A Statistical Measure of a Population's Propensity to Engage in Post-Purchase Online Word-of-Mouth

The emergence of online communities has enabled firms to monitor consumer-generated online word-of-mouth (WOM) in real-time by mining publicly available information from the Internet. A prerequisite for harnessing this new ability is the development of appropriate WOM metrics and the identification of relationships between such metrics and consumer behavior. Along these lines this paper introduces a metric of a purchasing population's propensity to rate a product online. Using data from a popular movie website we find that our metric exhibits several relationships that have been previously found to exist between aspects of a product and consumers' propensity to engage in offline WOM about it. Our study, thus, provides positive evidence for the validity of our metric as a proxy of a population's propensity to engage in post-purchase online WOM. Our results also suggest that the antecedents of offline and online WOM exhibit important similarities.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000169 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Relationships between brand awareness and online word-of-mouth: An example of online gaming community

[[abstract]]With the increasing popularity of broadband networks, the online game market is becoming more mature. One of the most popular online games, World of WarCraft, has more than ten million global members, making it the largest massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG). Many researchers have widely explored online communities. However, online entertainment community has seldom been addressed; especially in the investigation of online communities marketing factors and consumer behaviour. An issue of particular interest in this study is in determining whether there are some relationships in online game consumer model between marketing factors and behaviour, and if there are relationships, in understanding the reasons for these relationships. Thus, this study explores the relationships among brand awareness, customer value, repurchase intention, and online word-of-mouth based on 280 questionnaires from players of World of WarCraft in Taiwan and using structural equation modelling. The results show that brand awareness affects repurchase intention and online word-of-mouth through customer value. In addition, customer value is a completely mediated variable in our model. Finally, this study shows that if online game firms can satisfy the core values of their players, the players will be willing to recommend and share this with others on the net.[[incitationindex]]EI[[booktype]]紙本[[booktype]]電子

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationSocial learning is an important part of consumers' lives. A major limitation of previous research in consumer social learning is the lack of attention to the effects of relationships built among participants on the learning process in online communities. Within a thread in an online forum, when a post is made referring to a previous post, a connection is built between the posts, indicating the opportunity for the continuation of the learning process. We construct a conceptual framework of reference relationships in ongoing threads. We propose that four key constructs related to the reference relationships between posts are associated with the continuation of the social learning process within threads, including engagement, sociality, advanced levels of learning, and existence and strength of ties between posters. We investigated 19 threads with 580 posts in a diabetes online community using both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Results provide substantial evidence that reference relationships in an ongoing thread are significantly positively associated with posters' engagement in the community and in the ongoing thread, advanced learning steps and sociality demonstrated in the content of posts in the ongoing thread, and ties in other threads. Our study suggests important implications for marketers in facilitating consumers' social learning process in online communities. Specifically, we suggest that by investigating posts made in reference relationships, marketers may identify the topics in which posters have interest and the influentials who disseminate and generate knowledge in online communities

Consumer engagement in online brand communities: the moderating role of personal values

Purpose Despite growing recognition of the importance of consumer engagement with new technologies, a gap remains in terms of understanding the antecedents, consequences and moderators of online consumer engagement (OCE). This paper aims to address this gap by exploring the relationship between personality traits, OCE, perceived value and the moderating role of personal values. Design/Methodology/Approach A theoretical framework anchored in the extant OCE literature is tested through a study of 559 users of two distinct firm-hosted online brand communities (FHOBCs). Findings Findings suggest that three personality traits – extraversion, openness to experiences and altruism – are positively correlated with OCE. OCE is related to two types of perceived value, namely social value and aesthetic value. The personal values of conservation and self-enhancement moderate the relationships between the three identified personality traits and OCE. Research limitations/implications Future research into OCE should consider the application of this study’s conceptual framework across different cultures to account for the fast changing nature of online communities. Practical implications Understanding how personality traits drive OCE and what value consumers receive from engagement in online communities can help managers to better segment and evaluate consumers. Engagement and levels of activity within these online communities can be improved accordingly. Originality/Value This study’s contribution to the OCE literature is threefold. Firstly, the study provides new insights regarding personality traits as antecedents of consumer engagement with FHOBCs. Secondly, the study reveals the first insights into the role of personal values in the relationship between personality traits and OCE. Specifically, conservation and self-enhancement emerged as moderators of the relationship between three personality traits (extraversion, openness to experiences, altruism) and OCE. Thirdly, the study yields support for perceived value types (social value and aesthetic value) that emerge as consequences of consumer engagement in FHOBCs

The Dynamics of Value Creation in Online Brand Communities: Strategy Map Approach

As the clout of social networking is growing, brand managers are exploring diversified marketing strategies and consumer attitudes. The current study reveals the impact of value creation practices and brand loyalty in online brand communities based on perceived benefits enjoyed by consumers. Based on quantitative research approach, a sample of 308 respondents were collected to investigate relationships among online brand community participation, value creation practices and brand loyalty. The results highlighted hedonic, learning, self-esteem and social benefits as antecedents for online brand community participation. Moreover, value creation practices are derived as essential factor for enhancing brand loyalty among online community members. The finding exhibited valuable insights about developing corporate strategies to achieve customer intimacy for long-term relationship. Managerial implications are explained by identifying value-creation practices as a mechanism for enhancing consumer engagement and relationship management

Social media marketing in the hospitality industry: The role of benefits in increasing brand community participation and the impact of participation on consumer trust and commitment toward hotel and restaurant brands

Online community is an effective tool for building the relationship with consumers. Many hospitality firms (i.e., hotels and restaurants) have utilized online communities a new marketing channel to reach their consumers. Previous studies have identified four participation benefits (functional, social, psychological, and hedonic) in the member participation of community activities. In addition to these four factors, this study also added monetary benefit as a predictor of member participation. Demographic factors (i.e., age and biological gender) were proposed to influence the relationships between benefits and community participation. As results of member participation in online communities, trust and commitment toward hotel or restaurant brands have been considered as important factors that enhance consumer relationships with hospitality brands. The purpose of this study was to investigate benefit factors of member participation and the relationships between community participation, brand trust, and brand commitment in hotel and restaurant online communities. The present study investigated the conceptual model in two contexts, including hotel and restaurant Facebook fan pages. The data on the hotel Facebook fan pages were collected from both the panel of an online research company and the alumni of Iowa State University; whereas the data on the restaurant Facebook fan pages were only collected from the alumni of Iowa State University. After conducting confirmatory factor analysis, the present study identified four benefit factors (functional, hedonic, monetary, and social-psychological benefits) as the predictors of member participation in hotel and restaurant Facebook fan pages. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test the conceptual model. Based on the results of SEM, hotel and restaurant studies showed different results. The results of the hotel study indicated that three benefit factors (functional, hedonic, and social-psychological benefits) positively influenced members\u27 community participation; member participation positively influenced their trust toward a hotel brand. Biological gender had a significant moderating effect on the relationship between functional benefits and community participation in the hotel study. The results of the restaurant study indicated that two benefit factors (hedonic and social-psychological benefits) positively influenced members\u27 community participation; member participation positively influenced their trust and commitment toward a restaurant brand; members\u27 brand trust also positively influenced their commitment toward the restaurant brand. The findings of this study provide significant insights for the researchers and marketers. From the theoretical perspective, this is the first empirical research that investigated consumer benefits and responses (i.e., community participation, brand trust, and brand commitment) in online communities managed by hospitality firms. Thus, the study contributes to the understanding of consumer behavior in social media. From the practical perspective, the study suggests some strategies to effectively design hotel and restaurant Facebook fan pages, which can strengthen the relationships with current consumers and attract potential consumers

Building the dream online: Does participation in luxury brand's social media affect brand experience, brand affect, brand trust, and brand loyalty?

The global market for luxury goods has witnessed a phenomenal growth over the past decades. Along with the increasing demand that stems from increased purchasing power, emerging markets, and new wider consumer groups, traditional luxury brands have faced a fierce competition caused by new forms of luxury such as masstige and luxurious fashion. Likewise, the rapid growth of social networks and social media has fundamentally transformed the business environment, and the whole society. Digital networks have facilitated companies and consumers to build online consumption communities, which supports the recent shift of marketing focus on relationships and co-creation of value. Consequently, luxury brands have started to use social media for advertising and relationship marketing. Due to the dynamic and interactive digital environment the importance of brand stories has become even more apparent. While brand communities and online communities are widely studied, luxury brands and social media based brand communities (SMBBCs) have not received yet much academic attention. This study takes the approach of SMBBCs to investigate the influence of consumers' participation in luxury brand's social media on brand experience, and on key dependent variables in consumer behavior research: brand affect, brand trust, and brand loyalty. The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of social media, and to contribute to the research on social media brand communities and brand-consumer relationships, as well as luxury brands. The study proposes a theoretical framework that combines two empirically developed constructs: brand experience, and brand affect/trust-brand loyalty constructs, and tests the model within a social media based luxury brand community context. The data were collected as an online survey from various social media, which resulted in 333 valid responses from consumers who follow a luxury brand's social media. The study is quantitative by nature, and uses structural equation modeling (SEM) as the main method of analysis. To further examine the influence of participation on the focal construct, brand experience, analysis of variance (ANOVA) was also conducted. The results support the reasoning that participation in luxury brand's social media affect consumer behavior. Social media following influences brand experience that accumulates in the long run, but participation affects also rapidly consumers new to the brand. Further, active participation and passive participation appear to have equal influence on brand experience. The findings reveal the chain of effects from brand related stimuli to brand affect, brand trust, and brand loyalty, and confirm the importance of affect in building brand loyalty

Building Brands through Social Listening

Marketers are using social media as a way to promote their brands and build consumer relationships. Research has shown that brand relationships can provide consumers with resources in making decisions, meeting their needs, and motivating them. With a growing number of marketers reporting that social media is important to their businesses, keeping a watchful eye on what the customers are saying on social media, and what competitors are doing, is critical. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook enable the creation of virtual customer environments, where online communities form around specific firms, brands, or products. For this project we hope to demonstrate, using digital tools and survey research, that social media comments can serve as a valuable indicator of shifts in brand sentiment. This research examines how emotional brand-based relationships and perceptions develop in online social communities. This project will utilize brand monitoring tools to track and analyze three global brands and examine the new and rapidly changing digital marketplace, and the various tools that can be used to help develop and maintain competitive brands. This research will also compare online and survey data to see how well they align, and reflect a window into the marketplace for assessing and developing brands

Understanding the antecedents of consumer brand engagement by managing brand communities on social media

As social media provide companies with opportunities to create touch-points by enabling consumers to interact with brands in new ways, a key issue for organizations is how to use brand communities to engage customers and enhance their relationships with brands. Brand community interactivity is one of the latest developments to engage consumers in online brand communities. The objective of brand communities is not only to attract potential customers, but also to retain loyal consumers and gain advocates. Thus, brands and companies’ social media activity should be appropriately organized and managed for high-level consumer brand engagement (CBE), which is a comprehensive construct that allow companies to examine the bond between their brands and consumers. The essence of this CBE bond is related to the involvement of consumers, as it increases the touch-points between them and the brand. This study examined perceived interactivity as a driving factor in the context of a brand community on social media with the purpose of encouraging consumer community engagement, community satisfaction, and consumer brand engagement (CBE). Two second-order constructs were operationalized in the research model. Communication, responsiveness, and control were treated as reflective factors to create the second-order construct “perceived interactivity,” while the other second-order construct “CBE” comprised cognitive processing, affection, and activation as reflective indicators. The results, based on data collected from 328 social media users who are followers of a smartphone brand’s Facebook page, indicated that perceived interactivity is likely to significantly affect consumer community engagement and community satisfaction, which in turn foster brand engagement. Successful social media marketing practices for companies should take responsibility for transforming consumer community engagement into CBE, as it is imperative for organizations building brand communities to enhance their consumer community satisfaction through proper community management to achieve high CBE

Consumer Engagement in Social Media Based Brand Communities: A Study of Facebook and Fast-food in Egypt

This research project was conducted in response to several calls by marketing scholars and practitioners for a better understanding of the concept of consumer engagement in general and social media based brand communities in particular. The term ‘consumer engagement’ has grown in importance in recent years to describe consumers’ interactive experiences with brands. The popularity of that term was boosted by the rapid penetration of social networking sites which facilitated engagement of consumers through online brand communities embedded in it. This thesis investigates consumer engagement in Facebook brand pages. These pages are considered a form of online brand communities that are created by many companies for marketing purposes. Fast food brand pages in Egypt were used as a context for conducting this research study, where they are extensively used for targeting young consumers. With the purpose of identifying the factors that enhance consumer engagement in these online communities, this study examined consumers’ relationships with brands that initiated these communities as well as consumers’ perceptions inside these communities. Also, it studied the role of these brand pages in fostering consumers’ brand love as well as brand equity dimensions and outcomes. Brand love is an important marketing concept that has been appearing in academic publications recently to describe consumers’ emotional connections with brands. It is becoming widely accepted that consumers’ emotions towards brands, are a key determinant for their consumption behaviour. A mixed method research design incorporating focus groups and online surveys was used to collect data in the current study. The data collection was conducted by drawing a sample from young consumers whose ages are between 18 and 29, and who are active members of official fast food brand pages on Facebook in Egypt. The first phase of this study adopted a series of qualitative focus group discussions with the aim of exploring the nature and dimensionality of consumer engagement from the perspective of young Egyptian consumers. Also, it was useful in exploring the benefits these consumers seek by their engagement in online communities. The second phase was conducted through an online survey that was posted on Facebook brand pages of the fast food chains in Egypt. The aim of the quantitative phase was to test a conceptual framework for the antecedents and outcomes of consumer engagement in social media based brand communities. This framework was developed from an extensive literature review as well as the qualitative discussions. The findings indicated that consumer engagement is a multidimensional concept that consists of emotional, cognitive and behavioural dimensions, as well as several sub-dimensions. Also, three factors related to consumers’ relationships with brands (brand identification, satisfaction and trust) and four factors related to consumers’ perceptions inside the brand communities (critical mass; functional, hedonic and monetary benefits) were identified as antecedents of consumer engagement. Moreover, the study proved the positive effect of consumer engagement on the development of brand love. Furthermore, it indicated a positive influence of brand love on brand equity dimensions and outcomes. The current study contributes theoretically by enhancing our understanding of the concept of consumer engagement, particularly in the context of social media based brand communities in Egypt. More importantly, the inclusion of brand love is expected to contribute to the body of consumer-brand relationships literature. Also, this thesis contributes by providing a measurement scale for consumer engagement in the context of social media. On the other hand, the study provides some practical implications, where it provides some useful guidelines for companies to follow when advertising to young consumers on Facebook brand pages