Brand Fan Research Articles

Antecedents of brand love in online network-based communities. A social identity perspective

Purpose This paper aims to analyse the antecedents of brand love in online network-based communities and to develop an integrative conceptual model in which social-interactive engagement influences brand love via the mediating effects of social identity. Design/methodology/approach A survey was conducted on the Facebook fan pages of 20 leading international brands. A total of 387 responses were collected from consumers living primarily in Europe and the USA. Structural equation modelling was performed to test the hypothesised linkages. Findings The results confirmed that the positive influence of social-interactive engagement on brand love is mediated by the psychological effects related to how members perceive their self-concept based on belonging to the social group of the brand fan page. Research limitations/implications This study considered Facebook, the favourite social network used by customers to connect with brands. Future research is invited to consider other social media to increase the external validity of the model. Practical implications To strengthen the emotional bond with a brand in online network-based communities, managers should stimulate consumers’ social identity by leveraging on the experiences which influence social-interactive engagement. Originality/value This study is the first to investigate the effects of social-interactive engagement on social identity to enhance the understanding of brand love’s antecedents in specific online social environments.

페이스북 브랜드 팬 페이지 사용자들의 융합된 편익이 브랜드 애착과 브랜드 몰입에 미치는 영향 연구

본 연구는 페이스 북 브랜드 팬 페이지 사용자들이 추구한 편익을 기능적, 정서적, 상징적 편익의 세 차원으로 분류하여 이들 편익이 브랜드 애착과 브랜드 몰입에 어떠한 영향을 미치는지를 구조적으로 살펴보고자 하였다. 연구 결과, 기능적 편익에 비해 감성적 편익이 브랜드 애착을 형성하는 데 중요한 역할을 하는 것으로 나타났다. 또한 상징적 편익과 기능적 편익 간의 비교에서는 상징적 편익이 브랜드 애착 형성에 중요한 역할을 하는 것으로 나타났다. 그러나 감성적 편익과 상징적 편익은 차이가 없이 브랜드 애착에 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났으며, 브랜드 애착은 브랜드 몰입에 영향을 주는 선행 변수라는 점이 확인되었다. This study is the convenience Facebook brand fan page users who seek functional, emotional, divided into three levels of symbolic benefits to the brand benefit was to examine whether structurally affect to brand attachment and brand commitment. Results and emotional benefits are found to affect the brand attachment relative to the functional convenience. In addition, the symbolic benefits were to affect brand attachment compared with the functional convenience. But the emotional benefits and symbolic benefits was shown to affect different brand without attachment, brand attachment points have been identified that affect the antecedents of brand engagement.

Factors driving young users' engagement with Facebook: Evidence from Brazil

User engagement has recently been the focus of attention for marketing planners who want to capture the enormous opportunities provided by social media. In this study, we investigate the drivers of social media user engagement by extending an existing model of social media participation by Cheung, Chiu and Lee (2011). We included in the model three social influence factors, five uses and gratifications factors, and one social presence factor. Results from an online survey with a sample of young Facebook users in Brazil (n = 1126) reveal four significant factors, i.e. a) subjective norm b) social identity, c) entertainment value, and d) maintaining interpersonal interconnectivity. Our empirical results also show an improved model fit over the existing model of user participation used by Cheung et al. (2011). This research adds significance to the literature by extending an existing theoretical model to study a new phenomenon in a different cultural context. We also provide practical recommendations for managing brand fan pages on how to foster user engagement with social media.

Harnessing the power of Facebook to target the Hispanic consumer: An automobile and QSR analysis

Capturing the Hispanic share of wallet is increasingly important for brands, yet many struggle to make resonant, authentic connections to this market. As the US Hispanic population and its purchasing power grow to record proportions, the use of social media has become increasingly important. Leveraging social data as part of a digital marketing strategy can help marketers gain meaningful insights into Hispanic consumers to drive ROI. The ability to match social Big Data with well-profiled consumers is the key to effectively leveraging social media. The following two studies — the first investigating Hispanic brand fans of two major automakers, the second investigating Hispanic brand fans of three quick-serve restaurants — utilise Lightspeed GMI’s social media intelligence tool, Context, to glean insights into Hispanic consumers. The research tests the hypothesis that corporations can effectively reach Hispanic consumers and formulate authentic content strategies through social media data, revealing insights into the unique tastes and preferences of this fast-growing segment.

Social Media and Brand Purchase: Quantifying the Effects of Exposures to Earned and Owned Social Media Activities in a Two-Stage Decision Making Model

This study investigates the effects of exposures to earned and owned social media activities and their interaction on brand purchase in a two-stage decision model (i.e., likelihood to purchase and the amount purchased offline). Our study is instantiated on a unique single-source dataset of 12-month home-scanned brand purchase records of a group of fast-moving consumer good brands and Facebook brand Fan Page messages related to the brands. We first find that exposures to earned and owned social media activities for brands have significant and positive impacts on consumers’ likelihood to purchase the brands. Their effects are, surprisingly, suppressive on each other. Second, exposures to earned and owned social media activities have almost no impact on the amount purchased offline with presence of in-store promotions. Our study contributes to our knowledge body of social media marketing by demonstrating that social media activities for a brand can foster the consumer base of the brand, but that effort is not necessarily sales-oriented. In addition, our study is conducive to guiding marketers onto the strategic allocation of advertising dollars to online social channels featuring a mixture of earned and owned social media.

How significant are users’ opinions in social media?

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to assign polarity score to each post from Facebook fan pages, and then examine whether the Comments submitted by users on a post from fan page have a significant relationship with the popularity of that post. Being aware of how to enhance the popularity of posts will help companies in terms of administrating their fan pages.Design/methodology/approach– In the context of fan page and post popularity, the authors test significance of the relationship between Comments’ polarity and number of Likes and Comments of a post in different Facebook pages by regression method. The data are collected from different fan page posts in Facebook, and a sentiment analysis approach is proposed to accomplish this research.Findings– Results show that the relation between users’ Comments and popularity of fan page posts is strongly significant. Outcomes of this research are useful for every company in terms of monitoring and managing their brand fan pages on social networking sites such as Facebook.Originality/value– Investigation of factors influencing popularity of fan page posts in social media is almost a new area of study that dates back to recent years. The authors use a sentiment analysis approach to evaluate a new concept describing the relationship between users’ Comments and popularity of posts from Facebook fan pages. Moreover, a part of dataset is extracted from Facebook by a crawler which is an advantage to prior studies.

Brand Communication Challenges in Getting Young Customer Engagement

It is important for the Brands of products and services that address young people to get to know very well this consumer segment, although they are extremely open minded, bold, friendly and great fans of brands. Nevertheless they are not so easy to deal with or to be convinced by one brand or another, but once they prove to be loyal they are highly valuable. In order to win their loyalty, companies must take into account a certain number of aspects.

페이스북 브랜드 팬 페이지에 대한 이용자의 반응 -브랜드의 자기노출정도와 이용자의 사회적 연결감을 중심으로-

본 연구는 페이스북 이용자와 브랜드 간의 관계가 페이스북 이용자들 간의 관계와 유사하다는 기존 문헌에 기반하여, 페이스북에서 브랜드와 이용자들 간의 관계 형성과 관련된 변인들-페이스북의 사회적 연결감, 브랜드의 자기노출-이 팬 페이지에 대한 이용자의 반응에 어떻게 영향을 미치는지 살펴보았다. 더불어 팬 페이지에 대한 태도가 그 페이지의 팬이 되고자 하는 의도에 매개변인으로 작용한다고 제안하였다. 연구 결과, 브랜드의 자기노출은 팬 페이지에 대한 태도에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 반면, 사회적 연결감은 부정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 그리고 팬 페이지에 대한 태도는 이용자들의 팬이 되고자 하는 의도에 유의미한 영향을 미치는 것으로 분석되었다. 본 연구는 페이스북에서 브랜드와 이용자들 간의 관계 형성을 이해함으로써 페이스북에서 브랜드의 메시지가 확산되는 과정을 이해하는 데 도움을 줄 것이다. The current study examines the major variables -Facebook social connectedness and brand self-disclosure- that affect the relationship between users and brands. In this study, we assume that users communicate and build relationships with brands via Facebook brand fan pages, like they do with other users. Additionally, we test the effect of attitude toward Facebook fan page on intention to be a fan of the fan page. The results show that the brand's self-disclosure positively affects on attitude toward the fan page, but Facebook social connectedness has negative effects. Also, attitude toward the fan page has positive effects on the intention to be a fan. This study helps understand how brand messages are spreading across diverse Facebook users.

How to Transform Consumers into Fans of Your Brand

Purpose – Brand fan pages on social networks have become very popular online services. However, empirical research on fan pages is still in its infancy. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of fan pages on the customer-brand relationship and what motivates users to participate.Design/methodology/approach – For this a framework was developed based on classical concepts of use and gratification theory, customer engagement, and involvement theory. The model is tested using a multi-step approach of qualitative and quantitative methods.Findings – The paper can show a significant influence from online service usage behavior on the fan page on the customer-brand relationship. Furthermore, the paper identifies different values such as functional and hedonic content as drivers of fan-page participation.Research limitations/implications – The results are limited by the used data set, which is not representative for all industries and is cross-sectional. Further research could build up a database over a longitudinal time frame in different industries. The results are interesting for theory and practice. They confirm the positive effect of integration and engagement in general and show that fan pages are more than just tools to connect brand fans. They are also instruments for gaining new fans. Originality/value – The present study is the first study that not only shows the effect of fan pages on customer behavior, but also analyses the motives for participation and the crucial constructs to manage them successfully.

Exploring sport brand double jeopardy: The link between team market share and attitudinal loyalty

Marketers are charged with the responsibility of attracting consumers and encouraging loyalty for their brands. Double jeopardy, a marketing law observed across numerous product and service settings, contends that loyalty is largely influenced by a brand's market share. There have been suggestions that sport may be one of the few areas immune to such effects, providing researchers with an opportunity to test how sport brand loyalty may be impacted by market share. The current research capitalises on this opportunity by assessing the effects of market share on attitudinal loyalty reported by a sample of 794 Australian sport fans. ANOVA tests revealed that fans of high market share brands displayed higher levels of attitudinal loyalty towards their favourite teams in comparison to small market share team fans. Further tests revealed that differences existed in terms of the brand association perceptions held by high and small market share team fans, and how these contributed to predicting attitudinal loyalty. Consequently, sport marketers should be cognisant of double jeopardy effects when evaluating sport brands and formulating marketing strategies, though future research is needed to determine the full applicability of double jeopardy within the sport context.

KOMUNIKACIJOS SOCIALINĖJE ŽINIASKLAIDOJE POVEIKIO PREKĖS ŽENKLO VERTEI MATAVIMAS

Believing in opportunities in a virtual environment and having started an intensive communication in social media, companies increasingly pay more attention to the measuring of brand efficiency in social media as one of the means to build up a competitive advantage for a company and its impact on brand equity. Social media has changed the communication between brands and consumers: consumers, not brands, become the main message recipients as well as senders. Consumers gain more power to influence brand expression, contribute to its creation, dissemination, promotion and representation. A consumer can interpret messages sent by a brand in his or her own way and communicate his or her interpretation to others. It becomes difficult to assess the impact of messages on brand equity spreading among consumers as it can be affected by both positive and negative information spreading as a word-of-mouth. Traditional Internet tools for evaluation of financial and non-financial efficiency of communication in social media and primary research on brand equity can be used in evaluation of the impact of communication in social media on brand equity. Return on investment is calculated when financial efficiency of communication in social media is measured. In evaluation of non-financial (or consumer behavior) results of communication in social media it is recommended to apply quantitative and qualitative methods, which help to measure consumer generated content, the number of brand fans, their positive and negative comments, their statements, the number of subscribers, the number of video views. There are a lot of free and paid Internet ( Google News Search, Google Blogs Seach, Board Reader, Twitter Advanced Search, Social Mention, Addict-o-matic, Veidaknyge.lt and etc), which tools can be helpful in the analysis of reports. So far the efficiency of communication in social media is assessed from a short-term perspective, therefore, it remains unclear what kind of long-term return communication in social media brings. Companies should measure not only the separate efficiency indicators of communication in social media, but also their interplay and impact on brand equity. The existing measuring indicators of communication in social media efficiency and evaluation methodology are rather fragmented and do not show the impact of communication in social media on brand equity yet. Companies striving to evaluate the impact of social media on brand equity should note the following aspects: In achieving the objective results of assessment of brand communication in social media both financial (short-term perspective) and non-financial (long-term perspective) measuring of the efficiency of brand communication in social media should be performed. Companies should measure not only the separate efficiency indicators of brand communication in social media, but also their interplay and impact on brand equity. Research on primary brand equity (awareness, image, perceived quality, consumer loyalty to brand) should be done prior and after the implementation of communication campaign in order to determine the link of efficiency results of brand communication in social media and brand equity. The impact of communication in social media on brand equity should be evaluated from a short-term and a long-term perspective. Companies seeking to get comprehensive indicators for measuring the brand equity in social media have to set measurable brand equity objectives and compare the obtained results with the established objectives. The purpose of the research is to identify indicators for measuring the efficiency of communication in social media allowing to measure the impact of communication in social media on brand equity, by introducing the measurement methods of indicators. The object of the research is the efficiency of communication in social media measurement. Research is formed by a systematic and comparative analysis and summary of scientific literature. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.em.17.2.2198

How to transform consumers into fans of your brand

PurposeBrand fan pages on social networks have become very popular online services. However, empirical research on fan pages is still in its infancy. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of fan pages on the customer‐brand relationship and what motivates users to participate.Design/methodology/approachFor this a framework was developed based on classical concepts of use and gratification theory, customer engagement, and involvement theory. The model is tested using a multi‐step approach of qualitative and quantitative methods.FindingsThe paper can show a significant influence from online service usage behavior on the fan page on the customer‐brand relationship. Furthermore, the paper identifies different values such as functional and hedonic content as drivers of fan‐page participation.Research limitations/implicationsThe results are limited by the used data set, which is not representative for all industries and is cross‐sectional. Further research could build up a database over a longitudinal time frame in different industries. The results are interesting for theory and practice. They confirm the positive effect of integration and engagement in general and show that fan pages are more than just tools to connect brand fans. They are also instruments for gaining new fans.Originality/valueThe present study is the first study that not only shows the effect of fan pages on customer behavior, but also analyses the motives for participation and the crucial constructs to manage them successfully.

Popularity of Brand Posts on Brand Fan Pages: An Investigation of the Effects of Social Media Marketing

Social media outlets constitute excellent vehicles for fostering relationships with customers. One specific way to do this is to create brand fan pages on social networking sites. Companies can place brand posts (containing videos, messages, quizzes, information, and other material) on these brand fan pages. Customers can become fans of these brand fan pages, and subsequently indicate that they like the brand post or comment on it. This liking and commenting on brand posts reflects brand post popularity. In this article, we determine possible drivers for brand post popularity. We analyze 355 brand posts from 11 international brands spread across six product categories. Results show that positioning the brand post on top of the brand fan page enhances brand post popularity. But the findings also indicate that different drivers influence the number of likes and the number of comments. Namely, vivid and interactive brand post characteristics enhance the number of likes. Moreover, the share of positive comments on a brand post is positively related to the number of likes. The number of comments can be enhanced by the interactive brand post characteristic, a question. The shares of both positive and negative comments are positively related to the number of comments. Managers of brands that operate brand fan pages can be guided by our research with regards to deciding which characteristics or content to place at brand posts.

The Power of “Like”

The following white paper is based on a collaboration between comScore and Facebook. The research, which examines the nature of the reach and frequency of branded content on Facebook, is largely based on May 2011 findings from comScore Social Essentials™, but also includes insights from Facebook’s internal analytics platform. The summary below establishes the key findings and implications of this research. Facebook is the dominant social networking site with an audience of approximately 160 million U.S. visitors each month and accounts for 90 percent of all time spent on social networking sites. (Source: comScore) Branded content on social media can take many forms – content shared directly from brands, re-shared content from connections, or social marketing such as Facebook’s Sponsored Stories ad unit. While there has been tremendous focus on counting the incidence of these brand mentions on social networks (and, to a lesser degree, categorizing it), we find that the reach and frequency of social media brand impressions is far more important than simple counting statistics. Facebook users spend more than a quarter of their time on the site consuming and interacting with the Facebook Newsfeed, and this activity represents 4 percent of all time spent online in the U.S. The Newsfeed is also the primary location where branded content is consumed. In fact, users are 40-150 times more likely to consume branded content in the Newsfeed than to visit the Fan Page itself. (Source: comScore) There are typically two potential audiences for branded content on Facebook. Fans of brands on Facebook (those who have explicitly “liked” a brand) are the easiest to reach with social media brand impressions, but the Friends of those Fans also constitute an important incremental audience. Friends of Fans typically represent a much larger set of consumers (34 times larger, on average, for the top 100 brand pages) and can receive social media brand impressions by way of their Friends. In examples from this paper, the reach of branded content among Friends of Fans significantly exceeded the reach among Fans. When a brand focuses on acquiring and engaging Fans it can benefit from a significant secondary effect – exposure among Friends of Fans that often surpasses reach among Fans. In the case of some brands, Facebook Fans may have different aggregate demographic and behavioral profiles than typical brand purchasers, indicating that social media may require different approaches to marketing strategy. The “Value of a Fan” can be assessed in three primary ways: increasing the depth of engagement and loyalty among Fans, generating incremental purchase behavior, and leveraging the ability to influence Friends of Fans.

Wikibrands: reinventing your company in a customer-driven marketplace

Foreword by Don Tapscott Preface Acknowledgments Background Chapter 1. The Birth of Wikibrands Chapter 2. The Wikibrand Rallying Cry: The New Mad Men of 2010 Chapter 3. The Six Benefits of Wikibrands Brand Advocacy: The Power of Buzz, Word-of-Mouth, Referral and Evangelism Chapter 4. FLIRT: Focus - If I don't know where you're going, I don't want you getting there fast Chapter 5. FLIRT: Language and Outreach - I don't care what you're saying, if I don't like how and where you are saying it Chapter 6. FLIRT: Incentives and Motivations - Brand fans do it because of what they want, not what you want Chapter 7 - FLIRT - Rules - When you jump, make sure you have a safety net Chapter 8. FLIRT: Tools and Platform - If you build it, they may come Chapter 9. Measurement and Metrics: Those who can measure will lead Chapter 10. Internalizing the Benefits: It's pointless unless you are changed Chapter 11. Life Stage Planning Chapter 12. Community Management: Building a Cafe, Not a Ghost Town Chapter 13. The B-to-B Wiki Brand: Putting Some Stock in our Relationship Chapter 14. The Personal Wiki Brand: The Era of the Grassroots A and B-Listers Chapter 15. The Future: Sticking our Neck Out, Some Predictions Chapter 16. Reference Guide: 25 Things to Know in 25 Minutes