ABSTRACT

The rise of social media has dramatically changed relationship building between brands and fans. Social media-based brand communities are widely embraced by firms who use them to create consumer engagement and facilitate stronger consumer-brand relationships. Despite the importance of consumer engagement, our understanding of what drives community engagement and how individuals' love for a brand can be facilitated through SMBBCs remains limited. Based on social identity theory and social capital theory, this study explores the aforementioned gap by proposing an integrated conceptual model that encompasses the individual and group-level factors contributing to the establishment of community engagement, which in turn facilitates an individual's love for a brand and ultimately leads to positive behaviours towards the brand. We conducted a survey and found that community engagement, which is driven by brand identification and social capital (relational, structural, and cognitive capital), is a key determinant facilitating an individual's love for a brand. This love subsequently affects the individual's inclination to engage in brand-related information-sharing behaviours. The results of this research can guide practitioners in designing a SMBBCs by using relationship-building activities.

摘要

社交媒体的兴起极大地改变了品牌与粉丝之间的关系。基于社交媒体的品牌社区被公司广泛使用，这些社区可以用来建立消费者参与度并促进更牢固的消费者品牌关系。尽管消费者参与的重要性，但我们对推动社区参与的因素以及如何通过SMBBC促进个人对品牌的热爱的了解仍然有限。本研究基于社会认同理论和社会资本理论，通过提出一个整合的概念模型来探索上述差距，该模型包含有助于建立社区参与的个人和群体层面的因素，从而促进个人对品牌的热爱和最终导致对品牌的正面行为。我们进行了一项调查，发现由品牌识别和社会资本（关系，结构和认知资本）驱动的社区参与是促进个人对品牌的热爱的关键因素。这种爱随后会影响个人从事与品牌相关的信息共享行为的意愿。这项研究的结果可以指导从业人员通过建立关系活动来设计SMBBC。