirected probabilistic graphical model,i.e.,conditional random fields.Then we use two methods to discover typed communities based on the results of relationship labeling:one is simply retaining or cutting relationships according to their labels,and the other is using sophisticated weighted community detection algorithms.The experimental results show that our proposed framework performs well in terms of the accuracy of typed community detection in mobile social networks.     

Becoming Friends in Online Brand Communities: Evidence From China

With the aid of information technology, consumers have increasingly engaged in social interaction in online brand communities. How can these strangers make friends online? Drawing on embeddedness theory and media richness theory, we examine the antecedents and intermediate mechanisms of online friendship. We theorize that online brand community interactivity aided by instant messaging technology is the main driving force of online friendship, whereas social presence and a sense of yuan (a Chinese concept describing predetermined relations) mediate online friendship development. Online friendship in turn enhances consumer online brand community commitment. We test our conceptual model with a sample of consumers from Chinese online sporting goods forums. The results support our hypotheses and inform online brand community research and practice.     

The Effects of Pranks in Social Media on Brands

Practical jokes belong to the category of disparagement humor and they have been extensively investigated by social scientists for decades. Nevertheless, the available empirical results pertain mostly to human-to-human situations and little is known on the effects of pranks in the computer-mediated environment (CME). As CME encourages different patterns of reactions and behaviors than non-CME, the present study provides an experimental evaluation of consumer responses to brands that use practical jokes in their social media communication. The results reveal that high-disparagement pranks may significantly hurt brand perceptions and decrease brand affect. This effect is better predicted by prior brand attitudes than usage (i.e., the more favorable predisposition to a brand, the higher probability that a high-disparagement prank will produce a lower brand affect). No significant impact of low-disparagement pranks was found on subsequent brand responses. The findings will help scholars and practitioners in understanding this new phenomenon and in maximizing returns from humor online.