Social Media Brand Communities Research Articles

EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN CONSUMERS ENGAGEMENT AND EWORD OF MOUTH IN SOCIAL MEDIA BRAND COMMUNITIES A PATH ANALYSIS

Recently, marketing researchers have started to explore the impact of Social Media Brand Communities in digital marketing strategies. However, in spite of this interest, scant attention has been paid to the micro-mechanisms stimulating electronic word of mouth (E-WOM) within social media brand community. In this sense, this exploratory research aims to explore how consumers‟ engagement is related with positive E-WOM.

Social Media Brand Communities and Brand Loyalty

The dynamic, omnipresent, and frequent on-the-go consumer-brand interactions via social media platforms are significantly changing the branding landscape. A profound comprehension of this change is crucial in assessing brand loyalty. Considering the enormous fame of social media and inherent capabilities of brand communities, the purpose of this paper is to exhibit the contributory role of Social media brand communities (SMBC) towards brand loyalty. A Survey-based empirical study involving young consumers was conducted in the selected cities of Bangalore, Kolkata, and Pune. In contrast to prior works (Algesheimer et al., 2005; Laroche et al., 2012), the authors have incorporated Analytical Hierarchy Process (hereafter AHP) in the study to implement and validate new scales. The outcomes of AHP methodology found shared consciousness and social networking as the most-preferred component and activity respectively. These outcomes would assist brand managers in the optimized allocation of communication budget and formulation of competitive branding strategies to tackle intense competition.

A netnography of a university’s social media brand community: Exploring collaborative co-creation tactics

ABSTRACTThis research explores the nature of collaborative co-creation in a university-initiated social media brand community (SMBC). SMBCs provide significant opportunities to enhance student experiences by facilitating the co-creation of value and brand meanings. However, little is known about what makes organization-initiated SMBCs successful. A netnographic analysis of an exemplary Facebook brand page of an Australian university results in the emergence of four key tactics demonstrated in the collaborative co-creation processes: (1) integrating school/student artifacts in visual narratives; (2) co-authoring student/staff brand stories; (3) co-delivering student services; (4) twisting and playing the school sub-cultures. These findings suggest that a university’s physical community and existing reciprocal relationships provide the contexts of co-creation in the SMBC. Also, the pivotal role of university marketers in inspiring and empowering students and employees to engage in the co-creation process is supported. Further, students are found to adopt various technological and ideological features of social media to personalize their co-creation experiences. This study provides higher education practitioners with a basis for actionable social media strategies and advances understanding of SMBCs in an education services context. In addition, the study demonstrates how netnography can be adopted by practitioners to deepen their understanding of student experiences.

Biopolitical Marketing and Social Media Brand Communities

This article offers an analysis of marketing as an ideological set of practices that makes cultural interventions designed to infuse social relations with biopolitical injunctions. We examine a contemporary site of heightened attention within marketing: the rise of online communities and the attendant profession of social media marketing managers. We argue that social media marketers disavow a core problem; namely, that the object at stake, the customer community, barely exists. The community therefore functions ideologically. We describe the ideological gymnastics necessary for maintaining momentum behind a practice that barely exists and we ponder why such ideologies are necessary, and what they allow the marketer to do. Working with such concepts as ‘the wild’, ‘communicative capitalism’, and ‘biopolitical marketing’, we explore a genre of popular business literature that proselytizes for online customer communities and we reflect on the broader implications.