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Today's technology-enabled customer with instant access to a global marketplace has led to firms facing intense competition from around the world. As a result, customer engagement has emerged as an important marketing strategy and for more than a decade has fueled intense attention from academe and professionals. However, despite this focus, there is a paucity of research considering customer engagement in a cross-cultural context. This exploratory study provides empirical clarification as to whether culture at a national level impacts the manifestation of specific customer engagement behaviors exhibited by customers engaged with a brand. A conceptualization of customer engagement behaviors according to Hofstede's six dimensions of culture is presented, and a netnographic study focusing on an online brand community reveals that while national culture exerts no impact on the behaviors of engaged customers, the culture associated with a brand does. These findings serve as a foundation for future academic inquiry and present the opportunity for managers to foster and nurture a brand culture that encourages customer engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An online brand community is a network of people who are interested in and loyal to a brand that comes together. The aim of the current research was to identify the dimensions of social capital in online brand communities with an emphasis on customer-based brand equity in Iraqi telecommunication companies. The research was of a qualitative nature and was carried out using the technique of theme analysis. Twenty-five experts in the fields of e-marketing and social marketing, with an emphasis on social networks and the telecommunications sector, were selected by the targeted non-probability sampling method. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were completed when the criterion of theoretical saturation was reached. The data were analyzed with the five-stage model of Castleberry and Nolen (2018). According to the results, 45 final codes appeared, which were categorized into two categories: functional characteristics of the online brand community and social capital of it. The functional features included information functions, facilitating members' activism, facilitating brand affairs, and creating enjoyable experiences. The social capital of the online brand community also included five components of intra-community interactions: trust, common identity, value, and showing the human aspect of the brand. According to the findings, functional characteristics and social capital have a two-way relationship that can develop. Online brand communities can boost brand image and customer satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aimed to analyze the role of social capital in enhancing the engagement of community members, specifically transitioning them from low-effort participation to higher levels of commitment toward the community. Design/methodology: This study presents the results derived from a quantitative analysis of 483 participants across diverse automotive brand communities found on Instagram. Findings: Based on the foundation of social capital theory, this research enquires into the effects of shared relational elements of social capital on the commitment of members to communities. The results indicate that when members perceive an adequate degree of social trust and adhere to a recognized norm of reciprocity, there is a notable influence on the potential for heightened commitment to the community. Research limitations/implications: This study solely focuses on a specific type of social media (Instagram), emphasizing the prominent role of visual presentation style as the primary approach in content creation. In contrast to most previous studies that heavily scrutinize verbal/textual communication presentation platforms regarding online social capital studies, this study has demonstrated that visual presentation communication has a notable impact on the mechanism that triggers positive evaluations among users. Consequently, it significantly incites the development of social trust and reciprocity through social exchange interactions within the community. Originality/value: In visually oriented settings such as Instagram, the barriers to participating in social interactions are noticeably reduced. Consequently, activities requiring minimal engagement are more likely to evolve into more intensified forms of social exchange among members. This condition facilitates the cultivation of social trust and establishing of a norm of reciprocity. This study offers a different perspective regarding the digitally mediated value co-creation. It is not the factor of information quality through comprehensiveness and detail that increases the value perceived by the members, as the textual mode of social media accomplishes. Instead, the affective and emotional appeal in the visually dominant social interaction that significantly generates a sense of closeness and relatedness that eventually improves the perceived value derived from the community. Thus, visual presentation in social exchange is more proficient for relationship building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study examines the benefits of online brand community interactivity in social media in the Indonesian automotive sector. Design/Methods/Approach: The proposed model was empirically assessed using survey data from 332 Indonesian-based automobile online brand community members on social media. In addition, the link between the constructs in the research model was examined using SEM PLS. Findings: The findings strongly link perceived interactivity and community benefits. In Addition, the results also demonstrate that community members' trust in a brand strongly and positively impacts brand loyalty. Special treatment and a sense of membership increase members' trust in the brand and community satisfaction. However, social influence has negligible effects on community satisfaction. Originality/Value: This study combines value, trust, and satisfaction as the mediating variables in the relationship between interactivity in the online community and loyalty. Practical/Policy implication: Given the results, brands should provide flexibility to access information or content by optimizing the usage of social media features that members can easily access anytime, such as adding links to the Instagram bio or description on Facebook or WhatsApp groups. Enhancing these community benefits can be done by ensuring that the information circulated within the community is accurate and informative.

Online brand community (OBC) refers to a group of consumers who share similar enthusiasm for a particular brand and connected through online platforms. The members of OBC community engage jointly through online platforms to accomplish a collective objective or goal. Normally members of this community express similar sentiments, views, or commitments. Extant literature has nurtured issues such as the influence of OBCs on firms, the dysfunction that invites conflicts and rivalry, homogeneity that helps OBCs to develop shared responsibility, among others. However, there is limited study on the dark side of group heterogeneity on a brand-based online community. Using literature and theories, a theoretical model was developed, which was subsequently validated using the PLS-SEM technique to analyze responses from 348 respondents who were members of online brand communities, mainly of the FMCG and automobile sectors. This study finds that there is a significant negative moderating impact of group heterogeneity on OBC. This study has provided several theoretical and managerial implications to brand community literature and has contributed that brand-based online community commitment could impact brand trust and loyalty along with purchase intention, though such impacts are adversely affected by group heterogeneity culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Based on Landowski's sociosemiotics theory, this paper aims to propose an alternative outlining of online brand communities' social dynamics, not for their collective behaviors but for their discursive interactions. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected during a three-year netnographic immersion into a Disney-related Facebook group and authors' trips to Walt Disney World. Findings: The findings point to four styles of discursive interactions that shape an online brand community's social dynamic. On the one hand, utterances based on the guiding and following styles of discursive interactions inform desired behaviors, which subsequently become tacitly routinized. On the other hand, utterances based on the adapting and venturing styles of discursive interactions mark random and unusual communicational situations. Originality/value: This work expands current theoretical discussions on online brand communities by unveiling an unexplored linguistic dimension of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the historical focus of customer value research has been on transactional values, it is important to also understand the non-transactional values co-created by customer online engagement behaviors. However, online engagement research in tourism has focused almost exclusively on experience sharing behaviors via online review websites. This research is purposed to develop a multi-dimensional measure of non-transactional values created via online brand community members' engagement behaviors. Focusing on Marriott Bonvoy Insider Brand Community members, scale development procedures were used to identify four dimensions of non-transactional value: influential-experience value, C-to-B innovation value, relational value, and functional value. The scale achieves good validity and reliability. Relationships with both antecedents (e.g., internal and external motivations) and consequences (e.g., brand attachment and brand loyalty) were examined to assess nomological validity. Tourism researchers and managers can employ this scale to diagnose the non-transactional values co-created by customer online engagement behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a growing importance of consumer engagement on online brand communities (OBCs), empirically derived insights into its antecedents, dynamics and outcomes remain limited. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to apply the self-expansion theory and study the influence of emotional attachment, brand love, and cultural values on consumer engagement in OBCs. Second, the study also examines the effect of consumer engagement on brand loyalty. Using an online questionnaire, data were collected form 453 respondents. The respondents were members of at least one OBC. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results revealed that all three constructs, emotional attachment, brand love, and cultural values significantly affect consumer engagement, while only emotional attachment and brand love had a positive effect on brand loyalty. Finally, customer engagement had a significant positive effect on brand loyalty. This research integrates the self-expansion theory and offers explanations of the different effects on consumer engagement and also contributes to the development of brand loyalty. Marketing managers will find the study useful in building effective OBC strategies and enhancing brand loyalty. By establishing this innovative theoretical link, this study provides additional insights in the domain of consumer engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study examines the benefits of online brand community interactivity in social media in the Indonesian automotive sector. Design/Methods/Approach: The proposed model was empirically assessed using survey data from 332 Indonesian-based automobile online brand community members on social media. In addition, the link between the constructs in the research model was examined using SEM PLS. Findings: The findings strongly link perceived interactivity and community benefits. In addition, the results also demonstrate that community members' trust in a brand strongly and positively impacts brand loyalty. Special treatment and a sense of membership increase members' trust in the brand and community satisfaction. However, social influence has negligible effects on community satisfaction. Originality: This study combines value, trust, and satisfaction as the mediating variables in the relationship between interactivity in the online community and loyalty. Practical/Policy implication: Given the results, brands should provide flexibility to access information or content by optimizing the usage of social media features that members can easily access anytime, such as adding links to the Instagram bio or description on Facebook or WhatsApp groups. Enhancing these community benefits can be done by ensuring that the information circulated within the community is accurate and informative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online brand communities can be valuable to firms, but how do firms cultivate such communities? We find that engagement, that is, “likes” in response to firm posts, in the online brand community is associated with subsequent growth in the community. We theorize that when individuals engage with firms’ posts, the social media platform broadcasts such interactions to others, who are not necessarily part of the firm’s online brand community. Such social diffusion of information about the interaction and the related firm content provides individuals with new information about the firm, based on which they may decide to join the brand community of the firm. We find that firm posts that convey firm credibility through product and industry knowledge, convey organizational achievements through information about firm milestones, partnerships, or awards, seek opinions, and convey promotions or offers, are associated with engagement. Such posts have a significantly greater effect on engagement for early stage brand communities, that is, for those in their first year and a half, than for later stage brand communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online firestorms pose severe threats to online brand communities. Any negative electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has the potential to become an online firestorm, yet not every post does, so finding ways to detect and respond to negative eWOM constitutes a critical managerial priority. The authors develop a comprehensive framework that integrates different drivers of negative eWOM and the response approaches that firms use to engage in and disengage from online conversations with complaining customers. A text-mining study of negative eWOM demonstrates distinct impacts of high- and low-arousal emotions, structural tie strength, and linguistic style match (between sender and brand community) on firestorm potential. The firm's response must be tailored to the intensity of arousal in the negative eWOM to limit the virality of potential online firestorms. The impact of initiated firestorms can be mitigated by distinct firm responses over time, and the effectiveness of different disengagement approaches also varies with their timing. For managers, these insights provide guidance on how to detect and reduce the virality of online firestorms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To ensure effective and efficient relationship marketing, brand management has become an asset (pre-requisite) for quality service marketing to thrive. Brands have gone viral to develop communities to interact with existing and novice consumers. However, the relationships between these online communities and brand trust are less explored in the literature, given the fact that consumers and users of information are core beneficiaries of these communities. The study, hence, adopted a referral (snowball) method of sampling technique to identify and gather data from social media users who are mainly millennials from the Czech Republic. Five hypotheses were tested using PLS-SEM with 534 valid respondents. The results show that online brand community has a direct significant effect on consumer’s brand trust, and indirect significant via the mediating role of peer-to-peer interaction and consumer brand engagement. Hence, the research provides managers (brand practitioners) with new insights regarding the motivations (brand promise and trust) as consequence of interacting in online brand communities. Again, this study enhances social media marketing and branding literature for researchers and practitioners to leverage on the relevance of online brand community for a firm’s competitive edge. Limitation and future research directions are considered.

Online brand communities (OBCs) could benefit firms in many usages, ranging from collecting consumers’ suggestions or advice to interacting with community members directly and transparently. Creating a positive emotional atmosphere is essential for such communities’ healthy development as its boosts the continuous involvement of each member. However, the dynamic cross-influences and evolution of emotions in OBCs have not been fully explored, which was the research gap this paper tried to fill. Based on emotional contagion theory, this study identifies three sources of textual sentiment through machine learning methods in OBCs: member’s posts, other members’ feedback, and the focal firm’s official feedback. This study further tested the dynamic emotional contagion process among these sources on valence (mean) and volatility (dispersion), namely how they affected each other. Data was collected from the MIUI forum, a large forum launched by Xiaomi corporate on August 1, 2011, which contained 17,622 posts and 99,426 feedback. Results showed that: (1) in the emotional contagion process, there existed differences in the influence of emotional valence and volatility from different sources; (2) all emotional interactions were temporary and mostly lasted no more than three days; (3) the most significant contributor of each sources’ emotion was itself, which could be explained by lagged effect; (4) the valence of focal firm’s emotion (focal firm’s official feedback) was the second contributor of the valence of member’s emotion (member’s posts) and other members’ emotion (other members’ feedback). Three sources of emotion in OBCs and emotional valence/volatility should be considered when firms try to guide the emotional changes in such communities. Furthermore, firms could proactively influence members’ emotions by carefully designing the feedback to members’ posts. Besides, since all interactions are temporary, firms need to engage in online communities frequently, like consistently offering feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a trend that customers increasingly join the online brand community. However, evidence shows that there are nuances between different user segments, and only a small group of users are active. Thus, one key concern marketers face is identifying and targeting specific segments and decreasing user churn rates in an online environment. To this end, this study aims to propose a UGC-based segmentation of online brand community users, identify the characteristics of each segment, and consequently reduce online brand community users' churn rate. We used python to obtain users' post data from a well-known online brand community in China between July 2012 and December 2019, resulting in 912,452 posts and 20,493 users. We then use text mining and clustering methods to segment the users and compare the differences between the segments. Three groups—information-oriented users, entertainment-oriented users, and multi-motivation users—were emerged. Our results imply that entertainment-oriented users were the most active, yet, multi-directional users have the lowest probability of churn, with a churn rate of only 0.607 times than that of users who focus either on information or entertainment. Implications for marketing and future research opportunities are discussed.

With the development of Internet technology, online brand communities have increased rapidly. Through these communities, customers can interact with other customers, gain experience with products, obtain information about the products, and enhance brand loyalty. We conducted a questionnaire with 442 online brand community members to explore the internal mechanism of how customer-to-customer interaction in online brand communities influences brand loyalty. The results were as follows: (a) Customer-to-customer interaction in online brand communities had a positive effect on brand loyalty, (b) both customers' pleasurable experience with the online community and their community identity mediated the relationship between customer-to-customer interaction and brand loyalty, and (c) community identity and pleasurable experience had a chain mediating effect in the relationship between customer-to-customer interaction and brand loyalty. Implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a common experience-based emotion, awe can easily arise within consumers who are immersed in an online brand community. On the basis of the awe prototype theory, this paper developed a research model involving community management authority, professionalism of opinion leaders, participation time, awe, and customer engagement at the organizational and individual levels of an online brand community. The study then targeted a mobile online brand community, obtaining 409 valid data points using a questionnaire survey platform (wjx.cn). The data were analyzed using a structural equation model, revealing that the management authority and the professionalism of opinion leaders positively affect community members' awe, and this awe positively affects community engagement behaviors. Community members' participation time negatively moderates the influence of management authority on awe; namely, longer participation time weakens such influence. In addition, community members' participation time lowers the effect of opinion leaders' professionalism on their awe, though not significantly. This research advances the study of online communities while also providing practical insights to managers and opinion leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although online communities with a supportive climate encourage members to participate and exchange their information openly and freely, participants may perceive the community to be unsafe without proper control. Do controlling climates also contribute to the accumulation of social capital in online brand communities (OBCs)? The purpose of our study was to investigate how controlling and supportive climates jointly influence community identification, and to examine the mediating effects of social capital and the moderating effects of community age. A conceptual framework was proposed and tested with data collected from an online survey of 481 online brand community members. We found that both controlling and supportive climates had positive effects on social capital (trust and norms of reciprocity), which exerted a partial mediation between community climate and community identification in the OBCs examined. Developing a community climate was particularly effective in generating trust in older communities. This research contributes to the community literature and has important implications for community climate management. We identified the boundary conditions of the community climate-trust association.

Nowadays, expansion in the technological achievements domain is increasingly faster and big changes have been made in people's interconnectedness and communication with the introduction of the Internet in our everyday lives. People started connecting online. Online communities have emerged as a network of the people gathered around the same interests, no matter whether such interests are private or business interests, through specific online media, thus creating a vast platform for the exchange of information, experiences and knowledge that transcends all geographical, social and temporal barriers. As a new information exchange platform, online communities also represent a new channel through which companies promote their business and their products, and provide new points of contact with their customers, who have increasingly greater power, the availability of and access to information. Marketing aimed at online consumer communities is analyzed in the paper on the example of Zara.

Purpose: This study examines the kind of community value companies should provide when strengthening the relationship between customers and brands through the establishment of an online brand community, and how this kind of community value promotes customers’ sense of community engagement and willingness to spread brand reputation. The paper also discusses how an enterprise’s brand symbolism affects the relationship between community value and customers’ engagement in online brand community. This study explored the important role of brand symbolism in the establishment of an online brand community. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses data collection from questionnaire surveys to design a quantitative research method. An online questionnaire survey of mobile phone users in East Java was conducted to collect data on social value, cognitive value, brand symbolism, customer community engagement, and brand recommendation. The brands of mobile phone include Apple, Huawei, Samsung, OPPO, VIVO, and MI Randomly selected 240 subjects from their sample database and then sent the questionnaire link to research participants’ mobile phones. For the model analysis and hypotheses test-ing, the researcher used statistical software IBM SPSS Statistics and AMOS 21. Findings: First, online brand community value (both cognitive and social value) has a pos-itive impact on customer community engagement. Second, customer communi-ty engagement has a positive impact on customers’ brand recommend intention. Third, the customer community engagement is a mediator between the online brand community value and the customer brand recommend intention. Most importantly, fourth, the symbolic value of the brand controls the relationship between community value and customer community engagement. For brands with high symbolic value, the community value should emphasize cognitive val-ue rather than social value. For brands with a low symbolic value, the communi-ty provides cognitive or social value, which is not affected by the symbolism of the brand. Research limitations/implications: Among the 240 research participants, the researcher ex-cluded participants who lacked online brand community experience or had in-valid data to qualify for data collection. After the researcher excluded participants who did not qualify for data collection, only 203 qualified questionnaire surveys advanced to the data collection and analysis phase, which was the ques-tionnaire recovery rate of 84.58%. Originality/value: This paper is original Paper type: Research paper

While athletes in the 21st century have strategically leveraged technology and social media to disseminate their powerful truths (e.g., narratives) and to use as tools for organization, empowerment, and the disruption of hegemonic norms, sports fans have also found refuge on the internet and in cyberspace—namely, within online brand communities (OBCs). In this study, we draw from critical race theory (CRT) to interrogate cyber racism against Black male athletes in the http://TexAgs.com OBC. The primary purpose of this study was to conduct an exploratory collective case study of fan-generated discourse about Michael Bennett, Mike Evans, Myles Garrett, and Von Miller. Content analysis was used to examine and uncover the racially charged language directed toward these athletes. Three salient, interrelated themes were (1) good Aggie versus bad Aggie dichotomy, (2) dumb/misguided, and (3) thug. In line with the counter-narrative/storytelling tenet of CRT, we present Michael Bennett's (2018) personal narrative from his book to directly counter the racialized discourse about his peers and him on TexAgs. Based on the findings, we conclude with implications for sport communication and social justice in both the public sphere and cyberspaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumers act and interact via social media networks and online brand communities, collectively generating brand culture. In this context, organisations have the opportunity to develop a cultural following. The respective task for brand managers and marketers is to understand how consumers collectively generate online brand culture? Using active and overt netnography and investigating the specific context of the Behance Network, the findings presented here demonstrate that online brand community members collectively generate brand culture in variant ways: through construction of self, emotional relationships, storytelling and ritualistic practices. Pragmatically, this work demonstrates that online brand community members are curators of online brand culture and netnography offers a window through which to identify what actions and interactions need to be facilitated and fostered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study advances the conceptualisation and operationalisation of consumer engagement in the context of online brand communities (OBCs). Past scholarship has only partially addressed the dimensionality of engagement and the different engagement foci, and these oversights have important theoretical and empirical consequences. This study contributes to the nascent stream of research that aims to theoretically refine and operationalise engagement by espousing the duality of engagement with two engagement foci (brand and community) and seven sub-dimensions of consumer engagement. Using qualitative data from consumers and experts, three survey data sets based on English and French samples, and two pools of mirrored items (one for each engagement focus), the study develops and validates a dual-focus 22-item scale of consumer engagement that can be used to operationalise engagement with various consumer engagement objects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper develops the idea of how brands can be positioned as internet memes and why the strategy is even more timely and relevant in the current marketing landscape. A meme is defined as a unit of cultural transmission that evolves and mutates as it replicates from person to person. An internet meme is of great relevance today owing to the shareable aspect of social media and from the latter's dominance among the youth. Companies that manage to position their brands as successful memes stand to gain positive externalities. Instead of engaging in expensive push marketing, they can co-opt the volition and creativity of the brand followers themselves to adapt and transmit the brand's symbols and beliefs to their peers in the online space and further popularise the brand. The strategy can also backfire since the company perforce has to relinquish control over the brand's interpretations and symbolism to the online users. The example of the youth fashion brand Supreme is offered as a case study to highlight online memetic positioning tactics and their resulting benefits and challenges. The paper concludes by providing implications for marketing managers from this contemporaneous approach to brand positioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence and rapid development of social media have brought customers to become an indispensable part of brand activities through conversation and co-creation with the brand. Factors affecting customers' intentions to continually participate in online brand communities thus present a research opportunity to be explored. From the contextual and instrumental viewpoints, this study examines the effects of place attachment and social media affordances on online brand community continuance and the mediating roles of service experience and brand engagement. A model with seven hypotheses is tested using a sample of 231 online survey respondents. The PLS analysis shows that both service experience and brand engagement have positive influences on continuance intention. Also, the proposed impact of place attachment and social media affordances on service experience and brand engagement are partially supported. The results indicate that placement attachment and social media affordances indirectly drive users to continually participate in online brand communities through improving their service experience and brand engagement. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online communities have evolved to allow larger numbers of individuals to interact with other users to form a collective virtual environment influenced by members within the community. Existing studies on online brand communities (OBCs) tied millennials' participation and interactions to a unidimensional view. Specifically, OBCs scholars generally aggregate individual millennials' participation and commitment, ignoring the variance among the demographic cohort. Our exploration challenges not only the existing ensemble interpretation within studies of OBC but also the characterisation of millennials' burgeoning participation in OBCs. Unlike other competing epistemologies, the authors developed a conceptual framework that links a holistic set of OBCs' characteristics (brand sentiment, identification with source, affirmative experience, conspicuous effect) to consumers' perceptions in the fashion sector. Drawing on social influence theory along with a constructivist perspective, we conducted fine‐grained in‐depth interviews to explore millennials' participation in online communities and brand perceptions in the fashion industry. The main findings reveal four categories of customer engagement in OBCs (bias situators, sugar‐coaters, rationalisers, judgmentalists). These key categories are explored to create a framework for future research in this area, and further contribute to the field of online brand engagement, particularly in the fashion industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]