Are Facebook Brand Community Members Really Loyal to the Brand?

Although research into consumer participation in online brand communities has grown in recent years, still little is known about how membership in a Facebook brand community is related to brand loyalty. This study tests the direct and indirect effects of brand community engagement, electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) intention, and community promotion behavior on attitudinal loyalty, repurchase intention, and positive word-of-mouth. Partial least squares modeling is used to test the conceptual model on data from a survey of 1,936 Facebook brand community members. The results support most of the hypotheses and show that whereas brand community engagement and eWOM intention are strongly associated with all the aspects of brand loyalty, community promotion behavior only affects word-of-mouth. The results also reveal that user activity in the Facebook brand community has no effect on positive word-of-mouth

Advocacy participation and brand loyalty in virtual brand community

Brand owners use virtual communities to strengthen brand loyalty by engaging consumers in active content creation activities. Personal and reciprocal communication and consumers’ participation in virtual brand communities are the main sources through which communities contribute to brand loyalty formation. This research examines the antecedents and consequences of advocacy participation in virtual brand communities. The results show that the VBC members’ advocacy participation is strongly contributed by the community’s ability to promote reciprocal and personal use experience, which also directly affects the members’ brand satisfaction. The results further show that advocacy participation and participation frequency positively contribute to especially attitudinal loyalty formation. Participation is found to be negatively related with brand satisfaction

Reliability and Validity of a Further Tested Appreciative Management Scale

Background and Purpose: Managers need evidence-based methods to evaluate their management skills. To further test the appreciative management scale (AMS 1.0) to create a practical instrument to be used in evaluating appreciative management. Methods: For further testing, a new survey was conducted among social and healthcare managers (n = 734) in Finland. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to assess the scale validity and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients the internal consistency. Results: The validated AMS 2.0 scale includes 24 items. The values measuring validity and reliability were good, with an Rool Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) of 0.072, Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values between 0.532 and 0.634, and Composite Reliability (CR) values ranging between 0.850 and 0.914. The Cronbach’s alpha of the whole scale was 0.944. Conclusions: AMS 2.0 is a reliable and valid means to measure appreciative management as proved by confirmatory factor analysis.Peer reviewe

Somevaikuttaja kaksoisagenttina : vaikuttajamarkkinoinnin tehokkuus, kuluttajan autonomia ja tulevaisuuden haasteet

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Perception-based pricing strategies for mobile services in customer marketing context

Traditional pricing research has focused on analysing price setting procedures and cost or competition based pricing strategies. Customer- or perception-oriented pricing strategies have been left on little attention among business practitioners and academics. The need for development and investigation of these new pricing strategies has occurred after the emergence of new electronic and mobile services; traditional pricing strategies have resulted unsatisfactory results. With this study we have concentrated on elucidating the unobserved fields of perception-based pricing in mobile services business. The focal point of the study consists of analyses of the customers’ price perceptions of mobile services, and the analyses of the differences in the perceptions between the three predefined customer segments: mobile segment, combined segment, and fixed-line segment. Four latent customer-based factors were constructed which were expected to explain and predict the differences in the customers’ price perception levels: service satisfaction, price sensitivity, innovativeness, and investment readiness. And for providing practical solutions for pricing problems, the present study examined also the applicability of the bundle pricing strategy for mobile services. These analyses disclosed that customers in the each segment perceived mobile services to be rather expensive, though differences between and inside the segments were notable. Out of the four analysed factors especially customers’ innovativeness and the price sensitivity were accurate indicators of the customers’ price perception levels. Customers also seemed to prefer acquiring mobile services in bundles rather than separately, and a positive relationship between the customers’ bundle preferences and price perceptions were foundMunnukka on tutkinut havaitun hinnan mukaisten hinnoittelustrategioiden sovellettavuutta mobiilipalveluiden liiketoimintaan, jossa päähuomio on kohdistettu asiakkaiden hintakäsityksiin. Hän pyrki selvittämään, kuinka eri asiakasryhmät eroavat hintakäsitysten suhteen toisistaan sekä, kuinka hintakäsityksiin voitaisiin vaikuttaa hinnoittelumenetelmien avulla. Munnukka selvitti myös, kuinka tyytyväisyys operaattorin palveluihin, hintaherkkyys, innovatiivisuus ja investointivalmius selittävät asiakkaiden hintakäsitysten eroja. Lisäksi hän tutki pakettihinnoittelun sovellettavuutta mobiilipalveluihin.Selvittämällä asiakkaiden hintakäsitysten tason palveluiden tarjoajat voivat tehostaa toimintaansa tarjoamalla asiakkaille hinnoittelu- ja palveluvaihtoehtoja, jotka parhaiten vastaavat heidän tarpeitaan

Somevaikuttaja kaksoisagenttina : vaikuttajamarkkinoinnin tehokkuus, kuluttajan autonomia ja tulevaisuuden haasteet

Vaikuttajamarkkinointi tarjoaa yrityksille mahdollisuuden tehdä tarkkaan kohdistettua ja tehokasta brändiviestintää, luoda merkityksellisiä yhteyksiä asiakkaisiin ja lisätä brändin uskottavuutta. Vaikuttajien persoonallinen tyyli tekee heidän sisällöistään kuluttajien silmissä aitoa ja luotettavaa, minkä vuoksi ne usein hyväksytään paremmin kuin yritysten omat sisällöt. Samalla kaupalliset yhteistyöt ja alan ammattimaistuminen haastavat vaikuttajien autenttisuutta ja samaistuttavuutta. Keskeisiä tulevaisuuden haasteita vaikuttajamarkkinoinnille ovat kuluttajien yksityisyyden suojan ja autonomian säilyminen, kun uudet teknologiat, alustat ja sovellukset tuovat mukanaan yhä tehokkaampia vaikuttamisen keinoja.peerReviewe