Building Online Communities: - Power of Commercial Brands

M.A. Thesis New Media and Digital Culture

Building Online Communities: Power of Commercial Brands

Student name: Student number: E-mail address: Date: June 26, 2015 Supervisor: Sabrina Sauer Second reader: Karin van Es

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STATEMENT:

I hereby give my permission to the library of the University of Amsterdam to archive the digital version of this thesis in a repository and publicize and make it available for consultation. ABSTRACT:

This thesis is an empirical research of how online communities can be used by commercial brands. The corpus of this thesis is a case study of a commercial brand ROSEFIELD Watches where the author of the thesis worked as an intern. A mixed method of participatory observation and quantitative analysis of the brand’s Instagram community was used in order to answer a question of how does a new brand create and engage with its online community and how it can be shaped based on the brand’s identity. The results revealed that a brand can influence its followers in online communities to help the brand’s cause and a correlation was found between the community activity and brand’s story. Keywords: Online communities; Instagram; brands; participatory observation; digital tools; new media.

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1   INTRODUCTION   4  

2   THEORETICAL  FRAMEWORK   6  2.1   SOCIAL MEDIA PERSPECTIVE   6  2.1.1   ONLINE COMMUNITIES, BRAND COMMUNITIES AND WEB 2.0   6  2.1.2   SOCIAL NETWORKS AND SOCIAL CAPITAL   11  2.1.3   INSTAGRAM   13  2.2   BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE   16  2.2.1   MARKETING STRATEGY   16  2.2.2   PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE   20  2.3   RESEARCH QUESTION   22  

3   METHODOLOGY   23  3.1   DELIMITATION OF CORPUS   24  3.1.1   THE BRAND: ROSEFIELD WATCHES   24  3.1.2   BUILDING COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES   29  3.1.3   TOOLS USED TO BUILD AN ONLINE COMMUNITY   31  3.2   METHODS   34  3.2.1   TOOLS FOR DATA COLLECTION   35  

4   FINDINGS   38  4.1   PARTICIPATORY OBSERVATION FINDINGS   38  4.2   INSTAGRAM FINDINGS   43  4.3   INSTAGRAM HASHTAGS EXPLORER   47  

5   DISCUSSION   53  5.1   DISCUSSING FINDINGS AND RESULTS   53  5.2   LIMITATIONS   55  5.3   CLOSURE   56  

6   CONCLUSION   57  

7   APPENDIX   59  7.1   INTRODUCTION   59  7.2   THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK   59  7.3   METHODOLOGY   60  7.4   FINDINGS   72  7.5   DISCUSSION   78  

8   WORKS  CITED   79  

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1 Introduction  

With the increase of using social media platforms for their commercial purposes,

brands have found a way to appeal to consumers online in new ways. Social media

users are not only positioned as consumers, but also as a brand’s “friends” because

they can literally “friend” a brand on Facebook, follow it on Instagram or Twitter, and

communicate with it through the mediation of personal messages and/or comments, to

which brands often respond. It is necessary to establish that in this thesis, brands are

understood as commercial and profit-seeking entities. If there ever was an invisible

wall dividing consumers and merchandizers, who would otherwise be in contact only

during marketing activities and purchases, this wall seems to be pulled down by

online social media, which allow the creation of a different relationship between these

two entities. Even large corporations can now hide behind friendly facades that have

been carefully crafted by online marketing experts. Consumers and customers stopped

being consumers and customers (on social media), and instead have become a brand’s

“friends” and “community”; online community.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine and prove that to a certain extent, a brand

can persuade its community into taking actions convenient for the brand, form and

shape the community’s opinion of the brand, and disseminate a positive image of the

brand. In other words, brands can use their online communities to improve their

image and   the   community   inadvertently   aids   this   purpose   through   online  

engagement. The main research question that is posed is how does a new brand

create, change, and engage with its online community, and what does this imply about

current notions about online community formation?

Because the research is concerned with the creation and formation of commercial

communities, the case study that is examined is a Dutch startup company called

ROSEFIELD Watches. The company was founded in February 2015 and its social

media activity began in April of the same year. The brand’s most frequent activity and

highest engagement of its new online community was on Instagram, which is why the

ROSEFIELD Instagram community was chosen as the object of the study, which will

be scrutinized and analyzed in great detail in the following chapters.

The theoretical framework of this thesis covers topics that are necessary to

theoretically position and ground the research, starting with the social media

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perspective. This chapter explains the origins of online communities and their

importance to those who are members. There is a connection with Web 2.0, which is

an abstract milestone for Internet users, and with the rise of social media popularity

and variety of its usage, Web 2.0 is also an important turning point for brands. Social

networking is explored furthermore in the chapter together with social capital,

because as it is argued in the chapter, these two aspects are key for community

formation – whether online or offline. Instagram is introduced in great detail in this

chapter because it is the Instagram community, which is being examined in this

research. It is crucial to understand the background and motivations of Instagram

users, because these motivations are used by the brand in order to meet their purposes.

The second part of the theoretical framework consists of the business perspective. The

business perspective cannot be omitted from the chapter because ROSEFIELD as a

brand is an economical asset driven by a vision of profit, and the online community is

essentially a tool to achieve the goal. It is important because overreaching business

goals of a start-up like ROSEFIELD are theoretically grounded in the business

perspective of online community formation. I was able to interlock the business and

social media perspectives of online community formation; these two sections seek to

enrich each other, and provide the theoretical framing required for the analysis. This

chapter concludes by explaining and stating the research questions, which were

drafted in the beginning of the introduction.

The third chapter consists of the methodology; it explains the corpus of the study,

ROSEFIELD, in great detail. Understanding how the brand established itself on the

market provides interesting insights into the functioning and “thinking” of the brand

as such, which furthermore helps with understanding of its social media activity and

online community formation. This chapter describes different tools that the brand uses

to meet its goals, but also tools and methods that were used for the research. The

Methodology is followed by a chapter that explains the results of the research, which

are furthermore discussed in the chapter that succeeds it. The findings and their

significance prove that brands have a great power over their communities, and they

can use them to meet their own business goals.

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2 Theoretical  Framework  

The theoretical framework of this thesis is divided into three main subchapters.

The final subchapter is the research question. The subchapters that precede it present

two perspectives that are important: the social media perspective and business

perspective. The social media perspective is perhaps the most important for this thesis

because the focus of the case study is a community on Instagram – which is a social

media platform; but the business perspective cannot be omitted due to the object of

this thesis, which is a brand – a commercial entity. Furthermore, it is necessary to take

account of online and brand communities and their relation to Web 2.0 because they

are interlinked with social media activities. Additionally, social networks and social

capital are central for communities – whether online or in real life. Lastly, Instagram

is discussed in the social media perspective because it is important to be aware of its

influence and importance on people’s lives, in order to fully comprehend why it could

be a vital tool for brands. Marketing strategy and product life cycle are described in

the framework in order to later understand the position of a specific brand and why it

is a suitable case study for this research.

2.1 Social Media Perspective

2.1.1 Online communities, brand communities and Web 2.0

Online communities

Online communities date long before Web 2.0. In fact, the first online

communities emerged long before the Internet itself on ARPANET and Usenet

(Rheingold 6). These two networks can be seen as the predecessors of the Internet,

connecting research universities first in the United States and later worldwide, and

they were mostly (if not exclusively) used by university researchers (Brunton 23).

Among the first communities on ARPANET were players of collaborative games

known as MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) and MOOs (MUD Object-Oriented), text-

based fantasy-adventurous, role-oriented games enabling numerous individuals to

participate at once (Brunton 14). The most recognized, still popular and widely played

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game today is Dungeons and Dragons. These games consisted of a narrator who told

the story, and players who responded based on the narration and other players’

actions. Through their communication and common interest, these players created the

first online communities.

One of the first Internet-based and currently still operating online community

is WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link) – a system of computer conferencing

connecting people all over the world, enabling them to have public conversation as

well as send private e-mails (Rheingold 1). Rheingold describes being a part of the

WELL community as follows:

“People in virtual communities use words on screens to

exchange pleasantries and argue, engage in intellectual

discourse, conduct commerce, exchange knowledge, share

emotional support, make plans, brainstorm, gossip, feud, fall

in love, find friends and lose them, play games, flirt, create a

little high art and a lot if idle talk. People in virtual

communities do just about everything people do in real life,

but we leave our bodies behind. You can't kiss anybody and

nobody can punch you in the nose, but a lot can happen within

those boundaries. To the millions who have been drawn into

it, the richness and vitality of computer-linked cultures is

attractive, even addictive” (3).

In his description of what being a part of online community feels like,

Rheingold suggests that it is almost as taking part in real relationships. This suggests

that to a certain extent, online communities complement and mirror real life

engagements. Different brands might seek different relations; brands focusing on

lifestyle could produce more personal relations, where the members discuss personal

topics – then the brand serves as a platform, but there are other brands which strive to

serve as the object of the discussion, which makes the topics less personal and more

object-focused (Birkner 23). In the latter case, members are expected to engage with

the brand’s content, both on the brand’s Instagram page and on pages of other users

who post about the brand. Such users can be fans or bloggers promoting the brand, PR

agencies, or customers who share their purchase. Analysis of these behaviors on

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Instagram is the key to what this study is about: brand’s creation of, formation and

engagement with their online communities.

Brand communities

In this part, online communities associated with brands, as well as their

members behavior, will be scrutinized. Hur, Ahn and Kim defined brand community

as “a group of people who possess a particular brand or who have a strong interest in

a brand, and who are active both online and offline” (1196). Relationships between

the brand and community, but also among the members themselves, are important for

brands because they make them more competitive and can improve their marketing

productivity (1195). However, they are important for the community as well, because

they can influence their members’ private lives; for instance, in situations regarding

their economic decisions (purchases and consumption), or formation of opinions

about the brand or its products (Hagel and Armstrong 1997). If brands manage to

increase their customers’ commitment, they are more likely to engage with the brand

and at the same time less likely to turn to a competitor (Hur, Ahn and Kim 1197).

There are some managerial implications that brands have to take into

consideration. First of all, the community reflects the brand and can be pivotal for its

reputation. A brand’s marketing activities have the potential to either strengthen or

weaken the relationships with its community members and with the brand. Therefore,

according to Hur, Ahn and Kim, brands should actively manage their communities

(1207). They suggest that members should have enough space to engage and to

participate in the community activities1, and they should provide some kind of insight

to the brand in order to improve its marketing (1208). This is why it can be argued

that there is a correlation between a brand and its community.

Popular platforms for those engagements are social media sites where the

brands provide an online presence. The most popular platform used to be Facebook

but the traffic has dramatically shifted to other platforms, particularly to Twitter and

Instagram, which is caused by massive “migration” of especially young people

(Luckerson, Matthews). Apart from social media, user-generated content is placed on                                                                                                                1 In case of ROSEFIELD, it is mostly uploading user-generated content and sharing the brand’s content.

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brands’ online stores (usually their official websites) as well. Sometimes, the

customers are invited to write a review for a product they purchased, recommend it to

a friend, or share their photography of the product. For instance, in 2013, Nike

celebrated the two-year anniversary of its Instagram account by hosting “a 24-hour

long community celebration on its @Nike account. Throughout the celebration, Nike

shared ten Instagram photos from its fans that inspire the company to ‘push further’

on the platform. Each photo included a motivational caption and highlighted the

original fan who created the photo” (Gioglio). One of the factors influencing

community participation is the online store’s external images and perceptions of

performance because unlike in offline stores, where customers and sellers interact

face-to-face, a vast amount of contextual details are lost in the transmission of

information (Tsai and Pai, 112). According to van der Heijden and Verhagen, the

online store image is under the direct control of the shop owner and/or web designer

(609). They claim that several researchers have been able to link store image and

intentions to purchase (609).

When an online community is built and managed well, its members will feel

comfortable and among like-minded people. In their research, Tsai and Pai tested

their hypotheses and found out that: (1) brand prestige was related to community

participation in a positive way, with the main attributes being services, products,

website features, consumer loyalty or website success; (2) there was a positive

relationship of attribute satisfaction and community participation; (3) there was a

positive correlation between community participation and relationship investment; (4)

there was a significant impact on relationship investment on loyalty intentions; and

(5) there was a positive effect on relationship investments in consumer power.

Engagement of users is beneficial to the brand even outside the community. In

some communities, the outcome of their engagement could be an open source

software or encyclopedia page, but for most brands, the most important are product

reviews, suggestions for product improvements or new product designs (Kraut,

Resnick and Kiesler 1-2). Unlike offline interactions, online communities are

completely free of time, space, and scale barriers (2).

Kraut, Resnick and Kiesler came up with a strategy for managing online

communities and how to overcome certain challenges:

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1. Starting a new community: it is important to have a rich inventory of content,

which means that the members must have something in common to talk about,

whether the topics are cancer survivors, open source development, or in this case a

brand.

2. Attracting and socializing new members: brands have to keep looking for new

members and encourage and motivate those with potential and skills for

contribution

3. Encouraging commitment: all members have to feel encouraged to actively

connect with the community in order to feel committed. Commitment is crucial

for a member’s willingness to remain part of the community and therefore be

more satisfied and less likely to look for alternatives offered by competition.

4. Encouraging contribution: existence of the online community is built on the

members contributing about the relevant subject. In some communities, discussing

off-topics is considered spamming and “order” can be reinforced.

5. Regulating behavior: as already mentioned, spammers can be banned from most

discussion forums by their (administrators) admins, and if the content of their

contribution is in violation with the sites’ rules, they can be banned from online

social networks such as Facebook or Twitter as well. Whether they are

commercial spammers and bots trying to drive traffic to their websites, or whether

the members want to engage in conversation with other members on a more

personal level, if these actions are in a conflict of interest for the brand, a

regulatory mechanism should be applied (2-4).

The steps listed above can be viewed as a “how-to” for brands management of

their communities. These steps will be reviewed in the case study analysis as they

may give insight into the issue. However, it is important to first take a closer look at

how online community dynamics have changed with the advent of Web 2.0.

Web 2.0

The transition to Web 2.0, according to Tim O’Reilly, dates to the early

2000’s, with the first Web 2.0 conference, taking place in 2004. The shift from Web

1.0 to Web 2.0 was revolutionary. In Web 1.0, the Internet sites were mostly static

(contained information but did not motivate visitors to return to the website again),

non interactive (visitors could not make any contribution or change on the website,

unlike, for example, wikis), and with non proprietary applications (users were able to

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download software but they could not look into the inner workings or modify them)

(Strickland). In Web 2.0, the user is no longer only a passive observer to whom

products are marketed – he or she has become an active agent who can easily engage

with other users by means of blogging, leaving comments on other users’ profiles,

posting pictures, tweeting and re-tweeting, and generally creating instant user-

generated content by which he or she can influence other users (Chung et al. 1995).

This shift from passive to active user does have its academic critics too. According to

Tiziana Terranova, user-generated content is a form of digital labor, is unpaid and its

creators “embody a complex relation to labor that is widespread in late capitalist

societies” (33). She connects the “digital economy” with “social factory”, a term used

by Italian autonomists that can be described as a process where “work processes have

shifted from the factory to society, thereby setting in motion a truly complex

machine” (Virno and Hardt and Negri quoted in Terranova 33). Terranova claims that

from what advertising campaigns and business manuals portray, the Internet is “not

only a site of disintermediation, but also the means through which a flexible,

collective intelligence has come into being” (Terranova 34). The main subject of this

thesis is not whether the members of the community that is being examined in this

thesis are somehow being exploited; this research seeks to shed light on the dynamics

between a brand and its community and how much of those interactions are

influenced by the brand. However, the matter of creative exploitation is directly

related to the research question and therefore taken into account later in the thesis and

analyzed in chapters 4. Findings and 5. Discussion.

2.1.2 Social networks and Social capital

Building and managing online communities is crucial for creating social

capital in the digital economy (Chung et al. 1993). Political scientist Robert Putnam

defined that “the central premise of social capital is that social networks have value.

Social capital refers to the collective value of all ‘social networks’ [who people know]

and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other”

(Bettertogether.org). According to Herrmann-Pillath, “social capital enables agents to

entertain relations with other agents, in particular exchange relations” (4). Social

capital is crucial to understand the brand-community dynamics in this case study

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because without social capital, the brand cannot hope to achieve a successful

community. Social networks and relations are fundamental for the online community

to even exist.

Compared to only a decade ago, there now exists significantly more accessible

platforms in the form of online social networks, where users who are willing to

contribute to community building can participate (Chung et al. 1993) whereas before,

individuals’ social networks comprised of mostly physical agents such as other people

or physical objects (books, newspapers), and only few virtual agents such as

broadcasting (but no online journals or forums). However, as much as social networks

today might be thought of mostly in terms of online platforms2 (see Figures 2.1 and

2.2), Pots et al. define a social network as a “connected group of individual agents

who make production and consumption decisions based on the actions (signals) of

other agents on the social network” (172). Potts et al. also state that social networks

do not only consist of human agents (family, friends, colleagues) but also non-human

agents such as static objects or even reviews (both online or in newspaper). Chung et

al. expressed a similar notion, claiming that the actors (agents) exchange resources

among each other, such as data, information, goods and services, or social and/or

financial support (1994). Because people can influence each other’s decision-making

in their social networks, it will be interesting to learn whether and how brands use this

knowledge to benefit their purposes. Chung et al. also praise the current Web 2.0

trend where actors are able to engage in multiple modes with other members of their

online network, whether by leaving a comment on another member’s profile or

underneath a picture, or by liking or (re)tweeting a particular post (1995).

Online social network users often tend to clique with people whom they can

relate to; happy users are apt to befriend other happy users, whereas unhappy users

primarily connect with unhappy users. These findings were measured by the Subject

Well-being (SWB) index in Bollen et al.’s research. The explanation behind these

cliques is two-fold, the research states; the first explanation is the phenomena of

                                                                                                               2 At least it could seem that way based on the Google search results for the query “social network”, where the first three results were for three different Wikipedia pages, two of which refer to online social networks; the fourth result leads to “Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking sites”; the fifth result is a link to the International Journal of Structural Analysis; the sixth result refers to an article from Mashable.com where online social networking is explained, albeit the article itself is called simply “Social Networking” instead of “Online Social Networking”; the seventh result is directed to the 2010 film The Social Network on the International Movie Database, and finally, the last result on the first result page of Google search links to ScienceDirect.com where there is a list of academic articles and journals using the words “social networkks”.

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“homophily”, when users connect with users with similar SWB values and the second

explanation is simply a “mood contagion”, when users adapt similar SWB values over

time (14). By this logic, users of one social media platform are likely to start

following a newly emerged brand with similar content as other brands/accounts the

users already follow. Brands can adjust their content on given platform to attract more

followers, hence broaden their community and influence more people.

2.1.3 Instagram

Instagram is an online platform designated for sharing pictures from mobile

devices. Although it is available in a desktop version as well, its functions there are

limited. Users can view and comment on pictures from their computer, they can

follow and un-follow users, edit their profiles and change settings. But the most

important feature of this platform, that is uploading and sharing pictures, can only be

executed from a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet. Because users can

write comments under each picture, Instagram is also a platform that allows (planned

or spontaneous) creation of online communities because people can discuss the topic

of each photograph and share their opinions and impressions of them. The community

which is used as a case study for this thesis is the Instagram community of

ROSEFIELD. The application is supported by iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, and iPod

Touch), Android OS devices, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry. One of the reasons

why Instagram has grown significantly popular is the possibility of adding filters to

the pictures taken, and thereby often enhancing their quality3 (Asphari).

The platform launched on the 6th of October 2010 and grew to one million

users by the end of the year (Instagram.com/press). By the 3rd of August 2011, 150

million photos were uploaded on Instagram and by May 2013, the platform’s

community grew to 100 million monthly active users. In December 2014, Instagram’s

user base grew to 300 million and throughout the five years of its existence, the

application continuously went on adding new features and filters. In August 2014,

Instagram introduced a new feature (downloadable as a separate application) called

Hyperlapse. By the time of writing this thesis, the application is only available for

iOS. The purpose of this application is capturing video clips with a maximum length

of 45 minutes, and consequently accelerating the speed of motion up to 12 times to

                                                                                                               3 Read more about filters in 3.1.3.1. Instagram.

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create the lapse. The application has built-in image stabilization for creating a more

cinematic effect, but does not record any sound.

Some brands have adapted and created Instagram profiles; according to PC

Magazine, 40 percent of top brands adopted this platform (Mlot). Among others, the

article is based on a 2012 study by Simply Measured. The study confirms that early

adoption contributes to engagement and that Instagram’s growth is much faster than

growth of Facebook or Twitter in their early years (Shively 1). Not only timeliness,

but also (if not primarily) the right Instagram marketing strategy matter. Shively listed

the most successful brands on Instagram as of 2012: Burberry, Tiffany & Co., Audi,

Hermes, Gucci, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Armani (all are luxury brands and they

were all in the top 15 in total engagement (3). (What is understood by engagement is

the total number of likes and comments for each post.) Shively concludes that high

quality content is the nr. 1 criteria for high engagement and gives a specific example

of Audi, which had over 100,000 followers in 2012 (1.7 million in April 2015), and

had higher engagement than brands which had much more followers, such as MTV

(813,000 followers) or Starbucks (758,000 followers) (4). Audi’s strategy was not

using Instagram as a tool to drive its followers to other social media or their websites,

but rather posting high quality pictures with captions conveying excitement (5).

Shively describes their method of choosing the pictures as “handpicked” and

attributes Audi’s success to the fact it does not use hashtags of vehicle types, but

rather popular and exciting hashtags, the most frequently used being “awesome” (5).

Instagram’s most popular feature is its filters, which allow for an instant photo

editing in one click. Different filters change the brightness, contrast, warmth,

saturation, color, fade, highlights, shadows, vignette, tilt shift and sharpness, and they

generally change the perception of given photography. All off the above mentioned

aspects of the picture can be changed manually as well, to give user more control of

the result. Although Instagram filters may seem like a “quick fix” for otherwise

ordinarily looking photographs, there is a whole psychology science behind this

phenomenon. This is what one of Instagram critics says about its users:

“[They] look like a poor, tasteless fool who needs to

be shown the error of their ways. And unfortunately for the

rest of us, they are so proud of their creations (of which they

actually had no creative input besides pointing, clicking, and

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selecting a filter from a list), that they want to show them to

the world at every possible opportunity. Hence the amount of

irrelevant and inane photos on any social media site is now

growing exponentially” (Escapetone quoted in Willim 353).

Shankland argues, that filters distort and ruin the visual representation, which

can make one question the realism of visual representation (quoted in Willim 355).

On the other hand, this distortion of image perception might be the very aim of one’s

work (Krapp quoted in Willims 355). Filters can both create noise, but by applying

color correction, contrast enhancement or polarization, the can, to some extent, reduce

what is considered noise (Willims 355). Instagram filters have become a trend and as

all trends do, filters too repeat the history. “What used to be a quirky side effects of

cheap toy cameras, the so-called ‘lo-fi’ look, has become increasingly fashionable

among digital photographers in the past couple of years” (Smith quoted in Willim

354).

There is one other explanation for why the filters have gained so much

popularity. In his 2010 TED talk about “Experience vs. Memory”, Daniel Kahneman,

a winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, talked about happiness. He said

that we consider an experience as a happy one, based on the way we remember it. He

even used an example of a man who listened to a recording of a beautiful symphony.

Towards the very end, the recording was damaged and the man heard a “dreadful

screeching sound” instead of the symphony and he considered the whole experience

to be ruined. However, according to Kahneman, it was only the memory that was

ruined, not the entire experience. Nevertheless, the memory was all the man could

keep because the endings of our experiences are dominant and determining as for how

we end up remembering the experience. Kahneman therefore differentiates between

the “remembering self” and the “experiencing self”, and he claims that the

“remembering self” is the one who makes decisions because we do not chose between

experiences but between memories of experiences. As the moments pass and are

forgotten, we have a chance to capture them in photographs (TED). We can take

instant pictures with our smartphones and use a fitting filter that best captures our

feelings, mood, and experience. By choosing a filter, it is also possible to distort the

real experience and create a new one, because if the picture is then looked back at

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after several months or years, the viewer will feel and remember the experience as it

was intended at the moment the picture was taken.

A side effect of changing our own memories by using Instagram filters is that

we can also distort the whole “story” for other people. If they see a picture with

warm-colored filter, they will feel positive emotions and vice versa. Just like

individuals, brands can use it to their advantage and shape their image online by using

user-generated content.

2.2 Business Perspective

The business perspective is important because the brand ROSEFIELD Watches is

a commercial asset. The brand is the most important asset for any company, followed

by its human resources. However, employees can be replaced while replacing the

brand (brand name) is rather complicated. Customers know and learn to trust a brand

and when they do, it is more difficult for competition to win them over. Because the

product is heavily marketed in the brand’s Instagram community, the community is

closely affiliated with the business and marketing strategy of the brand.

2.2.1 Marketing strategy

This subchapter of Marketing Strategy is for a large part supported by the

book Principles of Marketing written by one of the world’s leading authorities on

marketing (vii), Philip Kotler from the Northwestern University in the United States

and Gary Armstrong from the University of North Carolina in the United States. The

theory is applied to the brand’s actual marketing strategy where the brand story is the

key (see chapter 3.2.1. The brand: ROSEFIELD Watches.) Marketing is important for

start up companies in order to build a brand. Due to the common scarce of financial

resources in start-ups, it is often more efficient to focus on online and social media

marketing, rather than traditional tools such as billboards, radio or television.

First, it is important to define what marketing is. Marketing as a discipline has

been defined in a countless number of definitions in different textbooks or websites.

Kotler and Armstrong defined it as following: “Marketing [is] the process by which

companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order

to capture value from customers in return” (5). The company creates value (good-

 17  

looking watches for lower prices than competitors) and captures value from customers

(pictures on Instagram and positive evaluation on social media platforms). The goal of

marketing is twofold: to attract new customers, and to keep customers satisfied and

grow the their base (4). Marketing has been omnipresent for a long time now (in the

form of TV, magazine or mailbox advertisements) but in recent years, marketers have

taken on people’s phones, websites and online social networks (5). These new

approaches allow marketers to not only reach masses, but also reach potential

customers directly and personally; they become part of their lives because they want

the customers to live their brand (5). This again applies to ROSEFIELD, when the

company encourages its customers to share their experience through posting lifestyle

pictures on Instagram, which are supposed to motivate others to buy the product and

become new customers, because as Peter Drucker, a said management guru, wrote:

“The aim of marketing is to make selling unnecessary” (quoted in Kotler and

Armstrong 5). This quote refers to the brand activity of posting good-looking pictures

with lifestyle captions instead of harsh advertising.

Customer value and satisfaction is one of the highlights for marketing.

Satisfied customers not only return to buy more products but they tell others about

their positive experience, whereas dissatisfied customers might turn to competition

and discourage others from buying the product (7). Word of mouth is one of the most

powerful marketing tools, but at the same time it’s the one they have the least control

over – unless they pay people to spread good word. “A recent study revealed that

consumers find sources of user-generated content—discussion forums, blogs, online

review sites, and social networking sites—three times more influential when making a

purchase decision than conventional marketing methods such as TV advertising”

(Chen and Xie quoted in Kotler and Armstrong 153). Satisfied customers of

ROSEFIELD are expected to buy an additional strap for their watch or a new watch

from the new collection, should the company launch one. Simultaneously, they are

expected to spread a good word about the brand both orally to their friends and on

social media channels. With the growth of customers and retaining loyal customers,

the business itself grows (7).

The concept of market is essential in marketing and can be defined as “the set of

actual and potential buyers of a product or service,” (7) (more about the company’s

 18  

markets in subchapter 2.2.2. Product life cycle). This is what Kotler and Armstrong

write about creating relationships in order to manage markets:

“Sellers must search for buyers, identify their needs, design

good market offerings, set prices for them, promote them, and

store and deliver them. Activities such as consumer research,

product development, communication, distribution, pricing,

and service are core marketing activities.”

Buyers carry out marketing as much as sellers. While searching for products, they are

often in contact with the company, which, especially in the age of digital

technologies, has made marketing rather interactive (7-8). Marketers no longer ask

only how they can reach the customer, but how the customers can reach them and

each other (8).

One of the key steps in creating a marketing strategy is the segmentation of

market and selecting which segment is the one that the company will market to. It

would not be reasonable to target all segments because very broad marketing might

actually not serve any customer well (8). The targeted audience might be specified by

gender, age, demography, economic situation and other factors. In case of

ROSEFIELD, the audience that is being targeted are women of young age, belonging

to middle or higher middle economic class from all over the world, and who are

looking for good value for affordable price. The product is less expensive than that of

the competition and offers free worldwide shipping, hence affordability and

availability. That is the concept of production, which assumes that customers favor

available and affordable products (9). On the other hand, the product concept should

attract customers by its quality, performance, and innovative features (9). Finally, the

marketing concept requires good knowledge of the needs and wants of the targeted

markets and fulfilling these desires better than its competition (10).

Probably the most important concept of modern marketing for most

companies is the customer relationship management (12). As Kotler and Armstrong

wrote: “The key to building lasting customer relationships is to create superior

customer value and satisfaction. Satisfied customers are more likely to be loyal

customers and give the company a larger share of their business” (12). Customers

generally buy from companies that they perceive has the highest value; however,

 19  

customers are often not very objective and accurate judges of values, especially when

to some customers, affordable prices are a key factor in the aftermath of the recent

recession. Although, to some customers, value might mean, “paying more to get

more” (12-13).

Whether the customer is satisfied “depends on the product’s perceived

performance relative to a buyer’s expectations” (13). In other words, if the product

meets or exceeds the buyer’s expectation, he or she is satisfied or delighted; if not, the

customer is dissatisfied (13). Not only will satisfied and delighted customers repeat

purchases but they are also more likely to carry out the marketing task by telling

others about their great experience (13). That is why ROSEFIELD offers free and fast

shipping and almost luxurious (sometimes even personal) packaging (see more about

this topic in subchapter 3.1.1. The brand: ROSEFIELD Watches).

The last part of the marketing strategy mentioned in this subchapter is perhaps

the most important for this thesis and online communities: customer relationships.

Customer relationships have different forms and strengths: basic relationships

(usually through websites); full partnership (one brand accepts another brand as its

customer – a third party re-seller; for example, Nike sells its shoes in Foot Locker);

frequency marketing programs (rewarding customers who make frequent purchases

with discounts or free products or samples); or club marketing programs (special

benefits for members) (15). The nature of the relationships has changed in the past

years; companies no longer try to target as many people as possible, but rather they

prefer building deeper, direct, and long lasting relationships with customers who are

carefully selected (16). The depth of these relations can be influenced by shifting

from one-way communication to two-way, and interactive one (17). Kotler and

Armstrong write that: “The new communications approaches let marketers create

deeper customer involvement and a sense of community surrounding a brand—to

make the brand a meaningful part of consumers’ conversations and lives” (17). It is

important to note that while the relationship-building opportunities often have a

positive influence on the brand’s life, they can also create challenges. Among these

challenges is the fact that consumers are much more informed about the product than

they used to be and they have enough platforms on the Internet where they can share

their experience - even the negative ones (17). That is something ROSEFIELD is

aware of and it will be analyzed in subchapter 3.1.2.3. Controlling social media.

 20  

2.2.2 Product life cycle

When a new product is introduced to the market, its life can be easily traced

and measured by what is called a “product life cycle”. The Product life cycle can be

defined as the following: “The idea that products, like people, have a birth, a life and

a death, and that they should be financed and marketed with this in mind” (The

Economist). There are five stages of the product’s life: the first stage is development,

when a new product is “invented”. It does not necessarily have to be an invention of a

completely new device, but can be an innovation or an improvement of an already

existing product (The Economist). During this stage, the company makes no profit but

needs to invest a large amount of money (Kotler and Armstrong 273). The second

stage is the introduction, when the product has to be marketed and advertised, which

is very costly; however, the product also gains its first customers (The Economist).

The third stage is growth, which is when the company starts making profits because

the number of customers has increased (The Economist). The fourth stage is maturity,

in this stage the product is widely accepted and competition appears (The

Economist). The sales growth slows down because most potential buyers already have

the product, similarly the profits are not increasing because now the company has to

invest in marketing again, to fight off the competitors (Kotler and Armstrong 273).

The final stage is decline, which happens when the company can no longer fight the

competition or adapt to new trends and desires of customers, which makes the product

redundant (The Economist). However, as Kotler and Armstrong note, “Not all

products follow all five stages of the PLC. Some products are introduced and die

quickly; others stay in the mature stage for a long, long time.” Some products are

returned to the growth stage of the cycle once they reach the decline through strong

promotion or repositioning of the product on the market (273-274).

Product life cycle is often measured together with the adaptation process. This

mental process through which consumers passes from the moment they first heard

about it until final adoption has several stages as well: awareness (consumers become

aware of the new product but do not know much about it); interest (consumers

actively look for information about the new product); evaluation (considering whether

or not to try the new product); trial (consumer tries the new product just enough to

determine its value); and finally adoption (consumer buys the product and uses it

regularly) (Kotler and Armstrong 156). However, looking at the adoption process not

 21  

from the consumer’s point of view but rather from the product perspective, we are

looking at something called the “adoption curve”.

There are five adopter’s groups with different values (see curve below):

innovators take the risk and try new ideas; early adopters are viewed as opinion

leaders for their communities because even though they adopt new ideas, they are

careful about it; early majority are rarely viewed as leaders, but they still adopt new

ideas before the average person; the late majority only adopts new ideas after the

majority of people have done it because they are skeptical; and finally laggards are

doubtful about innovations and changes and only adopt when it is no longer

considered an innovation (Kotler and Armstrong 157).

Figure 2.3: Adoption Curve

Source: Kotler and Armstron, page 158, Figure 5.7

Figure 2.4: Product Life Cycle and Adoption Process represents the

combination of the product life cycle and adoption process and how these two

concepts blend together. It shows how, in theory, consumers adapt to the product in

each stage of its life cycle; or looking from the opposite perspective, it shows how the

 22  

product life cycle develops and grows as the consumers adapt to it. The most

important stage of adoption for the brand is late majority because that is when the

company starts making profits. It is usually around the maturity stage of the product

life cycle and it is the preferred position for most brands, since it is followed by the

peak of sales after which a decline inevitably follows. However, it is often impossible

to determine where the product is currently situated on the curve and in its life cycle,

because it can be relative to the markets in which the product is marketed.

Figure 2.4: Product Life Cycle and Adoption Process

2.3 Research question

Even though brands cannot change the content other users post about the

brand, they still have power to influence their online image and perception. For

instance, by using online software to filter all pictures posted online with a particular

 23  

hash tag and consequently selectively reposting those pictures that are aesthetically

pleasing to the eye, represent free-spiritedness, or show the product or brand in a

positive manner – these are just some of the ways in which the brand can manipulate

the reality of social media to its advantage. Of course, the brand cannot eliminate

unflattering pictures tagged with its hashtag and prevent other users from seeing them

when they look for the specific hashtag. However, the way the brand presents itself is

often the way most users see it.

Rheingold wrote that the future of the Internet is connected to the future of

“community, democracy, education, science, and intellectual life” (5). The

transparency and democracy of online communities might not be as transparent and

democratic as it is presented. That can be for different reasons; one possible reason is

the community administrator’s censorship of what is being communicated within the

community. This censorship might either only target hateful comments, or it can also

prevent members from discussing off-topics. One of the goals of this thesis is to

determine how the online community is shaped based on the brand identity.

Another key question is whether an online community can serve as a tool to

enhance the brand’s image and last but not least, it is pivotal to examine which

aspects of the brand's online presence are beyond its control. However, the main

research question this thesis will attempt to answer is the following:

How does a new brand create, change, and engage with its online

community, and what does this imply about current notions of online

community formation?

3 Methodology    

Being the author of this thesis and an intern currently working for the brand that is

studied in this thesis, I will be applying a combination of participant observation and

quantitative research methods in my research. Apart from on its main website, the

brand operates on the following social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

and Pinterest. The research focuses only on the online community on Instagram for

 24  

two reasons: first, as this chapter will show in section 31.3.1. Instagram, Instagram

has proven to be the most efficient channel for user’s engagement and interactions

between both, the brand and the members, and among the members themselves.

Second, the results from Instagram are relatively easily measurable and clear for

further analysis and interpretation of the community.

This research aims to empirically study the interactions between a brand

(ROSEFIELD Watches) and its online community during the process of the

community building. Such interactions take place mostly on online social networks

and occasionally via e-mail. Online social networks and social media sites are the

focus of this study because that is where most of the community’s interaction

happens. Results of monitoring of the back-and-forth communication between the

brand and the community members, as well as the communication among the

members themselves, will be analyzed in chapter 4. Findings.

3.1 Delimitation of Corpus

3.1.1 The brand: ROSEFIELD Watches

ROSEFIELD Watches (from this moment on, it will be referred to only as

ROSEFIELD) is an Amsterdam-based start-up company specializing in watches for

women. The company was founded in early 2015 (online store was launched in April)

by Pauline Goderie and Christiaan Bekker. The brand’s story is central for the online

community creation and management. It is based on the founding principles of two

cities, Amsterdam and New York City, both of which were founded by the Dutch.

New York City, formerly called New Amsterdam, is known for its modernity and

fashion (Florida and Johnson). Amsterdam, on the other hand, is associated with

liberty, history (Shorto) and according to the brand, with minimalist design

(Rosefieldwatches.com). Their common grounds are (apart from the historical

connection) liberty and freedom. ROSEFIELD as a brand wants to be associated with

free-spirited individuals (women), to whom it advertises. The brand combines classic

and modern, function and fashion; the Dutch minimalist design and contemporary

New York fashion aesthetics (Rosefieldwatches.com).

 25  

ROSEFIELD encourages its customers to join and follow the brand on their

social media platforms in the hope that they will become members of their online

community. Customers are invited to follow the social media channels on various

places on the website, in registration e-mails, newsletters, and in the box in which

their ordered product arrives (see Figures 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3). The fact that the vast

majority of the brand’s marketing takes place online, promoting itself through social

media (namely Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest) and its website, makes the

goal more achievable. Traditional (offline) marketing would be more expensive but

less effective because when individuals see the invitation on an online media source,

it usually requires them to make one or two clicks to become members; if they see the

invitation in an offline media source (e.g. magazine), they are required to get a device

connected to the Internet, search for the brand and then “follow”4. Since it requires

more effort from the customer/potential member and is therefore expected to be much

less effective, the company opted for online marketing. The customers are encouraged

to join the brand’s social networks and contribute by sharing a picture of the product

they purchased. The expectation is that the users’ engagement will exceed simply

sharing their product but that they will also like, share, re-tweet, re-pin and comment

on other user-generated content.

A large part of selling the product is selling the brand, and the experience that

goes with it. Because the product is intended for free-spirited individuals, it is

expected that the customer either is free-spirited, or she5 considers herself to be, or at

least she wants to be perceived that way, according to the brand. One way for the user

to exhibit her free-spiritedness through the watch is via social media. It is assumed

that if she posts a picture of herself, wearing the watch of a brand that is associated

with free thinking, it immediately affiliates her with the brand’s ideology. And this is

where the mutually beneficial relationship is supposed to be born: the brand provides

a certain social status or sense of belonging to the customer, who in return shares her

experience with the product and provides free advertising to the company. Appealing

to the social status (on social media) has got another form than simply the user

posting her picture. The brand selects best pictures posted not only by the bloggers,

but also by the customers, that becomes promoted by ROSEFIELD on the brand’s                                                                                                                4 Follow = subscribe 5 The female pronoun “she” is used to refer to the customers/users/community members instead of the commonly used male pronoun “he”. The reason is that the target audiences of the brand are women, and most of the customers/users/community members are also women.

 26  

social channels and therefore brings a lot of attention to the original poster6, because

the post gets views by all the brand’s followers and the original poster is tagged in the

picture.

One of the important aspects for the brand is the packaging of the product. The

fact that the company offers free and fast delivery is already an enticement for

customers however, instead of receiving the watch in a simple, cheap case,

ROSEFIELD decided to invest in elegant, black leather pouches with the brand’s

name imprinted on it, for protection of the watch. This pouch is packed, together with

a certificate of authenticity, information leaflet and instructions, in a small black box

and wrapped with a thin, elegant black ribbon. The whole packaging, in spite of being

black, gives a very feminine, elegant and minimalist impression; the same impression

the watches are supposed to give (see Figures 3.4 and 3.5).

ROSEFIELD does not expect to attract new members and customers solely by

its story and ideology; the watches it produces have to be precisely designed and good

looking. Customers can chose from four collections (see Figures 3.6 – 3.9), each has

different design and its own story and purpose:

− THE GRAMERCY: “Named after a prime location in Manhattan, home to

fashion designers from all over the world, the GRAMERCY collection

combines a clean watch face with clean-cut leather straps to create a modern

and alluring fashion accessory” (Rosefieldwatches.com).

− THE BOWERY: “Inspired by an iconic NYC neighborhood and caught

between boho-chic and classic, the BOWERY collection combines a

minimalist, ultra-thin watchcase with elegantly stitched leather straps”

(Rosefieldwatches.com).

− THE MERCER: “Paying tribute to an exciting street in one of NYC’s

signature shopping destinations, the MERCER collection features stainless

steel mesh straps for an exquisite look that suits this fashionable

neighborhood” (Rosefieldwatches.com).

− THE NOLITA: “Inspired by the trendiest little neighborhood in NYC, the

NOLITA combines a full black watch face with bold colored straps, for a

quirky style with a sporty twist” (Rosefieldwatches.com).

                                                                                                               6 Original poster (often referred to as OP) is the person who originally uploaded (posted) the picture. Others can re-post it.

 27  

Each collection has a specific description and is “predestined” to a specific

style: elegant, bohemian, chic or sporty. Buyers are free to ignore the specifications,

but some might find it easy to identify with their own style. All collections, with the

exception of Mercer, have interchangeable leather straps. Customers can buy

additional straps with their watches to change their look and customize the watch

according to their daily outfits. The objective behind this feature is to promote the

idea of individualism and self-expression, and to give the users the opportunity to

express themselves. Furthermore, they themselves are expected to be enthusiastic

about sharing their own “way” with other members of the community on Instagram.

The actual website, www.Rosefieldwatches.com, was unofficially launched on the

15th of April 2015. However, there were still some malfunctions which is why the

website was not being promoted and the launch was not announced until the 20th of

April. Nevertheless, the social media activity begun even earlier: the first post on

Instagram took place on the 5th of March, 2015, first Pinterest pins were created on

the 3rd of April, first Facebook post was posted on the 5th of April, and the first Tweet

was sent out on the 10th of April. Since then (5th of March), the followers’ base has

grown rapidly. ROSEFIELD reached 500 followers on Instagram by April 22 and

1,000 followers by May 2. The average activity on each post is 94.0 likes per post and

5.2 comments per post. The high engagement of users (measured by liking,

commenting, tagging, following and sharing) in the days preceding the launching of

the website was an indicator of future positive engagement.

The website’s official launch was on the 20th of April and it was announced on

Instagram using different posts featuring the watches (see Figure 3.10). It is available

in four languages: English, Dutch, German and Spanish. There are multiple “stores”

to choose from; Australian, Canadian, EU, Global, US and UK stores are available in

English; Belgian and Dutch stores are available in Dutch; Austrian and German stores

are available in German and Mexican and Spanish stores were available in Spanish.

Users are able to switch between the stores based on their language and location, and

the website changes the currency accordingly (e.g. Australian, Canadian, or US

Dollar, Euro, Mexican Peso, etc.).

As far as the product life cycle is concerned (see 2.2.2. Product Life Cycle),

ROSEFIELD Watches currently operates on three local markets: Amsterdam, The

Netherlands and the world market. The same graph (see Figure 3.11: ROSEFIELD

Watches position on its markets) of the product life cycle can be used for all three

 28  

markets because the same products are sold on all of them. As of May 29, 2015 the

company sells its watches in several stores7 in Amsterdam (they are not official

ROSEFIELD stores but instead they are stores that sell various products of different

brands, among them ROSEFIELD watches) and their sales are rather high considering

that these customers buy them without knowing about the brand from advertising.

This means that the Amsterdam market is so far the most successful one because the

company sells both in its online store and in its physical stores. In the Netherlands

market, the product is in the early growth stage of its life cycle and has started being

adopted by the early majority. Lastly, because the company offers shipping to the

whole world, the whole world is considered a local market. Considering the sizes,

populations and competition, the product is only in the introduction stage under these

circumstances.

Figure 3.11: ROSEFIELD Watches position on its markets

                                                                                                               7 We Are Labels (three stores), Six and Sons, Anna & Nina (two stores), Shop Rogge, Centre Neuf , and LENA.

 29  

3.1.2 Building community activities

It is highly unlikely that a whole online community could be built within a

couple of weeks from introducing a new brand. However, this research monitors the

process of building the community, setting its “tone” and topic, and creating its

boundaries. In the subchapters below, the main means and tools of building the

community are described in detail.

3.1.2.1 Fashion bloggers

Contacting fashion bloggers in the Netherlands was one of the most important

aspects of the promotion. The company contacted the 15 most influential fashion

bloggers (see Figure 3.12) in the country through the PR agency Ganbaroo PR PR

B.V. and sent them a personal package of three watches – each blogger received a

different combination and a personal, handwritten letter in white pen on a black

background (see Figure 3.13). Some of the bloggers posted pictures of the package on

their Instagram accounts almost immediately, some others waited a bit longer, and a

few did not post any pictures. However, in combination with ROSEFIELD posting

pictures on Instagram on its own behalf, the followers’ base was growing rather

rapidly. Within a few days, other bloggers (both from in and outside of the

Netherlands) were approaching the brand with requests for collaboration. One of the

criteria for bloggers with whom the brand would start collaboration was minimum of

10,000 followers on Instagram, because the brand wanted as big exposure as possible.

Another criterion, and perhaps the most important, is the quality of the pictures the

given blogger posts. High quality pictures and good sense of composition are essential

for the creation of appealing pictures that would make people want to buy the watch.

Within two weeks from the day the website launched, the company was

regularly being approached by bloggers with over 30,000 followers, once by an

Instagram personality8 with more than half a million followers. The agreement with

the bloggers who approached the brand themselves was the following: the brand sent

the blogger a watch of her choice in exchange for posting a couple of close-up

                                                                                                               8 An Instagram personality in this case is someone who has neither blog nor website, yet maintains a large follower base due to the popularity of their Instagram account.

 30  

pictures on Instagram and a full blog post, where the blogger is expected to highlight

the watch among other parts of her outfit and to write something about the brand. The

brand also asks the bloggers to share the content on their social media. In a few cases,

a second watch (sometimes it was the same watch, in other cases it was a different

watch from either the same or different collection) is sent for the blogger as a free

giveaway. The blogger is free to decide the rules of the competition and choose

winner under one condition – in order to take part in the competition, the users had to

follow the brand on Instagram and use either its tag #rosefield or mention

@rosefieldwatches (or both). This giveaway is a form of promotion because not only

will the bloggers post attractive pictures on their Instagram and blog, the winners of

their giveaways are also expected to share their “victory” on Instagram. However, that

is beyond the brand’s control, as there is no way to enforce it.

In the first week of the brand’s active communication with the bloggers, two

watches were sent to a blogger in Canada and two watches to a blogger in Portugal.

This move was very important for the brand’s exposure in North America and among

the Portuguese-speaking market. Other fashion bloggers approached the brand with

requests for collaboration and they were either accepted or declined based on the

criteria mentioned above. The brand also selected the most influential fashion

bloggers in the USA, UK, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy and France, whom the

brand approached for collaboration itself. In this case, the brand primarily tries to

offer a free watch in exchange for promotion and is only willing to pay for promotion

of bloggers whose follower-base and content quality can guarantee wide exposure for

ROSEFIELD.

3.1.2.2 NYC photo-shoot

As a part of the promotion of the brand story, the brand contacted friends of an

employee who lives in New York City and offered them free watches in exchange for

them sending back pictures of themselves, wearing ROSEFIELD watches in

renowned NYC locales. The objective of this amateur photo-shoot was to have user-

generated pictures from NYC to accompany the many pictures from Amsterdam. The

promotion was expected to have a double meaning: firstly to promote the brand (the

 31  

watches were clearly visible on the photos), and secondly, to promote the brand story

and ideology. An important factor was that a professional photographer did not take

the pictures but instead seemingly “random customers” did, who just happened to

share their pictures with the brand, which makes the pictures more credible in the eyes

of other users and potential customers.

3.1.2.3 Controlling social media

ROSEFIELD operations team controls the activity on all four social media

channels it uses. All comments on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest are

monitored and stripped of negative comments suggesting the design was copied from

a competition. Negative comments regarding the visual aspect of the watches (i.e.

“These watches are ugly”) are not submitted to this kind of censorship, but comments

from “haters” and/or “internet trolls” (i.e. “You copied this design from brand X!”)

are deleted and the accounts are banned from future activities on ROSEFIELD social

media. There is a possibility that somebody will want to lead a constructive dialogue

about whether the design was copied or not (the brand can prove that it was not by

providing designer’s sketches and pointing out the differences in the individual

designs), and all such conversations should be handled via private e-mail exchanges.

The reason for this censorship is to not deter potential customers from purchases

based on negative impressions caused by hateful comments. It needs to be mentioned

that until the date of submitting this thesis, no such hateful comments had been made.

3.1.3 Tools used to build an online community

The tools ROSEFIELD uses to build and shape its online community are listed

bellow.

3.1.3.1 Instagram

 32  

The history and main features of Instagram have already been explained in

subchapter 2.1.3 Instagram. In this part, I will describe how the company is using

Instagram in order to build the online community.

Instagram has a mobile and desktop version. The desktop version allows for

viewing images, liking them and writing comments under each picture. The mobile

version enables all of these too, but above all users can send personal messages, see

who liked their content and when, who started following them, and there is a function

button that allows users to see pictures in which they were tagged with their account

name, in this case @rosefieldwatches. The company uses this function to monitor

pictures uploaded with its tag. However, this function does not reveal when only a

hashtag (#rosefield or #rosefieldwatches) was used. To find this the Instagram

manager would have to specifically search for a given hashtag in the Instagram

hashtag search (there is also an Instagram user search). The company uses the tool

Photoslurp in order to ease this process9.

Instagram has proved to be the most convenient tool for ROSEFIELD when

gaining new fans, customers, and creating a community. It enables the company to

post a virtually infinite number of promotional pictures, when some of the pictures do

not even seem to be promotional. The fashion bloggers also play an important role

because they take both lifestyle pictures and detailed close-up pictures to show their

followers that they wear the watches. Their endorsement is extremely valuable for the

company because the fashion bloggers already have a certain level of credibility and

lot of their followers consequently become followers of ROSEFIELD, and they join

the online community. The bloggers inspire their followers to not only join the

community virtually in the online world, but the idea is to encourage the followers to

become customers who will buy and wear the watches. Inspired by the fashion

bloggers, they should want to share their experience by sharing their own pictures of

the watch. ROSEFIELD then overviews all pictures that have been posted that day

and selects those that are considered an appropriate promotion and reposts them,

giving credit to the original poster. ROSEFIELD tries to select good-looking photos;

however, “good looking” is difficult to define. According to ROSEFIELD criteria,

they are high quality pictures that show the product clearly, but ideally do not give the

impression of a professionally taken promotional photo. Such photos have

                                                                                                               9 Photoslurp will be discussed in detail in the following chapter

 33  

considerably high engagement because: firstly, they do not look like advertising and

secondly, their original poster is identified and whether it is a blogger or an ordinary

Instagram user, their followers and friends are more likely to comment on and discuss

the content (see Figure 3.14). Engagement is what the brand seeks mostly because

without communication, the community is weakened. And without a strong

community, the sales would likely decrease and marketing and advertising would be

more expensive for the company.

3.1.3.2 Photoslurp

Photoslurp is a key tool for ROSEFIELD when it comes to being in control over

the content visible by third parties. This new platform (it officially launched in 2015)

helps brands with “bridging the gap between customer photos and [their] brand’s

story” (Photoslurp.com). The premise is that brands can take advantage of their

customers endorsing their products on social media. With this platform, brands can

“choose those photos that best match [their] brand identity, then thank [their] fans for

their photos at the click of a button or request media rights from them to use their

photos offline” (Photoslurp.com). The chosen photos can then be made “shoppable”

by linking them with the products on the website. That essentially means that

ROSEFIELD can utilize user generated pictures from Instagram as links to the

website and increase its sales. But that is not all; upon registering with Photoslurp, the

user creates a “campaign” for the brand and a reference using a hashtag (or multiple

hashtags – see Figure 3.15) – in this case, it was #rosefield and #rosefieldwatches. All

pictures that are posted on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram with this hashtag will be

automatically “slurped” by the software and it is up to the brand to “approve” (to

show the photos on a designated website, in this case www.rosefieldwatches.com), or

to “reject” the photos (see Figure 3.16). If they are approved, they automatically

appear on the website page “Street Style”, but they can be also shared on different

social media platforms (however, this time not by the original poster and author of the

picture, but by the brand itself).

This usage of Photoslurp is exactly where the brand can gain power over the

users, because it can chose what user generated pictures it wants to share with the

online world (this sectioning will be analyzed in chapter 4. Findings). Not only can

 34  

the company choose which pictures it will present, but it can also easily monitor all

photos that were uploaded on the three different social media sites from one platform.

Therefore, the campaign managers can easily spot and recognize high quality,

presentable pictures from others that might be not very aesthetically pleasing or even

defaming. Of course, the brand cannot delete pictures tagged with #rosefield neither

from the Internet, nor from the users, and if other users search for the hashtag, they

will see all the pictures with the tag including those the brand does not want them to

see; however, it is likely that the loyal users (and members of the online community)

will look at pictures of ROSEFIELD watches on the brand’s Instagram account or on

the “Street Style” page.

The page “Street Style” on the ROSEFIELD official website is a type of

online look-book. The website administrators chose which pictures from the

Photoslurp will appear there. The criteria for approval are fairly simple: the pictures

must show the watch; they should show free-thinking (although that is difficult to

define in a picture) or at least shouldn’t show the opposite (e.g. no racist symbols),

and they must be aesthetically pleasing to the eye, which is rather subjective,

nevertheless important. That which is considered aesthetically pleasing could be

constituted by a thoughtful or attractive composition, light, color combination, and/or

an Instagram filter. The purpose of this page is to show how other people wear the

watches – the outfits they chose to match with the watch (which could inspire the

users) or close-up pictures of the watch with some detail such as bracelet or other

accessory. It is supposed to show the watches in a different light than what they can

see in the product pictures; to show what it looks like on “real” people like

themselves, not only on a professional models. Here Photoslurp helps not only to

select the fitting pictures but it also helps to associate them with the product on the

product page and therefore makes the process of shopping easier.

3.2 Methods

Considering my direct involvement with ROSEFIELD, I decided to use the

participant observation research method for both my data collection and in the

analysis. According to Kawulich, this method can be applied in different disciplines

as a tool to collect data about people and processes (1). Schensul, Schensul, and

 35  

LeCompte define this method as "the process of learning through exposure to or

involvement in the day-to-day or routine activities of participants in the researcher

setting" (quoted in Kawulich, 2).

I used an Instagram Analysis tool, Instagram Hashtag Explorer, and Gephi to

analyze the engagement, content of posts, keyword and hashtag analysis, and relations

between the brand and its community.

3.2.1 Tools for data collection

3.2.1.1 Instagram analysis tool

The tool used for general Instagram Analysis was the Instagram Analytics for

Serious Marketers from Simply Measured. This tool is allegedly the “most complete

social analytics solution” that helps marketers to clearly define their social media

strategy, according to its website (SimplyMeasured.com). The rates for using their

software for companies are $500, $800 or $2,000 per monthly subscription (for social,

professional, or entrepreneurial subscription respectively), but the website offers a

free trial version with limited results. Due to the fact that the brand itself does not yet

use any Instagram analytic tools that I could use for this research, I chose the Simply

Measured’s tool because it offers a free trial version, which provided useful, albeit

limited results. In order to obtain the free-trial, I had to login with the Instagram

account I wanted to analyze and verify the account (the Instagram account was of the

brand, @rosefieldwatches), next I had to follow Simply Measured on Twitter (it does

not matter which account it is, whether it is a personal account or brand’s account)

and send out a Tweet generated by the website (see Figures 3.17 and 3.18). After

verification of both Instagram and Twitter accounts (I used the brand’s account) and

Tweeting the designated tweet (which I later deleted in order for the followers to not

see it, as it could distort the brand’s online presence image) I received an e-mail with

a hyper link leading me to a web page with the results (see chapter 4. Findings).

There was also a possibility to download MS Excel or MS PowerPoint files with all

the results, which I downloaded but then chose not to use. All imagery in chapter 4.

Findings and 6. Appendix is taken directly from the web page with the relevant

results.

 36  

3.2.1.2 Instagram hashtag explorer

The Instagram Hashtag Explorer (IHE) is a new script written by Bernhard

Rieder for the Digital Methods Initiative at the University of Amsterdam. This tool

connects Instagram API with a user’s credentials and retrieves the latest media tagged

with a specific hashtag (GitHub). The result is a co-tag network in a .gdf10 format that

is later analyzed in Gephi11. It links any two co-appearing tags on an image and sets a

link (GitHub).

In order to obtain the results from the IHE, I had to connect to Instagram on

the IHE website (see Figure 3.19), and assign the following criteria: tag = “rosefield”

(without the “#” sign); iterations: “512” (each iteration generates 20 results, therefore 5

iterations generated 100 results); select “get user infos”; and select the “thumbnail” of

the picture to which the hashtag is related (see Figure 3.20). After submitting the

query, the IHE generated all results on the website (see Figures 3.22 and 3.22) one

.gdf file, which I later used for Gephi analysis and two .tab files, which I did not use

for this analysis. There were 100 results in total which contained the tag #rosefield,

out of which only 14 percent were not related to the brand. The unrelated posts were

usually related to the Imagine Schools Rosefield, a charter school in Arizona, United

States, or flowers and actual fields of roses. The results were generated from between

March 13, 2015 and May 9, 2015 (the day of retrieving the data), which was

determined by the chosen iteration “5”. When iteration “6” was chosen, the results

were reaching up until December 2014 which was more than three months prior to the

brand’s activity on Instagram. This way the captured data only missed eight posts

with the relevant hashtag (the Instagram activity begun on March 5, 2015) which

provides more relevant results than if there were 42 additional irrelevant results,

which would, additionally to the already accounted 14 percent, represent almost 47

percent of the total number of results, which is 120.

This tool was used because it provides sufficient mapping of networks for a

specific hashtag. I wanted to track all other hashtags that were used in connection

                                                                                                               10 GDF is a file format that “is built like a database table or a coma separated file (CSV). It supports attributes to both nodes and edges. … The GDF format is very easy to read and can be easily converted from CSV” (Gephi.github.io). 11 Gephi is explained in the following subchapter 3.2.1.3 Gephi. 12 If a higher number of iterations had been used, it would have provided only results with unrelated posts with hashtag #rosefield, such as pictures of flower fields, because these results would have been from the time before the brand started its Instagram account.

 37  

with #rosefield to discover what other topics the community members talk about in

relation to the brand. The results can be found in subchapter 4.3 Instagram Hashtags

Explorer.

3.2.1.3 Gephi

Gephi is data-visualization software that helps to visualize network analysis,

reveal patterns, and tell the story of your data (Gephi.github.io). It was used to

visualize the network of the #rosefield on Instagram, generated by the Instagram

Hashtag Explorer. The goal was to reveal what other hashtags and keywords the

online community uses. In order to successfully obtain analysis from Gephi, I

followed a YouTube tutorial on Facebook network visualization created by Data J

Lab from the Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Since the tutorial was intended

for a different platform and there were none available for the Instagram Hashtag

analysis, some of the steps had to be altered accordingly.

The first step after opening Gephi was “starting a new project” and importing the

.gdf document retrieved from the Instagram Hashtag Explorer (see Figure 3.23). I

chose the Force Atlas 2 layout as recommended and I ran “Modularity” and “Average

Degree” in the statistics settings (see Figure 3.24). Modularity calculated the density

of networks amongst the nodes13 (hashtags) and assigned each of them with color

codes, which made the graph more readable. Average Degree calculated how many

clusters14 each node had and enabled the change of the size of the nodes based on the

number of clusters (the higher number of clusters, the bigger the node) (Data J Lab)

(see Figure 3.25). The settings on layout were the following: Thread number: 2;

Dissuade hubs: yes; LinLog mode: no; Prevent Overlap: yes; Edge Weight Influence:

1.0; Scaling: 6.0; Stronger Gravity: no; Gravity: 2.0; Tolerance (speed): 0.1;

Approximate Repulsion: yes; Approximation: 1.2 (see Figure 3.26).

                                                                                                               13 Nodes – represent the individual hashtags and are graphically presented as little circles. 14 Clusters – are groups of nodes (hashtags) assembled together based on association with other tags or users who used them.

 38  

4 Findings  

This chapter demonstrates all the findings from this research regarding the

brands’ creation of and engagement with their online communities. Graphics and data

visualizations are used to support the findings and analysis, and to facilitate their

understanding to the readers. The findings are divided in three sections because there

were three types of analysis used: participant observation, which summarizes general

findings of my observation of different tools the brand uses to engage with its

Instagram community; Instagram findings based on the online statistics gained

through Simply Measured; and lastly findings gained through the Instagram Hashtag

Explorer visualized in Gephi, which show different patterns in the community.

4.1 Participatory Observation Findings The following findings were made during my work for the brand and are a result

of four months of my observation:

My internship with the company started on February 2, 2015 and is still

continuing on the day of submitting this thesis, June 26, 2015. What follows is my

observation of how the company has handled starting its online activity, marketing,

and social media activity until May 25, 2015.

When the internship started, the watches were already designed and designs were

sent to the factory with an order. The four-member team, which I was a part of, had to

prepare the online store and social media promotions. The online store is managed

through Magento’s eCommerce platform where the following location/language

stores were created: Australia (En), Austria (Ger), Belgium (Nl), Canada (En), EU

(En), Global (En), Mexico (Esp), The Netherlands (Nl), Spain (Esp), United States

(En), United Kingdom (En), and Germany (Gr) (see Figure 4.1). There have been 12

stores in four languages from the very beginning and only towards the end of May

and the beginning of June, Italian and French stores were added (in Italian and French

languages). Building the online stores consisted of filling out all product information

for all languages, all pages such us “Our Story,” “Terms and Conditions” etc., and

meta data for all pages and products. This was also the time when a list of potential

fashion bloggers for collaborations was prepared. The bloggers were sought from the

 39  

countries for which we had specific stores (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada,

Mexico, The Netherlands, Spain, United States, United Kingdom and Germany).

Even though the EU and Global market existed, there are no “EU fashion bloggers” or

“Global fashion bloggers”; these two stores exist for customers who are from outside

of the ten countries.

Since ROSEFIELD Watches is an Amsterdam based company, the first fashion

bloggers that were contacted come from The Netherlands. The contact was arranged

through a PR agency called Ganbaroo PR PR B.V., which provided the company with

contacts for the 15 most influential Dutch fashion bloggers. This process, which is

properly described in subchapter 3.1.2.1. Fashion bloggers, was very successful.

Since it turned out to be a common practice, fashion bloggers follow each other online

and when they saw that suddenly their competitors had been promoting a new watch

brand on their blogs and Instagram accounts, they started contacting the company,

asking for collaboration. The bloggers themselves and their customers started talking

about the brand in comment sections underneath the Instagram pictures and they were

tagging the brand, which lead their followers to become the brand’s followers. For a

while there were incoming requests for collaboration from fashion bloggers mostly in

Europe, in the majority of cases from The Netherlands and Germany. On May 6,

2015, the company started approaching bloggers on its own. The first category was

Spanish fashion bloggers. The company drafted a personal e-mail that was sent to the

bloggers in name of the company founder who lived in Spain for a few years during

their university studies. With a personal letter, the fashion bloggers were also

supposed to become members of the ROSEFIELD online community, not only their

followers and the company’s customers.

Before approaching the bloggers, an amateur New York City photo-shoot was

organized for the company. As it is described in subchapter 3.1.2.2. NYC photo-shoot,

a few watches were sent to the company’s acquaintances and they took pictures of the

watches on their wrists in prominent locations of New York City. These pictures were

uploaded on Instagram by the New Yorkers themselves and ROSEFIELD was tagged.

However, even though ROSEFIELD often re-posts other bloggers’ or customers’

content as a form of its promotion, the company never actually re-posted these

pictures on its behalf. Instead, these pictures are searchable with the #rosefield but

they give the impression that they were taken spontaneously by customers from New

York City. When viewed by consumers and potential customers, these pictures

 40  

underline the brand’s story (and support the Amsterdam – New York City connection)

and give the impression that these New Yorkers bought the watches fairly soon after

the company emerged on the market.

When it comes to controlling social media, this task has been surprisingly free of

conflict. I write surprisingly, because even though the company expected there would

be people writing hateful messages in comment sections of social media channels,

accusing the brand from copying competitors’ design, or simply defaming the brand’s

name, no such comments have been detected (at least until June 26, 2015). Instead

“controlling social media” became simply a communication with the followers and

community members, answering their questions or thanking them for their positive

comments and for taking interest in the brand, praising their pictures of the

company’s product that were posted on Instagram and encouraging them to post more

pictures.

The following are the findings of my observation of one of the tools the company

uses, Instagram. I can confirm that they are used in order to improve the online

presence of the company, to enhance the brand’s name and image, and to monitor

potential threats to the brand’s name and image. Instagram (which is more thoroughly

scrutinized in subchapter 4.2. General Instagram findings) is being used to proliferate

flattering and promotional pictures of the products. The first user-generated picture

the company posted on Instagram was by a Dutch fashion blogger on April 19, 2015

(see Figure 4.2). This endorsement turned out to be extremely popular and with the

increasing number of bloggers, the number of photos available for re-posting

increased as well. In fact, the increase has been exponential: the more bloggers

received the watch and blogged about it (and posted pictures on their Instagram), the

more users became the brand’s followers, joined the community, purchased the

product and shared it with their friends. At the same time the bloggers base has been

increasing as well, which caused even more users to join and share their experience

through photos, which was the chain of events the company has been aiming towards

since the beginning. The great amount of user generated pictures allowed for a very

strict selection of photos that are the best representation of the brand and which are,

according to the company, the most suitable for the online community. Those pictures

that were selected were consequently posted by the brand with credits to the original

poster. However, there seems to be no difference in engagement between the

(credited) user generated content and the brand official content. Each picture has

 41  

different engagement but the author of the pictures (whether ROSEFIELD, fashion

bloggers, or actual customers) does not seem to be a factor. Nevertheless, the user

generated photos (especially when posted by users themselves rather than by the

company) proved to work perfectly as the word of mouth marketing.

The last findings of my observation are about the Photoslurp tool, which the

company has been using to organize pictures in which it was tagged. This section is

less extensive than the previous findings because the tool is mostly used for marketing

purposes and sales, although its influence on the online communities is fairly

considerable. As it was described in subchapter 3.1.3.2. Photoslurp, the tool is used

for an overview of all pictures uploaded with the hashtags #rosefield and

#rosefieldwatches from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. As far as the Instagram

community is concerned, ROSEFIELD uses Photoslurp to differentiate between

“good looking” and “not so good looking” pictures and only shares the first category

with its Instagram followers. Because high engagement is very important for the

brand, ROSEFIELD only choses those photos that are predetermined to have many

likes and comments. This way it improves its online image and sets certain standards

for the online community as well.

The way ROSEFIELD manages its social media is in accordance with the five

steps suggested by Kraut, Resnick and Kiesler that are already described in

subchapter 2.1 Online communities, brand communities and Web 2.0. ROSEFIELD

applies these steps to its strategy in the following way:

Starting a new community: As Kraut, Resnick and Kiesler suggested, there should

be a common topic for the members to talk about. In case of ROSEFIELD’s

Instagram community, the topic of the conversations, posts, captions and comments is

the product (watches). However, because it is a fashion accessory and a functional

timepiece, fashion is being highlighted equally as is its functionality.

Attracting and socializing new members: Kraut, Resnick and Kiesler claim that

new members must be actively encouraged and motivated to become members and

socialize. ROSEFIELD is trying to find new members through other social media,

official website, e-mails, newsletters and in the instruction leaflet that arrives with the

package. However, the highest number of new members (i.e. followers) on Instagram

are gained through other Instagram accounts. Specifically through bloggers who

promote the brand (see subchapter 3.1.2.1. Fashion bloggers), other customers who

 42  

share the content, or through giveaways where users are encouraged to follow, like

and comment on the brand’s account and posts (see Figure 4.3).

Encouraging commitment: Kraut, Resnick and Kiesler argue that all members

should feel encouraged to connect with the community in order to experience the

commitment, which should eventually prevent them from looking for alternatives that

could be found in competition. ROSEFIELD as a brand encourages commitment in a

more subtle way than it encourages contribution (see next step). The commitment is

encouraged by means of posting high quality pictures in regular frequency, which is

supposed to build trust and make the users more committed.

Encouraging contribution: According to Kraut, Resnick and Kiesler, member’s

contributions are essential for the existence of online community, but not every

contribution is desirable. Irrelevant and off-topic subjects are often considered spam.

ROSEFIELD has not encountered any such problems. Most of the comments are

positive evaluations of the pictures and watches, or of the bloggers’ choice of outfit.

These comments are valuable for the brand because they provide free advertising and

“boasting” (as mentioned in subchapter 2.2.1. Marketing strategy, word of mouth is

one of the most efficient tools in marketing and promotion) (see Figure 3.5 again).

Another common type of comment is users asking where they can purchase the

watches or they inquire about specific characteristics of the watch, such as material or

other information. This gives the brand an opportunity to provide even more

information about the product and show it in the best possible way. The third type of

comments that often appear are bloggers or Insta-bloggers (“bloggers” who do not

have an actual blog, but post pictures only on Instagram) who ask for collaboration.

However, ROSEFIELD as a brand encourages its customers to post pictures of the

watches they buy, share the content with their friends and with other members of the

community, comment, and share other members’ content.

Regulating behavior: Kraut, Resnick and Kiesler suggest that regulating behavior

in communities is important if a user’s contribution violates the site’s rules. In this

case it would not be only the site’s rules but also the brand’s agenda. It was decided

that the so-called Internet “trolls” and “haters” should be banned in order to protect

both, the brand and the community and its members. Thus far, no such people or

comments have appeared on neither the brand’s Instagram profile, nor on its other

social media channels. However, in case hateful comments appear, they should be

 43  

deleted by the brand in order to not spread a negative image of ROSEFIELD as a

brand.

4.2 Instagram Findings

The Instagram analysis provided by Simply Measured rendered extremely

compact information and statistics. The software measured the first two months of

ROSEFIELD’s activity on Instagram, specifically from March 13, 2015 until May 13,

2015. According to these findings, there were 71 pictures posted by the brand within

the two months. The total engagement on all the posts was 7,046 both likes and

comments, which means the total engagement per post is 99.2 (both likes and

comments combined). The same chart would also reveal the most engaging filter,

however, since the brand uses pictures that were already photoshopped, it does not

use any filter when uploading the pictures. Therefore, the most engaging filter for

ROSEFIELD is “normal”, which means no filter (see Figure 4.4). The statistics also

revealed the most engaging post, which can be found in appendix (see Figure 4.5).

Figure 4.4: Total engagement:

Figure 4.5: The post with the highest engagement. Author: @claartjerose

 44  

The Instagram Activity chart (below) shows a green curve representing

engagement, red bars representing the posted photos, and a possibility for blue bars

representing videos (which ROSEFIELD has not been posting). The red bars

represent time periods of six days. The highest number of posts happened between

April 19 and April 25, which is right around the time when the website was officially

launched (April 20). This was also the period when the engagement was the highest,

reaching the value of 1,602 (all likes and comments combined during this time

period). It is interesting to notice that the engagement was higher in the first period,

reaching the value of 146, than in the second period when both the number of posts

and engagement declined to a value of 119. The most successful time period was from

April 26 until May 2, where the engagement curve significantly outgrew the Photos

Posted on the red bar. Even though there were only 13 posts, the engagement reached

the value of 1,507. According to the box on the right side of the graph, there were

6,677 likes and 369 comments in total in the two months, which counts as 94.0 likes

per photo and 5.2 comments per photo (see Figure 4.6).

Figure 4.6: Instagram activity by time periods:

The Instagram Comments Keyword Analysis revealed that four out of the

eight most common key “words” were emoji icons. The most commonly used word

was an emoji of the “smiling face with heart-shaped eyes” (Emojipedia), mentioned

67 times; the second word was watches, mentioned 55 times, the third was an emoji

of the “OK hand sign” (Emojipedia), mentioned 31 times; the fourth was a “heavy

black heart” (Emojipedia), mentioned 26 times; the fifth were two emojis of the

“smiling face with heart-shaped eyes”, mentioned 24 times; the sixth was the word

“beautiful”, mentioned 22 times; the seventh was the word “mail” mentioned 12

times; and finally the word “amazing” was mentioned 10 times. These key words in

 45  

total comprise 67 percent of all the comments, which reveals something about what

the community discusses.

The most active commenter by far is ROSEFIELD itself, because it responds

to the comments and questions of other users. The second most active commenter is a

blogger named “sneakers.and.smoothies” who commented six times in total and who

is followed by other users who also only commented five times or less. (see Figure

4.7). This is an indication of the brand controlling the community by encouraging the

members to respond to its own captions and comments. The brand shapes the

community into what it wants the community to become.

Figure 4.7: The Keyword Analysis:

The Comments and Posts by Day and Time revealed that the top day for

engagement is Wednesday, when total of 19.0 percent of the comments were sent, and

the best time being between 10:00 and 11:00 in the morning. Generally, most of the

photos posting takes place in the early morning hours and noon (see Figure 4.8). This

helps the brand to know when it is most convenient to post new content and to try to

encourage activity. The brand therefore posts photos on Instagram mostly around 9:00

in the morning (but also again during the day) in order to ensure as high an

engagement as possible. Another outcome of the comments analysis is that customers

show satisfaction with the product as well as with the pictures.

 46  

Figure 4.8: Day and Time graph:

The final piece of information we can read from the Simply Measured

Instagram analysis are the Top Photo Tags. The highest engagement was with the

tags “regram” (means repost on Instagram) 185 times, “thanks” 147 times, “nyc” and

“straps” both 113 times, “present” 112 times, “watch” 111 times, “watches”

107 times, “rosefield” 106 times, “amsterdam” 104 times and “mercer” 102 times (see

Figure 4.9). These tags prove that the association with Amsterdam and New York

City has caught on. The brand name is also very common and so is the name of one of

the collections (Mercer), which implies that it is the most popular collection. The

frequency of using the hashtag “straps” supports the assumption that the members are

aware of the interchangeable straps and that they talk about it. Overall, it looks like

the community discusses exactly what the brand wants to be discussed and the

associations are in accordance with the brand story and marketing strategy.

Figure 4.9: Top Photo Tags:

 47  

4.3 Instagram Hashtags Explorer

The Instagram Hashtag Explorer analysis in Gephi revealed certain patterns and

facts in the ROSEFIELD online community. The full graphic results can be found in

subchapter 7.4 Findings of Appendix. They are being referred to throughout this

chapter, however, a small number of graphs will be provided in the text as well in

order to help the readers to understand the findings more easily, without having to

scroll to the Appendix. The findings of the Instagram Hashtag Explorer do not tell us

much about the community members’ personal information and virtually nothing

about their demographics. However, what can be established accurately is what other

tags and keywords were associated with the scrutinized hashtag “rosefield”, and

therefore what the community members talked about in relation to the brand, or what

other tags were associated with it either by the brand or by the users. Because the

hashtag #rosefield had been in use before the brand started its social media activity,

some of the results are irrelevant to this study. Out of the 100 results from the

Instagram Hashtag Explorer, 14 percent were irrelevant – however, this only applies

to the actual posts, not the tags themselves. The actual number of irrelevant tags is not

important for this study; what matters is the content of the relevant hashtags and what

it says about the community in almost two months from the day when the brand

begun its activity on Instagram. Nevertheless, the irrelevant hashtags will be at least

mentioned in this chapter, as they are also a part of the study.

There are two graphs below this text, representing the tags in color codes based on

the nodes (tags) and clusters (groups of nodes). The clusters are assembled together

based on the connections of the nodes to other tags or users who used those tags, and

the threads represent connections among different clusters. With regards to the fact

that different computer screens (or print outs) might display colors differently, and

therefore not differentiate between shades of colors such as “blue” and “light blue”,

see (Figure 4.11) in the Appendix for the same graph accompanied with color

captions.

 48  

Figure 4.10: Two graphical results from Gephi, representing the tags in color codes

based on the nodes and clusters

The colorful clusters revealed the following combination of hashtags (key hashtags

are highlighted):

− The dark blue cluster: lifestyle, portrait, healthy, boho, adventure, canon,

ganbaroo, booktube, bookish, canoneos700d, fashionblogger, fotography,

minimalistic, vscocam, vscodaily, tagsforlikes, wanderlust, traveling, sunglasses,

foodblogger, pressevent, food, lifestyleblogger, vsco, and interior (see Figure 4.12

in Appendix for larger size).

Figure 4.12: The dark blue cluster

 49  

− The pink cluster: lookoftheday, lotd, outfitoftheday, hm, outfitinspiration,

mavijeans, blackonblack, casualfriday, allblackeverything, mavi, dayoff,

rosefieldwatch, ootd, jawboneup24, isabelmarant, outfit, bekett, bevrijdingsdag,

etoileisabelmarant, designer, justfemale, fashioninspiration, bekettsneakers,

ingrid, me, workhardplayhard, up24, workworkwork, secondfemale, and

sneakerweges. (See Figure 4.13 in Appendix for larger size.)

Figure 4.13: The pink cluster

− The light blue cluster is perhaps the most important for this study because most of

these tags were actually used by the brand and some of them taken over by other

members of the community (based on the number of threads). These hashtags

should ideally represent the brand according to its story: rosefield, watch,

watches, amsterdam, nyc, coffee, mercer, fblogger, espadrilles, it, amazing,

ams, essentials, allblack, straps, nolita, thankyou, annarike, sunday, gold, platin,

men, classy, goodlife, unisex, luxury, thenewvoguetubmlr, black, leather,

spotter, rosefieldwatches, dutch, modern, classic, inspired, newyork, city, chic,

red, friday, forward, by, thanks, streetstyle, fashion, minimalist, aesthetics,

ganbaroopr, contemporary, pressdays, cactus, blogger, pressdays15, persdagen,

design, timemanagement, style, ny, aw15, modernclassics, ny, jewellry, and

musthave. (See Figure 4.14 in Appendix for larger size.)

 50  

Figure 4.14: The light blue cluster

− The purple inner circle cluster represents hashtags not used by the brand but by

users closely related to the brand: instacool, magazine, nl, picoftheday, smile,

and talkiesmagazine. (See Figure 4.15 in Appendix for larger size.)

Figure 4.15: The purple inner circle cluster

− The red cluster: present, dotd, loveit, birthdaypresent, birthday, details,

sticktobasics, basic, accesoires, unconditional, thankful, and friendship. (See

Figure 4.16 in Appendix for larger size.)

 51  

Figure 16: The red cluster

The clusters that are unrelated to the brand are listed in this chapter because they

are still considered findings, however, they are eliminated from the discussion

because of their irrelevancy. The clearly unrelated clusters are:

− Cherry red cluster: photography, beautiful, blooming, pink, flowergaden, spring,

girlygirl, pastel, nature, sunny days, summer, truffle, like, lender, girl and others.

Figure 4.17: The cherry red cluster

− The blue inner circle cluster: sunset, palter, bostonterriers and bostonrustics, none

of which is related to the brand.

 52  

Figure 4.18: The blue inner circle cluster

− The lime green cluster tags are most likely unrelated to the brand, since they

contain following tags: room, uk, uklife, lovely, roominlondon, london, and

others.

− The purple cluster: instacrochet, dropsdesign, hakenship, shawl, blue, aqua,

happy, wrap, blauw, and garnstudio.

Figure 4.19: The lime and purple clusters

 53  

5 Discussion  

5.1 Discussing Findings and Results

In this part, I will discuss how my findings answer the main research question:

“How a new brand creates and engages with its online community and what this

implies about current notions of online community formation?” While doing so, I

am also going to discuss ways in which the findings answer additional sub questions

regarding this issue, such as how the brand identity shapes the online community,

whether it can use its community as a tool to modify its image via online media,

and finally, which aspects of the brand’s online presence are beyond its control.

Contrary to my findings, I am first going to start discussing the findings from

the Instagram Analysis and Instagram Hashtag Explorer, which will be supported by

the findings from my participatory observation.

The general findings from Instagram Analysis are rather limited because of the

short lifespan of the brand’s Instagram account, which is why they are supported by

the results from my observation. However, the fact that the brand is new is important

to answer the questions about creating online communities. The Instagram Analysis

tool from Simply Measured captured data from March 13, 2015 until May 13, 2015

and my observation started earlier and ended later than these dates. The first two

findings regarding the Total Engagement and Instagram Activity do not answer

many of the research questions. However, the exponential growth of ROSEFIELD’s

followers base and rapid increase of engagement suggest that the strategy of posting

high quality pictures of its watches, sometimes via other users, was successful. From

the picture with the highest engagement, we can get a very good idea of what the

community lead by ROSEFIELD likes and reacts to, and from the description

provided in subchapter 3.1.3.1 Instagram, we know it is exactly what the company

wanted. Is it a coincidence that the community desires what the brand had wanted

them to desire? Perhaps we cannot draw conclusions from the fact that the community

members like pretty pictures. However, we can conclude that by choosing content

that is consistent with what constitutes as part of the brand identity (simple, elegant,

minimalist fashion), the community is shaped and modified according to the

atmosphere these pictures breathe.

 54  

The Instagram Comments Keyword Analysis provides us with the top eight

most common keywords in the comments. Considering half of them were emojis

representing love and positive attitudes, and the remaining four were “beautiful”,

“watches”, “amazing”, and “mail”, it allows us to draw a few conclusions. All

keywords (including emojis) except for one show direct positive evaluation of the

product. The one that shows it indirectly, “mail”, refers for the most part to bloggers

or Instagrammers who wanted to collaborate with the brand and promote it, or users

who had further questions about the product (in both cases, they were either told to

send mail, or they informed the brand that they have done so). However, this positive

evaluation and interest in collaborations are results of the careful selection of photos,

which definitely improve the brand’s image. To what extent it does so is impossible

to quantify from the results that are available. As for the tools, ROSEFIELD uses

Photoslurp to gather all user-generated content and Instagram to disseminate suitable

results, which casts positive light on the product. Using prominent fashion bloggers

portrays the brand’s name favorably. This double promotion is completely in the

control of the brand, which can, theoretically, ensure the improvement of its image

on online media.

What is beyond the brand’s control is virtually everything somebody else

posts on the Internet – whether it is on social media or personal blogs or websites. The

brand can monitor it but cannot have the content removed from the Internet. Most

social media platforms have the option to “report” posts if they are offensive, spam, if

they can be dangerous to someone or if the user who reports them simply does not

like the post and he or she thinks it should be deleted from the platform. However,

this report does not ensure the post will be removed; in fact, it might stay there for a

very long time.

The Instagram Hashtags Explorer provided very specific results that answer

almost all sub questions and the main research question. The individual color clusters

are already broken down in subchapter 4.3 Instagram Hashtags Explorer so here I

will only list the key hashtags, which are already highlighted in the previous chapter.

They are grouped according to a pattern (explained below):

• boho, minimalistic, luxury, design, chic, style, classy, modernclassics,

designer, jewellry, accesoires, contemporary, minimalist, fashion, forward

 55  

• amsterdam, nyc, mercer, ams, rosefield, watch, watches, nolita, ny,

rosefieldwatches, dutch, nl, rosefieldwatch, streetstyle, newyork, city, gold,

black, leather, red, straps

• fashionblogger, lookoftheday, lotd, outfitoftheday, outfitinspiration,

casualfriday, lifestyle, outfit, essentials, basic

The first group of hashtags summarizes how the brand wants the community to

perceive the product – as fashion forward luxurious designer jewelers in minimalist

elegant boho (bohemian) and chic style. The second group represents how the brand

wants to be perceived as a whole – as an Amsterdam–New York City based Dutch

company, whose products are watches with colorful, interchangeable leather straps.

The third group comprises popular hashtags that are used by both, fashion bloggers

(when they post the original picture) and by the brand (when it re-posts the given

picture). This group of hashtags reflects who the brand wants to be associated with –

fashion bloggers who feature the product in their outfits. The brand’s story is

projected into these hashtags. Some of them were promoted by the brand and

consequently taken over by users. Others were created by bloggers and/or users, but

they all fit right into the brand story. This clearly shows that the social network within

the community is powerful and that the brand can use its influence on bloggers and

consumers. The Web 2.0 social media platforms enabled consumers to get in closer

contact with brands, who might use the gained proximity for its marketing and further

advertising activities, pursuing greater profit.

5.2 Limitations

The limitations I encountered during this research can be divided into three

categories: time, resource, and financial limitations. Even though my internship lasted

for five whole months (which is the time when I was working on this thesis), the

brand’s Instagram activity that I could observe meaningfully started around the end of

March (that is two months into the internship). The website officially went live on

 56  

April 20 which was when the main activity begun and I had to end my observations

on May 29th the latest. That left me with only a little over two months of observation

of a start-up company, which means that if I had had more time, the findings would

have been more extensive. However, I personally do not believe that the findings

would have been very different. I am of the opinion that more experience and

complexity in my findings would have made a stronger argument for my conclusions,

and overall they would have supported the conclusions already posed in this thesis.

Nevertheless, given the short lifespan of the company, these findings can be

considered as a rough outline of how ROSEFIELD has created and shaped its

community and further research would most likely confirm this claim.

The second and third limitations, resources and finances, are closely associated.

There were other tools that could have been used for the analysis of Instagram instead

of Simply Measured, but they were rather costly. However, they could have provided

me with a better analysis that I could have interpreted in my findings. Nevertheless,

considering the short lifespan of the company (and its Instagram account), I did not

consider a broader analysis as essential, when a financial charge was imposed on it.

However, when the company and its Instagram account are more mature, and when its

followers base and engagement increases, it will be necessary to use a more complex

Instagram analysis.

If any researcher were to conduct an analysis of an already existing, fully

established brand’s online community, they would have to use more complex tools,

probably subjected to charge.

5.3 Closure

There is a correlation between the online community activity and the brand’s

story, and how the brand wanted to be perceived. There is also a clear causality,

because the brand has been aiming for these results from the moment it started its

Instagram activity. The frequency in which its Instagram manager posted, the specific

content, the tone in which the manager communicated with the community – all these

steps were taken to build, shape and form the community so that it would look like it

does at present. Therefore, my conclusion is that startup companies who have yet to

build their brand names have many tools and opportunities to form their online

 57  

community (at least on Instagram) to suit or compliment their own image. An already

established company with a reputation might use these tools to reshape its online

presence, and with a strong social media marketing campaign, it could improve its

image.

6 Conclusion    

The purpose of this thesis was to answer the following research questions: How

does a new brand create, change, and engage with its online community, and what

does this imply about current notions about online community formation? How is the

online community shaped based on the brand identity? Can a brand improve its image

by using online media, and what tools can it use to achieve this goal? Which aspects

of the brand's online presence are beyond its control?

The case study centered on a Dutch startup brand called ROSEFIELD Watches,

producing and selling fashionable watches for women. The target audience as both,

customers and followers on social media, are young women. Considering Instagram is

the most important social media platform for the brand’s online presence, and because

it was a community with the highest engagement for this brand, the Instagram

community of ROSEFIELD was chosen as the scope of this research. I applied two

methods of obtaining results – participatory observation and Instagram and hashtag

analysis. My own observation reinforced by statistics from the Instagram analysis

show that the brand managed to create and shape its community into what it had

planned from the beginning. ROSEFIELD was continuously uploading flattering

pictures of its watches, to which the community reacted and the brand gave feedback.

These responses helped to establish relations with the community because members

were pleased when the brand as an authority communicated with its followers. This

back-and-forth communication made the brand appear friendly and approachable,

which improved its image online.

The most commonly used hashtags were in accordance with the brand identity

which is not a coincidence; it was caused by the brand’s reinforcement of the story of

ROSEFIELD, which associates itself with Amsterdam, New York, fashion, freedom,

liberty, and other catchwords which are all generously used when describing or

commenting on the pictures posted. On Instagram, the brand can control what pictures

 58  

it posts and what the members write in the comments. It has the authority to delete

comments it finds problematic for any reason. However, even though what other users

post about the brand is beyond its control, the brand can (and does) inspire other

members of the community to post about it in a certain way – such as posting

flattering, detailed pictures of the product. But what does all this imply about online

community formation today? Brands are not almighty in the online world, but they

can convince their community to mirror their actions without severe, or any

persuasion or effort. They can convince their community to advertise a brand’s

product, idea, technology, or whatever it is the brand wants to disseminate. Applying

a marketing strategy on social media allows one to enrich the other. Social media

influences the marketing of brands so organizations have more options for targeting

its audience. In a similar fashion, business oriented operations can improve social

media platforms, because they have the potential to create more followers and

therefore more users of the platform; organizations and brands encourage their

communities to be more active (posting pictures, commenting, using hashtags), which

is beneficial for both, the social media as well as for the brands.

 59  

7 Appendix  

7.1 Introduction This subchapter has no imagery that could be placed in the Appendix.

7.2 Theoretical Framework Figure 2.1: Google search for “social networks” part 1

 60  

Figure 2.2: Google search for “social networks” part 2

Figure 2.3: Adoption Curve (in text) Figure 2.4: Product Life Cycle and Adoption Process (in text) Figure 2.5: ROSEFIELD Watches position on its markets (in text)

7.3 Methodology Figure 3.1: Social media buttons on the top of the website

 61  

Figure 3.2: Social media buttons on the bottom of the website

Figure 3.3: Social media buttons on the product page

 62  

Figure 3.4: Instagram photo of what all packages ROSEFIELD Watches sends look like. Author: @annaantje

Figure 3.5: Instagram photo of what the inside of all packages ROSEFIELD Watches sends look like. Author: @moseleying_around

 63  

Figure 3.6: ROSEFIELD Watches: Gramercy collection

Figure 3.7: ROSEFIELD Watches: Bowery collection

 64  

Figure 3.8: ROSEFIELD Watches: Mercer collection

Figure 3.9: ROSEFIELD Watches: Nolita collection

Figure 3.10: Instagram announcement about launching the website

Figure 3.11: ROSEFIELD Watches position on its markets (in text)

 65  

Figure 3.12: List of 15 most influential Dutch fashion bloggers contacted through Ganbaroo PR PR B.V

Figure 3.13: Example of the gift package the 15 bloggers received. Posted on Instagram, author: @fashionhoax

 66  

Figure 3.14: An excerpt from the brand’s Instagram feed, representing what sort of photos does the brand share. Most of these photos are user-generated.

Figure 3.15: Settings of the Photoslurp campaign

 67  

Figure 3.16 Example of a picture that was tagged with #rosefield and that can either be approved or rejected.

Figure 3.17: Authorization of Twitter account necessary to obtain the free Instagram analysis from SimplyMeasured.com

 68  

Figure 3.18: An automatically generated tweet by SimplyMeasured.com that had to be tweeted in order to obtain the website’s free Instagram analysis

Figure 3.19: The main page of the Instagram Hashtag Explorer (https://tools.digitalmethods.net/netvizz/instagram/)

 69  

Figure 3.20 After connecting the tool with an Instagram account, it is necessary to fill out the following fields

Figure 3.21: Instagram Hashtag explorer website results – Part 1

 70  

Figure 3.22: Instagram Hashtag explorer website results – Part 2

Figure 3.23: Starting new project in Gephi

 71  

Figure 3.24: Setting the layout to Force Atlas 2 in Gephi

Figure 3.25: Setting the Modularity Class in order to differentiate between colors according to clusters in Gephi

 72  

Figure 3.26: Final settings of the layout in Gephi

7.4 Findings Figure 4.1: Language and geographical options for the website www.rosefieldwatches.com

 73  

Figure 4.2: The first user-generated photo the brand has re-posted. Author: @billieroseblog

Figure 4.3: Screen capture of a giveaway held on Instagram. Original author of the picture: ROSEFIELD Watches. Author: @_fashionismylove_

 74  

Figure 4.4: Total engagement (in text) Figure 4.5: The post with the highest engagement. Author: @claartjerose (in text) Figure 4.6: Instagram activity by time periods (in text) Figure 4.7: The Keyword Analysis (in text) Figure 4.8: Day and Time graph (in text) Figure 4.9: Top Photo Tags (in text) Figure 4.10: Two graphical results from Gephi, representing the tags in color codes based on the nodes and clusters (in text) Figure 4.11: The resulting nods and clusters from Gephi, assigned with colors

 75  

Figure 4.12: The dark blue cluster

Figure 4.13: The pink cluster

 76  

Figure 4.14: The pink cluster (1 and 2)

 77  

Figure 4.15: The purple inner circle cluster

Figure 4.16: The red cluster

 78  

Figure 4.17: The cherry red cluster (in text) Figure 4.18: The blue inner circle cluster (in text) Figure 4.19: The lime and purple clusters (in text)

7.5 Discussion This subchapter has no imagery that could be placed in the Appendix.

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