-
otru
dile M
omer be es ond. Tia hns,
tices. We show that brand trust has a full mediating role in
converting value creation practices into brand
about,er, Schu, Zhaand reGuinn,ities in
many companies to participate in such spaces (Kaplan &
Haenlein,2010).
Taking advantage of the capabilities of both brand communityand
social media, several companies are using social networking
ated in brand communities. Building on these studies plus
thebrand trust and loyalty literatures, we extend the concept of
brandcommunity to social media and nd evidence of the three
commu-nity markers in brand communities established on social
mediawebsites. Then we show how these communities create valueand
how they affect brand loyalty through brand trust.
Due to the rapid growth of social media and the motivation
ofbrand owners to participate in social media, our purpose is
toexplore whether brand communities based on social media (i.e.,a
special type of online brand communities) have positive effects
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 514 848 2424x2942; fax: +1 514
848 4576.E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M. Laroche),
m_rhabibi@jmsb.
concordia.ca (M.R. Habibi), [email protected] (M.-O. Richard),
[email protected] (R. Sankaranarayanan).
Computers in Human Behavior 28 (2012) 17551767
Contents lists available at
Computers in Hu
evi1 Tel.: +1 514 738 3520.learning customer perceptions of new
product offerings and com-petitive actions; maximizing
opportunities to attract and collabo-rate closely with highly loyal
consumers of the brand (Franke &Shah, 2003; McAlexander et al.,
2002); inuencing members eval-uations and actions (Muniz &
Schau, 2005); rapidly disseminatinginformation (Brown, Kozinets,
& Sherry, 2003; Jin, Cheung, Lee, &Chen, 2009); and most
importantly gaining a holy grail of loyalcustomers (McAlexander et
al., 2002). On the other hand, the dra-matic popularity and
inherent advantages of the vast reach, lowcost, high communication
efciency of social media are tempting
communities. Since these brand communities are becoming
moreimportant and prevalent, it is necessary for both marketers
andresearchers to have more insights about them.
Muniz and OGuinn (2001) found evidence of brand communi-ties in
both face-to-face and computer-mediated environments.Their
ethnographic study identied the presence of the threetraditional
markers of community (i.e., shared consciousness,shared rituals and
traditions, and obligations to society) withinbrand communities. In
their meta-analysis, Schau et al. (2009)identied four groups of
practices through which value is co-cre-1. Introduction
Marketers are very eager to learnbrand communities (e.g.,
McAlexandSchau, Muniz, & Arnould, 2009; Zhowhich include a
series of connectionsple who admire a brand (Muniz & Ohind such
interest in brand commun0747-5632/$ - see front matter 2012
Elsevier Ltd. Ahttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.04.016loyalty.
Implications for practice and future research opportunities are
discussed. 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
organize, and facilitateouten, & Koening, 2002;ng, Su, &
Zhou, 2011),lationships among peo-2001). The reasons be-clude the
advantages of
sites to support the creation and development of brand
communi-ties (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Muniz & OGuinn,
2001). Brandssuch as Jeep with famous ofine brand communities
(Schauet al., 2009) try to connect with their customers and enhance
theirbrand communities on such social networking sites as
MySpaceand Facebook. However, despite research on ofine brand
commu-nities, few studies deal with online brand communities, and
espe-cially the new phenomenon of social media based brandCommunity
markersBrand trust
practices (i.e., social networking, community engagement,
impressions management, and brand use).Such communities could
enhance brand loyalty through brand use and impression management
prac-The effects of social media based brand cmarkers, value
creation practices, brand
Michel Laroche , Mohammad Reza Habibi, Marie-ODepartment of
Marketing, John Molson School of Business, Concordia University,
1455 d
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:Available online 26 May 2012
Keywords:Brand communitySocial mediaBrand loyaltyValue creation
practices
a b s t r a c t
Social media based brand carticle, we explore whethcommunities)
have positivthe communities as well arespondents was
conducteestablished on social medshared rituals and traditio
journal homepage: www.elsll rights reserved.mmunities on brand
communityst and brand loyalty
e Richard 1, Ramesh Sankaranarayananaisonneuve West, Montral,
Qubec, Canada H3G 1M8
munities are communities initiated on the platform of social
media. In thisrand communities based on social media (a special
type of online brandffects on the main community elements and value
creation practices inbrand trust and brand loyalty. A survey based
empirical study with 441he results of structural equation modeling
show that brand communitiesave positive effects on community
markers (i.e., shared consciousness,and obligations to society),
which have positive effects on value creation
SciVerse ScienceDirect
man Behavior
er .com/locate /comphumbeh
-
and opinions. This denition is also supported by Rheingold(1993)
who postulates social media to be the social aggregations
mathat emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those
pub-lic discussions long enough, with sufcient human feelings, to
formwebs of personal relationships in Cyberspace.
To grasp the concept of social media two related concepts
arefundamental: Web 2.0 and User Generated Content (UGC). Web2.0
was mainly used in 2004 to describe a new method in
whichapplication programmers and end-users could utilize the
WorldWide Web. It means that Web 2.0 is a platform in which
softwareand content are not produced and published by individual
compa-nies and people, but are produced and developed by
differentparticipants in a continuous and collaborative manner. UGC
repre-sents all the ways by which users create content and use
socialmedia on the technological ground of Web 2.0. UGC,
whichachieved broad popularity in 2005, is like an umbrella term
thatcontains various forms of media content that are publicly
availableand created by end-users from text to video and audio
materials(Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Based on these denitions,
social mediacontains a broad array of Internet-based applications
but it ismostly coined with applications such as YouTube,
Wikipedia,on the main community elements and on community value
crea-tion practices, as well as on brand loyalty. Toward this goal,
werst develop a nomological network of relationships betweenbrand
community markers, value creation practices, brand trust,and brand
loyalty. Then, we test the network and hypothesesquantitatively by
estimating a structural equationmodel using sur-vey data from a
sample of social media website users who aremembers of different
brand communities on the social media web-sites. We develop and
validate new scales to measure some com-munity related constructs
such as shared consciousness, ritualsand traditions, and
obligations to society, which may be useful inconducting future
survey-based brand community studies.
The remainder of this article is structured as follows. We
beginwith a brief review of the theoretical background of important
con-cepts such as brand community and social media. Then we
developour hypotheses and model, followed by testing the hypotheses
andreporting the results. We conclude with a discussion of
managerialsignicance, theoretical and practical implications, and
limitationsand avenues for future research.
2. Theoretical background
2.1. Social media
People spend more than one third of their waking day consum-ing
social media (Lang, 2010). Facebook alone, the hallmark of so-cial
media, has over 800 million active users. The unique aspects
ofsocial media and its immense popularity have revolutionized
mar-keting practices such as advertising and promotion (Hanna,
Rohm,& Crittenden, 2011). Social media has also inuenced
consumerbehavior from information acquisition to post-purchase
behaviorsuch as dissatisfaction statements or behaviors (Mangold
& Faulds,2009) and patterns of Internet usage (Ross et al.,
2009). These dif-ferences and importance are such that researchers
are urged totreat social media as a distinct research area (Hu
& Kettinger,2008).
Social media is a group of internet based applications
thatbuilds on the ideological and technological foundations of
Web2.0, and it allows the creation and exchange of user-generated
con-tent (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p.61). It is dened as the
onlinetechnologies and practices which people use to share
knowledge
1756 M. Laroche et al. / Computers in HuFacebook, and Second
Life.Due to the advantages of social media in connecting
businesses
to end-consumers directly, in a timely manner and at a low
cost(Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010), in inuencing customer
perceptionsand behavior (Williams & Cothrell, 2000), and in
bringing togetherdifferent like-minded people (Hagel &
Armstrong, 1997; Wellman& Gulia, 1999), it has become the
center of attention in differentindustries. The much higher level
of efciency of social media com-pared to other traditional
communication channels promptedindustry leaders to state that
companies must participate in Face-book, Twitter, MySpace, and
others, in order to succeed in onlineenvironments (Kaplan &
Haenlein, 2010). Thus, more industriestry to benet from social
media as they can be used to developstrategy, accept their roles in
managing others strategy or followothers directions (Williams &
Williams, 2008).
In joining social media, people fulll their need for
belonging-ness and their need for cognition with those who have
sharednorms, values and interests (Gangadharbhatla, 2008; Tardini
&Cantoni, 2005). Feeling of being socially connected is stated
as acentral element in ones psychological sense of community
(Sarason,1974). Although it is asserted that these feelings of
belongingnesswould be weaker due to the absence of physical
co-presence andlack of proximity in such environments (Constant,
Sproull, &Kiesler, 1996; Granovetter, 1973), it has been shown
that weak tiesare capable of bridging people (Wellman, 1997) and
encouragingmembers engagement in communities to reach deep and
intimatelevels (Tardini & Cantoni, 2005). This is supported by
Rheingold(1991, p. 415) who stated: People are going to do what
people al-ways do with a new communication technology: use it in
waysnever intended or foreseen by its inventors, so turn old social
codesinside out and make new kinds of communities possible.
Basi-cally, taking advantage of the strong capabilities of social
media,people contribute, create and join communities to fulll needs
ofbelongingness, being socially connected and recognized or
simplyenjoying interactions with other like-minded members. So,
socialmedia and community are concepts that should be
exploredtogether.
2.2. Brand community
Relationship marketing, which focuses on creating andmaintaining
long term customer relationships instead of emphasiz-ing individual
transactions, was introduced as a competitive advan-tage and
strategic resource for the rm (Webster, 1992). Sincemaintaining
one-on-one relationshipswith customers is not alwaysefcient and
easy to manage, brand communities were introducedas a solution for
serving customers. Brand communities executeimportant tasks on
behalf of the brand. For instance, brand commu-nities support
sharing information, perpetuating the history andculture of the
brand, and providing assistance to consumers. Brandcommunities also
provide social structure to customermarketerrelationships and
greatly inuence customer loyalty (Muniz &OGuinn, 2001).
A brand community is a specialized, non-geographically
boundcommunity, based on a structured set of social relations
amongadmirers of a brand (Muniz & OGuinn, 2001, p. 412) and it
repre-sents a form of association embedded in the consumption
contextpositioned around one product. These communities are
composedof its member entities and their relationships and are
identied bytheir commonalities which help people share essential
resources,i.e. cognitive, emotional or material in nature. However,
the mostimportant entity shared among members of such community
hap-pens to be the creation and negotiation of meaning
(McAlexanderet al., 2002, p. 38).Many scholars studied this topic
conceptually andempirically to understand the dimensions and
factors shaping suchcommunities (e.g., Granitz & Ward, 1996;
Holt, 1995; Muniz &
n Behavior 28 (2012) 17551767OGuinn, 1996; Muniz & OGuinn,
2001).Similar to social media, consumers have their own
motivations
for joining brand communities. Brands fulll important
psychological
-
sites to support the creation of brand communities (Kaplan
&
little high talk and a lot of idle talks (Lenhart & Madden,
2007;
umaand social needs by expressing who a person is and what group
theperson aligns oneself with (Elliott & Wattanasuwan, 1998).
It isbelieved that consumers join brands communities to
identifythemselves with brands so that their social needs of being
identi-ed as persons with appropriate self-identity are met. In
theirown ways, consumers search for the symbols or signs in the
com-munities which help them decipher who they want to be and
howthey really want to be identied by others. Pierces semiotic
ele-ments constitute an iconic interrelationship where the sign
resem-bles the objects (Grayson & Martinec, 2004). Schembri,
Merrilees,and Kristiansen (2010) show that identication of this
type of in-ter-relationships is aspirational since consumers want
self-associ-ation with signs which are desirable to them. In
consuming brandssuch as Ferrari and BMW, the interpretant assumes
the symbolicmeaning as a part of self. Furthermore, brand
communities havea potential advantage of gathering customers
together and backinto conversations, which enable them to obtain
information aboutthe brand from various sources (Szmigin &
Reppel, 2001). Compa-nies also have incentives to enhance and
support brand communi-ties. Today, more rms are realizing the
advantages of online brandcommunities, which include the
opportunity for effective commu-nications with their customers and
obtaining valuable information.These communities not just provide
an additional communicationchannel, but a possibility of
establishing linkages with devotedusers (Anderson, 2005). Customers
could be a valuable source ofinformation for companies. Von Hippel
(2005) posits that alreadyexisting customers can be a rich source
of innovative ideas andthereby could lead to a chain of actions
that might produce theright product or product modications.
Companies like Dell andCisco Systems transformed suppliers and
customers into membersof their corporate communities, thereby
enabling exchanges ofinformation and knowledge. Furthermore, Schau
et al. (2009) iden-tied practices in brand communities that create
value for bothcompanies and consumers. McAlexander et al. (2002)
show thatthrough participation in brand-fests, companies are able
to manageand increase the feelings of integration into the brand
community(Jeep) and positive feelings about the brand and product
category.It has also been shown that participants derive social and
hedonicvalues which they cherish as an additional benet for their
efforts.According to gift giving theory (Sherry, 1983), customers
perceivethese social and hedonic values as a gift, without pushing
for directreciprocity, thereby a sense of indebtedness and goodwill
on theirpart would be enhanced that eventually increases their
loyalty.
The initial concepts of ofine brand communities had a
geo-graphical constraint, in that they needed customers to be
physi-cally present, and were the main backbone of
research(McAlexander et al., 2002; Muniz & OGuinn, 2001).
Today, the con-cept of brand community is tied with media. Brands
transcendgeography because media transcend geography (Muniz &
OGuinn,2001), and technology made the constraint of geography
almostirrelevant. The use of mobile phones, internet, and
television madepeople closer than ever before. The role of social
media thereforeholds the key for brands to get existing and
potential customers to-gether in order to create an environment
which nourishes the bondbetween customer and brand and to nd new
ways to foster thisrelationship, all without the constraint of
geography (Kang, Lee,Lee, & Choi, 2007). Therefore, with the
emergence of new technol-ogies, internet and social media, it is
imperative for businesses andcustomers to nd ways to exploit the
benets of both technologyand brand community. This results in
establishing online brandcommunities.
2.3. Social media based brand communities
M. Laroche et al. / Computers in HThe combination of both brand
community and social medialeads to a concept that we call social
media based brand communityRheingold, 1991). The communities that
are formed for the pur-pose of sharing information rather than for
mere commercial rea-sons exert the greatest inuence on members
opinions andpurchase intentions (Algesheimer, Dholakia, &
Herrmann, 2005).
Unlike traditional media where individuals consume
contentpassively, content is created by community members through
ac-tive participation in social media based brand communities.
Thisactive creation of content shapes the character of the
communityand also determines the inuences of users and participants
oneach other (Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2002; Werry, 1999).
Moreover,since digital environments facilitate the archiving of
past contentinexpensively, these communities come to represent an
aggrega-tion of collective expertise on individual topics, difcult
to matchelsewhere, and create a capital of knowledge, increasing
its valuefor all members. Next, we explore the effects of social
media basedbrand communities on community elements, value
creationpractices, brand trust and loyalty.
3. Development of the model and the hypotheses
3.1. Effects of social media based brand community on
communitycommunalities
Community has been a topic of debate among social scientistsand
philosophers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuryand
contemporary contributors (Dewey, 1927; Durkheim [1893]1933; Lasch,
1991). After a review of the sociology literature, Mu-niz and
OGuinn (2001) identify three core components or markersof a
community; shared consciousness of kind, shared rituals
andtraditions, and moral responsibility or obligations to
society.
3.1.1. Shared consciousness of kindFor Guseld (1978), one
important element in a community is
consciousness of kind which is the shared intrinsic
connectionfelt among community members. It is a way of thinking
that isgreater than shared attitudes or perceptions and reects a
collectivesense of difference from other members not in the same
commu-nity. Weber (1978) describes it as a shared knowing of
belonging.Muniz and OGuinn (2001) found thatmembers of a community
feltHaenlein, 2010; Muniz & OGuinn, 2001). Brands such as Jeep
withfamous ofine brand communities (Schau et al., 2009) try to
con-nect with their customers and enhance their brand communitieson
social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Thesesites
provide the user with a sense of freedom and allow them toconverse
in various languages, topics and issues, which foster anenvironment
that allows for the free ow of information. Peoplejoin them and
other such sites and use words, videos, pictures,and avatars to
stay in touch with their friends, make new friends,make plans with
them, have fun and irt with them, exchangepleasantries and argue,
engage in intellectual discourse, conductcommerce, exchange
knowledge, share emotional support, brain-storm, gossip, feud, fall
in love, nd friends, play games, create awhich is a subset of the
broader concept of virtual communitiesor online brand communities;
but the main differentiator is theirplatforms. The core platform of
social media is Web 2.00 plus UserGenerated Content.
Originally brand communities were established on the Web
1.0platform, on companies portals or initiated by customers
(Jang,Olfman, Ko, Koh, & Kim, 2008). However, with the
popularity of so-cial media websites, several companies are using
social networking
n Behavior 28 (2012) 17551767 1757a strong connection with one
another and they termed it as theysort of know each other even if
they have never met. This is thecentral facet of a brand community.
They found that through
-
ined community. Especially the role of computer mediated
face-to-face contexts. Community members reinforce culture,
his-
matory, and rituals of the community through processes of
celebra-tion of brand history, storytelling, advertising, and
sharedexperiences. Also, most virtual communities create and use
sharedconventions and language (e.g., jargon, emoticons, or
acronyms),maintain social roles, establish boundaries, enact
rituals, showcommitment to communal goals, and follow norms of
interaction.
3.1.3. Moral responsibilities/obligations to societyThis
community marker is a felt sense of duty or obligation to
the community as a whole as well as to its members (Muniz
&OGuinn, 2001). Moral responsibility has two main functions
incommunities which make it very important. First it supports
com-munity survival through reasoning and recognizing what is
rightand what is wrong in the community, which results in
integratingand retaining members. Second, moral responsibility
makes mem-bers seek out help from each other in their consumption
behaviorby disseminating information. Muniz and OGuinn (2001)
andMcAlexander et al. (2002) found that moral responsibility
mani-fested itself in their communities. Furthermore, reasoning and
dis-communications such as the World Wide Web is very
important.They also found several websites that echoed the feeling
of sharedconsciousness of kind such as made by Saaber for
anotherSaaber. . . to enjoy, and Saab Spirit, or The cult of
Macintosh.This demonstrates that members are able to identify the
signicantsocial category of Saab or Macintosh.
3.1.2. Shared rituals and traditionsThese are one of the factors
which unite the members of a com-
munity and represent vital social processes that bring and
keepthem together. This helps the meaning of the community be
trans-mitted within and beyond the community (Muniz &
OGuinn,2001). Rituals and traditions are a symbolic form of
communica-tion that, owing to the satisfaction that members of the
communityexperience through its repetition, is acted out over time
in a sys-tematic fashion. Through their special meaning and their
repetitivenature, rituals contribute signicantly to the
establishment andpreservation of a communitys collective sense of
self, which playsa role in building community identity. Rituals
stabilize this identityby clarifying expected roles, delineating
boundaries within andwithout community, and dening rules so that
members knowthat this is the way our community is (Wolin &
Bennett, 1984).The inculcation of history keeps communities vital
and their cul-ture alive. Celebrating and admiring the history of a
brand commu-nity helps distinguish between a true believer and
theopportunistic one (Muniz & OGuinn, 2001).
Muniz and OGuinn (2001) and McAlexander et al. (2002)
foundshared rituals and traditions between brand community
membersand marketers both in computer mediated environments and
inprocesses of legitimacy and oppositional brand loyalty members
ofa brand community perpetuate their consciousness of kind.
Theformer refers to the process of differentiating between the
truemembers of a community and those who are not, and the latter
re-fers to the process through which members of a brand
communityidentify what the brand is not and who the brand
communitymembers are not. These notions are also supported by
otherresearchers (Englis & Solomon, 1997; Wilk, 1996).
McAlexander et al. (2002) and Muniz and OGuinn (2001)
foundevidence of shared consciousness in brand communities.
Moreimportantly, these feelings of oneness exceed geographical
bound-aries which show that members felt belongingness to a large
imag-
1758 M. Laroche et al. / Computers in Huseminating information
are highly signicant in computermediated environments in which
capabilities of media supportsharing information.Thus, ethnographic
evidence supports that community commu-nalities are enhanced in
brand communities. We are looking forsupport that such
communalities are positively affected in brandcommunities
established on social media, and believe that themain role of
social media is to connect people and facilitate sharinginformation
and meaning. As Rheingold (1991) stated people usethe new
technology to do what they always did. Furthermore,our approach is
quantitative and different from previous ones. Sowe propose the
following hypotheses:
H1. Social media based brand community positively inuences:(a)
consciousness of kind among community members, (b) sharedrituals
and traditions, and (c) sense of moral responsibility.
3.2. Value creation practices
A new stream in the literature regards customers not as
mererecipients of the products and values of the rm but as
co-creatorsof value, competitive strategy and the rms innovation
processes(Franke & Piller, 2004; Schau et al., 2009). With a
meta-analysis,Schau et al. (2009) identied four categories of
practices throughwhich customers co-create value in brand
communities: social net-working, impression management, community
engagement, andbrand use. They assert that people in brand
communities are in-volved in such value creation practices that
work together bothto enhance the value people realize and to
promote the collectivehealth and welfare of social bodies centered
on the brands. We be-lieve that brand communities, manifested by
their three markers,positively inuence these value creation
practices. In fact, we arguethat the three community communalities
positively affect valuecreation practices especially in the context
of social media whichenhance communication, information
dissemination and the capa-bility of members to be in touch with
each other. We elaboratemore on these issues.
3.2.1. Social networking practicesThey focus on creating,
enhancing, and sustaining ties among
brand communitymembers (Schau et al., 2009).Welcoming,
empa-thizing and governing are different social networking
practices,which enhance similarities among members and homogeneity
ofbrand communities (Schau et al., 2009). We believe social
network-ing practices to be fostered by the community markers
(i.e., sharedconsciousness, rituals and traditions, and obligations
to society).Schau et al. (2009) bring exactly the same example (eld
note) forsupporting social networking practices that Muniz and
OGuinn(2001) brought for supporting shared consciousness. This
impliesthat these concepts are highly related; moreover, in our
context,social media could foster such practices as welcoming,
empathizingand governing. However, there is no empirical support
for it.
3.2.2. Community engagement practicesThese reinforce members
escalating engagement with the
brand community (Schau et al., 2009). It includes practices
suchas milestoning and documenting important events in the
brandcommunity, and evolving cohesive personal brand narratives.
Inour view, the concept of engagement goes beyond community
par-ticipation; it is the process of working collaboratively with
relevantpartners who share common goals and interests. Although
someresearchers believe that the Internet, the World Wide Web and
ingeneral the new technologies make people increasingly
detachedfrom meaningful social relationships and less likely to
engage thecommunity as they spend more time online (Davis, 2001;
Gacken-bach, 1998; Turkle, 1996), others reject this idea and say
that being
n Behavior 28 (2012) 17551767wired which they refer to being
connected online has the potentialto foster and build social
associations and encourage communitybuilding (Dertouros, 1997). In
particular the individuals who use
-
found to be more, rather than less, socially engaged (Shah,
Holbert,& Kwak, 1999). Thus we believe that communities in the
context of
ships. So if people realize the utilitarian and hedonic values
of their
umasocial media have the capability to foster engagement.
3.2.3. Impression management practicesThey are activities that
have an external, outward focus on cre-
ating favorable impressions of the brand, brand enthusiasts
andbrand community in the social university beyond the brand
com-munity (Schau et al., 2009, p. 34). It includes practices such
asevangelizing and justifying through which customers preach
thebrand, share good news about it and bring some arguments
toencourage others to use the brand. Online communities
fosterimpressionable facts about the brand through
word-of-mouthcommunications and by sharing personal experiences.
Consumersengage in these activities for altruistic nature or to
attain higherstatus (Dichter, 1966; Gatignon & Robertson,
1986), but Kozinets,de Valck, Wojinicki, and Wilner (2010) found
that these intentionsare more complex. Whatever their motivation,
members of a com-munity are involved in managing impressions
activities. We be-lieve that these activities are not only
observable in social mediacommunities, but are enhanced by the
capabilities of social media.
3.2.4. Brand use practicesThis relates to the members tendency
to help other members
with newer, improved and enhanced ways to use the focal
brand.These basically include the information given by one member
toanother with regards to customizing the product for better
applica-bility to their needs. They also relate to feelings of one
member to-wards helping or assisting other members who are
relatively newto the community. Brand use practices include
grooming, custom-izing, and commoditizing. All these activities
results in enhanceduses of the focal brand (Schau et al., 2009).
Social media could fos-ter these activities through keeping in
touch brand devotees andother members and facilitating their
information and resourcesharing. In addition to these explanations
about value creationpractices, we believe that brand community
markers directly affectvalue creation practices within the brand
community. Moreover,regarding the enabling role of social media in
fostering and facili-tating communication, information access and
networking, theembeddedness of such brand communities in social
media con-texts results in the enhancement of value creation
practices.
The stronger the feelings of shared consciousness, shared
ritualsand traditionsandobligations to society, themoremembers of a
com-munity and the company feel united, close to each other and
moti-vated which enhance collaborative value creation practices.
Forexample, ifmembers consider themselves highly obligated to
society,they are more likely to preach and evangelize the brand,
help eachother better use the branded products, or try to enhance
and sustaintheir ties, all of which are value creation practices.
It was also shownthat shared consciousness enhances interpersonal
ties in a group andincreases the willingness to share information
and resources withother members, to provide support and to commit
to goals identiedby the group (Walther, 1996;Wellman, 1999). Thus,
we hypothesizethat community markers positively affect value
creation practices inthe context of social media based brand
communities:
H2. Social networking practices are positively inuenced by the
(a)shared consciousness of kind, (b) shared rituals and traditions,
and(c) sense of moral obligations of members of the community.
H3. Community engagement practices are positively inuenced
byinternet communities to explore interests and gather data are
M. Laroche et al. / Computers in Hthe (a) shared consciousness
of kind, (b) shared rituals and tradi-tions, and (c) sense of moral
obligations of members of thecommunity.brand their trust would
increase. In brand communities andthrough value creation practices,
people develop close relation-ships and draw values from their long
term interactions, whichmakes them trust and love the brand
(Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006; Zhouet al., 2011). Based on these
arguments we hypothesize:H4. Impression management practices are
positively inuenced bythe (a) shared consciousness of kind, (b)
shared rituals and tradi-tions, and (c) sense of moral obligations
of members of thecommunity.
H5. Brand use practices are positively inuenced by the (a)
sharedconsciousness of kind, (b) shared rituals and traditions, and
(c)sense of moral obligations of members of the community.
These hypotheses are depicted in Fig. 1, which provides themodel
to be tested.
3.3. Effects of value creation practices on brand trust and
brand loyalty
Brand community researchers agree that one of the main
func-tions, if not the main one, of a brand community is to make
cus-tomers loyal to the brand (McAlexander & Schouten,
1998;McAlexander et al., 2002; Muniz & OGuinn, 2001; Schau et
al.,2009; Zhou et al., 2011). However, despite qualitative evidence
itis still unclear how the process of being more loyal happens
inbrand communities. Like researchers who refer to the power of
on-line communities as a social structure, in building and
enhancingtrust and loyalty (Ba, 2001; Walden, 2000), we argue that
socialmedia based brand communities enhance brand loyalty
throughthe enhancement of brand trust. In fact, value creation
practices af-fect brand trust through three mechanisms, enhanced by
capabili-ties of social media, and brand trust increases brand
loyalty. Thus,brand trust would have a mediating role.
Brand trust is the willingness of the average consumer to relyon
the ability of the brand to perform its stated function (Chaudh-uri
& Holbrook, 2001, p. 82). This notion is more prominent in
sit-uations of uncertainty, information asymmetry and fear
ofopportunism; thus, the role of trust is to decrease
uncertaintyand information asymmetry and make customers feel
comfortablewith their brand (Chiu, Huang, & Yen, 2010; Doney
& Cannon,1997; Gefen, Karahanna, & Straub, 2003; Moorman,
Zaltman, &Deshpande, 1992; Pavlou, Liang, & Xue, 2007). One
of the mecha-nisms for value creation practices to enhance trust is
based oninformation dissemination. In all practices, e.g.,
evangelizing, cus-tomizing, welcoming, justifying and documenting
(Schau et al.,2009), information passes among members from how to
betteruse the branded products to personal information and
storiesabout the brand. Such information sharing reduces
uncertaintyand information asymmetry, and increases predictability
of brandactions (Ba, 2001; Lewicki & Bunker, 1995).
Furthermore, the plat-form of social media facilitates the process
of information dissem-ination. In the literature, repeated
interaction and long termrelationships are introduced as keys to
building trust (Holmes,1991; Wang & Emurian, 2005). All value
creation practices increasethe level of interactions between
consumers and the product, thebrand, other customers and marketers,
all of which are elementsof a brand community (McAlexander et al.,
2002). The placelessand comprehensive nature of social media based
brand communi-ties facilitate long term, close contacts without the
loss of relation-ships that often accompanies ofine environments
(Ba, 2001).These enhanced relationships results in brand trust.
Trust also involves a calculative process (Doney &
Cannon,1997, p. 37) related to the value people receive from their
relation-
n Behavior 28 (2012) 17551767 1759H6. Social networking
practices positively inuence brand trust.
-
ocia
Bra
ects
maH8. Impression management practices positively inuence
brandtrust.H7. Community engagement practices positively inuence
brandtrust.Brand Community (on Social Media)
Shared Consciousness
Shared Rituals and Traditions
Obligation to Society
S
H1a
H1b
H1c
H2a
H5a
H3aH2b
H2c
H3b
H3c
H4b
H4c
H5b
H5c
H4a
Fig. 1. Model of the eff
1760 M. Laroche et al. / Computers in HuH9. Brand use practices
positively inuence brand trust.A great deal of research supports
the positive effect of trust on
loyalty in online or ofine contexts (Chaudhuri & Holbrook,
2001;Chiu et al., 2010; Harris & Goode, 2004; Kim, Chung, &
Lee, 2011;Zhou et al., 2011). Brand trust is one of the most
important ante-cedents of brand loyalty; however in the brand
community litera-ture there is little emphasis on this
relationship, so wehypothesize:
H10. Brand trust positively inuences brand loyalty.Fig. 1 shows
the complete model of how brand community af-
fects brand loyalty. As depicted, brand trust has a mediating
rolebetween the effects of value creation practices and brand
loyalty.
4. Method
4.1. Subjects and procedure
Since we test our model in the context of social media
basedbrand communities, the target population is all members of
brandcommunities on social networking websites. We used the
screen-ing condition that respondents had to be members of such
brandcommunities. The study was introduced as an opinion surveyand
participants were asked to list the name of the communitythey
associate themselves with; are a member of any brand com-munity or
any social networking site and to consider them whenresponding to
questions. This is important because the study aimsto investigate
the effects of such communities on members,regardless of a specic
product, brand or social media. The ques-tionnaires were
distributed through social network websites suchas Facebook,
MySpace, and Twitter. Several posts were includedin these heavy
trafc websites along with email distribution lists.This method of
data collection, which is consistent with previousonline studies
(Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006; Steenkamp & Geyskens,2006)
generated 441 valid responses (41.1% female). The age rangevaried
between 18 and 55.
l Networking
Community Engagement
Impression Management
nd Use
Brand LoyaltyBrand Trust
H6
H7
H8
H9
H10
of brand community.
n Behavior 28 (2012) 175517674.2. Measures
All constructs were measured with multiple item-scales.
Someitems were adopted from the related literature and modied to
suitthe study, and some were developed from the literature
(AppendixA). A pretest with 30 respondents was conducted to
validate theconstructs.
4.2.1. Brand communityAs we measured it in a social media
context, we rst asked
respondents to answer the items based on their experiences
withbrand communities on social networking sites of which they
aremembers. A set of six items on a 5-point Likert scale measured
thisconstruct (Srinivasan, Anderson, & Ponnavolu, 2002). Based
on thevalidity of this scale, we adopted it with some modications
to suitour context. The Cronbachs alpha is 0.72.
4.2.2. Shared consciousness, shared rituals and traditions,
andobligations to society
The scales were derived from the denitions given by Munizand
OGuinn (2001) and consisted of two items each. The itemswere tested
in a three factor conrmatory model and an acceptablet was obtained,
with Cronbachs alphas of 0.72, 0.73 and 0.75respectively. The items
were also successfully tested for discrimi-nant validity. The
average variances extracted for the scales were0.78, 0.79 and 0.65
respectively, showing convergent validity.
4.2.3. Social networkingEight 5-point Likert items measured this
construct. The scale
was developed for use with an online store (Hsieh, Chiu, &
Chiang,
-
(Algesheimer et al., 2005). The scale reliability is 0.71 and
the aver-
4.2.6. Impression management
It was measured as a three-item index based on the four item
It was derived from Delgado-Ballester, Manuera-Aleman, and
5. Results
by nonsignicant chi-squared tests, RMSEA value less than
0.08
minimum of 0.70 (Cronbach, 1970; Nunnally, 1978) and the
aver-
umaage variance extracted (AVE) which estimates the amount of
vari-ance captured by a constructs measure relative to
randommeasurement error (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). An AVE
greater than0.50 is considered to support internal consistency
(Bagozzi & Yi,and CFI values greater than or equal to 0.90.
5.1. Internal consistency
Two measures were used to evaluate the internal consistency
ofthe constructs. Reliability is identied by Cronbachs alpha with
aStructural equation modeling with the AMOS graphical soft-ware
program was used to test the model and hypotheses shownin Fig. 1.
The goodness-of-t of the overall model was assessedwith the
chi-square test, the root mean square error of approxima-tion
(RMSEA), and the comparative t index (CFI) (Bentler, 1990;Marsh,
Balla, & Hau, 1996). Satisfactory model ts are
indicatedYague-Guillen (2003). The three items are measured on a
5-pointLikert scale characterized by a reliability of 0.84 and an
averagevariance extracted of 0.57.index originally developed by
Chaudhuri and Holbrook (2001)using a 5-point rating of agreement
with three statements: I trustmy brand to give me everything I
expect out of it, I rely on thisbrand, and My brand never
disappoints me. The Cronbachs al-pha for this index is 0.71.
4.2.8. Brand loyaltyIt is derived from the denition given by
Schau et al. (2009). Thescale consists of three 5-point Likert
items. The average varianceextracted is 0.63 and the Cronbachs
alpha is 0.71.
4.2.7. Brand trustage variance extracted is 0.64.
4.2.5. Brand useThree 5-point Likert-type statements measured
the degree to
which a member of a community gets useful information aboutthe
brands use. The items were constructed from the denitionof brand
use practices given by Schau et al. (2009). The averagevariance
extracted is 0.61 and the Cronbachs alpha is 0.70.2005). However,
since the scale measures the same construct as inthe original
study, it was used with a slight modication. The scalehas a
reliability of 0.78. Further analyses provided evidence of
con-vergent validity. The average variance extracted is 0.65.
4.2.4. Community engagementFour 5-point Likert items measured
this construct. The items
measured the degree to which a person is involved with a
commu-nity of brand users due to intrinsic benets of the
activity
M. Laroche et al. / Computers in H1988). All AVEs are greater
than 0.50. Table 1 also shows descrip-tive statistics for the
constructs and their reliability measureswhich are all above
0.70.5.2. Unidimensionality
The evaluation of unidimensionality of the proposed scales
wasassessed by performing exploratory factor analysis (EFA).
Factorswere extracted based on eigenvalues greater than 1. In
additionthey were required to have a signicant factor loading
greater than0.4 and a high total variance explained component.
Based on theresults only one factor was extracted for shared
consciousness, rit-uals and traditions, obligations to society,
impression manage-ment, community engagement, brand use, brand
loyalty, brandtrust, social networking and online brand communities
constructs.
A total of 10 constructs were formed based on their
eigenvalues.Bartletts test of Sphericity and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin
(KMO) mea-sure of sampling adequacy are provided in Table 2.
Bartletts Testof Sphericity determines whether there is a high
enough degreeof correlation among the variables. Table 2 shows that
the test issignicant (p < .001). The KMO stat as indicated Table
2 is 0.85which is greater than the minimum of 0.5 indicating a good
degreeof correlation. Hence the test reveals a meaningful factor
analysisand principal component analysis can be carried out. The
total var-iance explained by the 10 factors is 66.8%.
In the EFA, we found that the items The community allows di-rect
user input or posting to site (ob1), The brand communitykeeps in
touch with me with notications (sn1), The communityprovides with me
product information (sn4), I share my opinionson the community
(sn8) and I benet from following the com-munitys rules (ce1) did
not have high enough loadings on theirrespective factors. Hence
they were eliminated from furtheranalysis.
5.3. CFA results
Next we conducted conrmatory factor analysis (CFA). Poor fac-tor
loadings were found for two items of brand community mea-sures (ob2
with loading .05, and ob3 with loading 0.12, both areless than 0.4)
so we dropped them out and run the model again.We found good t
indices for the CFA model including all latentvariables assuming
they are correlated (further analysis shows thisis a true
assumption since correlations among all variables are sig-nicantly
greater than zero; Table 3); v2 = 478.0, p = .000,RMSEA = 0.032,
CFI = 0.97, GFI = 0.93, RMR = 0.024. Except thechi-square which is
sensitive to sample size and not a good indica-tor, all other
statistics show a good t for the CFA model (Bagozzi &Yi, 1988).
Table 3 shows factor loadings and R2 for each item (seeAppendix A
for the items).
5.4. Discriminant validity
Discriminant validity is achieved when the correlations be-tween
the constructs differ signicantly from 1 or when
chi-squaredifference tests indicate that two constructs are not
perfectly cor-related. As a test of discriminant validity, the
correlations amongthe latent variables were checked to determine if
they are signi-cantly different from 1. Table 4 shows the result
for the discrimi-nant validity, conrming the validity of all
constructs.
5.5. Convergent validity
Referring to the CFA model, since all the factor loadings
areabove 0.5, convergent validity is supported (Steenkamp &
Geys-kens, 2006).
5.6. Structural model estimation
n Behavior 28 (2012) 17551767 1761With respect to the t
statistics for the full model(v2(347) = 572.8, v2/df = 1.65, p =
0.000), the chi-square is
-
7.91 2.24 0.715.91 1.75 0.71
maTable 1Means, standard deviations, reliability statistics for
construct measures.
Constructs No. of items
Social media brand community 6Social networking 8Community
engagement 4Impression management 3
1762 M. Laroche et al. / Computers in Husignicant (p < 0.05),
which is usually the case for large samplesizes, and the v2/df is
less than 2. All other statistics are withinacceptable ranges
including RMSEA = 0.038, CFI = .95, GFI = 0.92,IFI = 0.95, RMR =
0.028 (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988).
We found strong support for the effects of social media
basedbrand community on the three markers of community, i.e.,
sharedconsciousness, shared rituals and traditions, and obligations
tosociety. The b values are respectively: 1.27, 1.30, and 1.05. All
ofthese relationships are signicant at the 0.001 level,
providing
Brand use practices 3Shared consciousness 2Obligations to
society 2Rituals and traditions 2Brand loyalty 3Brand trust 3
Table 2KMO and Bartletts test.
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkinmeasure of sampling adequacy
.849
Bartletts test of sphericity Approx. chi-square 2580.26df
630Sig. .000
Table 3Factor loadings and R-square of the items in CFA.
Construct Item Factor loading R-square
Brand community Ob4 0.491 0.241Ob5 0.657 0.431Ob6 0.724
0.525
Social networking Sn2 0.643 0.413Sn3 0.688 0.473Sn5 0.629
0.396Sn6 0.572 0.327Sn7 0.613 0375
Community engagement Ce2 0.531 0.282Ce3 0.653 0.426Ce4 0.709
0.502
Shared consciousness Sc1 0.750 0.562Sc2 0.751 0.563
Impression management Im1 0.640 0.410Im2 0.696 0.485Im3 0.676
0.457
Brand trust Bt1 0.631 0.398Bt2 0.569 0.323Bt3 0.560 0.314
Loyalty L1 0.797 0.636L2 0.854 0.730L3 0.803 0.645
Obligations to society Obsoc1 0.744 0.553Obsoc2 0.757 0.573
Rituals and traditions Tt1 0.806 0.649Tt2 0.715 0.511
Brand use Bu1 0.602 0.363Bu2 0.637 0.405Bu3 0.739 0.545
Note: See Appendix A for the items.support for H1a, H1b and H1c.
Fig. 2 summarizes these and otherresults.
Shared consciousness has a signicant effect on social
network-ing practices (b = 0.29, p < .01) supporting H2a. It has
a positive,signicant effect on community engagement and brand use
prac-tices at p < .05 level, with b = 0.21 and b = 0.14,
respectively, whichsupport H3a and H5a. However, the effect of
shared consciousnesson impressions management (H4a) is not
supported b = 0.07,p = 0.36.
The effects of shared rituals and traditions on value
creationpractices were hypothesized in H2b, H3b, H4b and H5b. We
foundsupport for all these hypotheses at p < 0.01. The effects
of sharedrituals and traditions are positive and signicant on:
social net-working (b = 0.33), community engagement (b = 0.37),
impressionsmanagement (b = 0.33), and brand use practices (b =
0.26).
As expected, obligations to society has signicant positive
inu-ences on all the four constructs of value creation practices
(socialnetworking, community engagement, brand use practices,
andimpressions management) in support of H2c, H3c, H4c and H5cwith
signicance levels of p < 0.001, and b values of 0.40, 0.47,0.43
and 0.39 respectively.
The effects of value creation practices on brand trust
werehypothesized in H6 to H9. The effects of social networking
andcommunity engagement practices on brand trust (H6 and H7) arenot
supported with bs (p-values) respectively: 0.06 (0.65), and0.12
(0.28). However, the effect of impression management onbrand trust
(H8) is signicant at p < 0.001 with b = 0.31. The effectof brand
use practices on brand trust (H9) is signicant (b = 0.29,p <
.05). As predicted by H10, the effect of brand trust on brand
loy-alty is signicant and positive (b = .86, p < .001).
The ndings show that brand trust fully mediates the effect
ofbrand use and impressions management practices on brand loy-alty.
To conrm that brand trust fully mediates these effects wetested
another model with brand trust as a partial mediator. Weadded
direct relationships from the four value creation practices
5.95 1.72 0.703.96 1.34 0.723.84 1.16 0.753.95 1.55 0.736.73
2.72 0.865.34 1.70 0.71Mean Standard deviation Cronbachs a
10.83 2.76 0.7215.8 4.08 0.78
n Behavior 28 (2012) 17551767to brand loyalty in the current
model (Fig. 3).We tested this model, but none of the new
relationships were
signicant and the model t did not improve (v2 = 570.4,df = 343,
RMSEA = 0.039, CFI = 0.95, GFI = 0.92, IFI = 0.95). This im-plies
that brand trust fully mediates the effects of the two
valuecreation practices, i.e., brand use and impressions
management,on brand loyalty.
6. Discussion and implications
This study looked at the fast growing phenomenon of
brandcommunities established on social media. Drawing on the
litera-ture on brand community, we proposed a model of the effects
ofbrand community on shared community markers, value
creationpractices and the way they convert to brand loyalty through
brandtrust. Using SEM we found support for the model and most of
our
-
B =
umaTable 4Correlation matrix.
SC OBSOC TT OB
SCOBSOC .419
TT .388 .430
OB .465 .481 .454
SN .538 .640 .589 .635
CE .488 .584 .540 .554
BU .424 .499 .430 .501
IM .377 .484 .473 .456
LL .339 .273 .424 .266
BT .393 .471 .453 .456
Notes: All coefcients are signicant at p < 0.01.SC = shared
consciousness, OBSOC = obligation to society, TT: rituals and
traditions, Ouse, IM = impressions management, LL = brand loyalty,
BT = brand trust.
M. Laroche et al. / Computers in Hhypotheses. We found that
brand communities established onsocial media enhance feelings of
community among membersand contribute to creating value for both
members and the com-pany. Furthermore, the model shows how brand
loyalty is in-creased in brand communities. The whole model shows
thatvalue creation practices enhance loyalty through brand trust as
amediator.
Contrary to expectations, only two of the four value
creationpractices (brand use and impressions management) contribute
tobrand trust. There is one possible explanation for this nding.
AsSchau et al. (2009, p. 37) argue, Practices operate like
apprentice-ship, which means that their effects evolve over time as
con-sumer engagement deepens and practices are integrated. Thus,it
is possible that the effects of practices in social media
basedbrand communities may not have evolved enough to
signicantlyaffect brand loyalty. This makes sense because the
concept andprevalence of social media is new and its effects are
emerging astime goes on and more people engage in the activities of
socialmedia. This difference might be due to the difference in the
natureof practices as well. For example the effects of brand use
practices,
Brand Community (on Social Media)
Shared Consciousness
Shared Rituals and Traditions
Obligation to Society
Soci
1.27 **(.163)
1.3**(.173)
1.045**(.142)
.292**(.063)
.140*(.065)
.210*(.08)
.325**(.061)
.400**(.071)
.366**(.079)
.472**(.092).325**
(.074)
.425**(.087) .264**
(.066)
.389**(.079)
Fig. 2. Estimated model. p < .001, p < .05. Note:
Unstandardized coefcients are used anSN CE BU IM LL
.644
.564 .554
.540 .540 .530
.317 .299 .412 .378
.463 .468 .471 .485 .467
brand community, SN = social networking, CE = community
engagement, BU = brand
n Behavior 28 (2012) 17551767 1763which mainly are about better
consumption of the focal brand, aremore immediate than social
networking practices that need moretime to develop.
The effect of shared consciousness on impressions
management(H4a) was not signicant as well. This has two possible
explana-tions. First, it is possible that merely having a shared
consciousnessor feeling of a community does not lead to actively
preaching andevangelizing the community and its ethos. For doing
so, consumersneed to have more incentives and be more obligated to
society. Asour results show, feelings of obligations to society
have signicantand strong effects on impressions management. This
makes moresense considering the fact that having a large number of
brandcommunity members in social media weakens the ties amongusers.
Second, Muniz and OGuinns (2001) legitimacy, an elementof shared
consciousness, exists for some brand communities butnot for others.
For example, they did not nd evidence of legiti-macy for the
Macintosh community. Since we aggregated datafrom different
communities, it is possible that existence and non-existence of
such elements in different communities neutralizedeach others
effects so that we do not have large enough effect sizes
al Networking
Community Engagement
Impression Management
Brand Use
Brand LoyaltyBrand Trust
.313**(.083)
.290*(.114)
.858**(.129)
d standard errors are in parentheses; dashed arrows represent
nonsignicant paths.
-
Netw
and U
and
mato reach signicance. Focusing on specic brand communitiesbased
on social media will address this issue, which is an avenuefor
future research.
Our study contributes to existing brand community knowledge
Brand Community (on Social Media)
Shared Consciousness
Shared Rituals and Traditions
Obligation to Society
Social
Br
.119 **(.001)
.495**(.094)
.072**(.008)
2.021**(.434)
1.170*(.508)
.754*(.806)
.584**(.001)
3.584**(.587)
.896**(.227)
6.53**(.319).755**(.171)
5.83**(.978)
.528**(.129)
4.170.**(.743)
Fig. 3. The model with brand trust as partial mediator. p <
.001, p < .05. Note: Unstrepresent nonsignicant paths.
1764 M. Laroche et al. / Computers in Huin several ways and has
theoretical implications. First, we extendedthe concept of brand
community to social media and created moreinsights on this
important phenomenon. Recently, the uniquenessof social media has
been acknowledged by researchers as a distinctresearch domain
(e.g., Hu & Kettinger, 2008), so our study providesmore
insights into this domain. Second, we developed a nomolog-ical
network that shows how a community affects communitymarkers,
practices, brand trust and brand loyalty; then we testedit in the
context of social media. Although, previous researchersshowed
qualitatively the existence of such effects in brand com-munities
(McAlexander et al., 2002; Muniz & OGuinn, 2001), wemodeled
these effects in online environments, and tested the mod-el
quantitatively. Our ndings explicitly show how practices
couldaffect brand loyalty as well as their relative weights. For
example,we show that brand communities affect loyalty through brand
usepractices. However, in interpreting the results we should be
cau-tious because of the apprenticeship effects of such practices.
Third,we created new scales to measure some of the constructs
whichcould be used by other researchers.
Thisworkhas important practical implications formanagers.
Thevast reach, low cost and popularity of socialmedia are prompting
allbrand managers to take advantage of such characteristics, so
thatthey, almost blindly, want to be on social media. Our ndings
helpthem havemore insights into this process. First, it shows that
brandcommunities based on social media have the same advantages
andbenets as ofine brand communities. They positively inuencethe
shared consciousness, shared rituals and obligations to societyof
community members. Furthermore, they result in enhancing va-lue
creation practices. Second, our ndings show that if managerswish to
enhance brand loyalty, they have to promote brand useand
impressionsmanagementpractices in their brand communities.Brand use
practices refer to disseminating information or otheractivities
that help members more optimally use their brandedproduct;
impressions management involves practices that manageexternal
impressions and images of the brand (Schau et al., 2009).Obviously
these activities couldbepromotedeasilywith socialmed-
orking
Community Engagement
Impression Management
se
Brand Loyalty
Brand Trust
.134**(.081)
.200*(.084)
.669*(.310)
ardized coefcients are used and standard errors are in
parentheses; dashed arrows
n Behavior 28 (2012) 17551767ia capabilities of sharing
information and connecting people. An-other important observation
from the model is the relativeimportance of obligations to society.
The path coefcients fromobli-gations to society to value
creationpractices are larger than the coef-cients of other paths.
This implies that marketers could enhancevalue in communities by
emphasizing obligations and commitmentto society. Themoremembers
feel committed and obligated to soci-ety the more they would get
involved in practices that create valuefor the community.
7. Limitations and future research
Despite these contributions, we acknowledge the limitations
ofthis research and accordingly propose new avenues for
research.First, we showed that brand communities based on social
mediacan enhance feelings of community and value creation
practices.Regarding our goals, we mainly concentrated on general
notionsand concepts in the brand community and social media
literatures.However, in the future researchers may consider more
variablesand factors to produce deeper insights. For example,
potentialmoderators and mediators such as brand type, culture,
structureand type of communities as well as the differences in
social mediaplatforms functionality and features (Kietzmann,
Hermkens,McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011) could be
investigated.
However, it should be noted that brand communities based
onsocial media might not be easy to manage. In this
environment,customers are more powerful than before. They easily
can interact,speak and broadcast their ideas to each other while
companieswould have increasingly less ability to manage the
informationavailable about them in the new space (Kaplan &
Haenlein, 2010).In addition, consumers may get involved in online
complaints withforming protest websites or weblogs if they are
dissatised, or
-
up w W sde -ti h u .Ac d hco q -m i
e -ic b i em o e rtime (Schau et al., 2009 -fe h -na u r eco
r
8. Conclusion
t -ties established on the p gel n tan r b -ne n o ssh d ll
consciousness
4 Rituals and
society
9 Brand loyalty
Humaestablished notions and theories in the social media
contexts. Tosum up briey, from our ndings it seems appropriate to
echothe optimism of brand community researchers such as
McAlexan-der et al. (2002), Muniz and OGuinn (2001) and Algesheimer
et al.(2005) and to suggest that social media based brand
communitiesoffer brand owners the ability to enhance value, brand
trust, brandloyalty and feelings of community among members.
Marketersmay do well to take advantage of the opportunities that
such brandcommunities present.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the nancial support of
theSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Appendix A. Summary of measures
1 Brandcommunity
Ob1 The community allows directuser input or posting to siteOb2
Customers share experiencesabout products online with
othercustomersOb3 The community is useful forgathering various
information about theproduct or the brandOb4 The members of this
communitybenet from the communityOb5 The members share a commonbond
with other members of thecommunity.Ob6 The members are
stronglyafliated with other members
2 Socialnetworking
Sn1 The brand community keeps intouch with me with
noticationsSn2 At least some of members of mycommunity know meSn3 I
received special treatment after Ibecame a memberSn4 The community
provides with mess aouland loyalty. Wed rapid growthpay special
attenelieve that due to the importance, uniquef social media,
marketers and researchertion to this phenomenon and examine weemed
bts and practicesmonstrated the effects of brand communilatform of
social media on the underlyinin communities as well as on brand
trusIn his article, we demmunity and compa
esearchers to follow the changes in the the results at different
times.cts al stct over time anddies to enablects of value creation
practices evolve ove); however; we do not know how these efow they
develop. So we suggest longitudis ofentirand communitned that the
effue for research is to investigate the dynames based on social
media. For example, wunitOnuences and introes in such
envirointeresting avenduce effective techniques to manage
comnments.cornseingly, more rese
tious about their potential consequencesarch is needed to study
and analyze succidees, tto establish or eney should be caard &
Ostrom, 2006). Thus, as businessehance online social media based
communiset ith the brand (M. Laroche et al. / Computers inproduct
informationsome other storeL3 I am willing to pay more for
mybrandL2 If the brand is not available at thestore I would buy the
same brand fromdeemed to help community building.L1 I consider
myself to be loyal to thebrandBu3 Members of my communitymonitor
and foster the activitiesand unsuccessful attempts atcustomization
of the productproduct or brandBu2 Members of my community
sharetheir experiences about their successfulBrand use Bu1 Members
of my community shareuseful tips about better uses of the8Im3
Members actively defend/refutethe actions of the
companysmanagementIm2 Members actively engage indiscussions in
order to justify theirreasons for their afnity towards
thebranddiscussions related to company, brandor the product7
Impressionmanagementable to reach personal goalsIm1 Community
encouragesable to support other membersCe4 I am motivated to
participate inthe communitys activities because I amafterwards or
because I like itCe3 I am motivated to participate inthe communitys
activities because I amcommunitys rules.Ce2 I am motivated to
participate inthe activities because I feel good6
CommunityengagementObsoc2 The community engages inintegrating and
retaining members.Ce1- I benet from following theObcoc1 The members
of thecommunity assist/advice othermembers of the same community in
theproper use of the brand5 Obligations toTt2 I think these
traditions contributetowards a specic culture of
thecommunitytraditionsyour communityTt1 I recollect vital social
traditions orrituals specic to the brand communitySc1 An intrinsic
connection is feltamong the membersSc2 A general sense of
differenceexists from members who are NOT in3 Sharedgreetings.Sn8 I
share my opinions on thecommunitySn7 The community
recognizesspecial occasions and sends memy needs.Sn6 The community
collects myopinions about the services/productSn5- The community is
concerned withn Behavior 28 (2012) 17551767 1765(continued on next
page)
-
Franke, N., & Shah, S. K. (2003). How communities support
innovative activities: An
Gangadharbhatla, H. (2008). Facebook me: Collective self-esteem,
need to belongd
i oGa al
sGe D r :
iGr
Gr
mafen,Ananitz,Adva
anove136., Karahanna, E., & Stntegrated model. MIS
N. A., & Ward, J. C. (1nces in Consumer Restter, M. (1973).
The s01380.in Consumer Research, 13, 534538.aub, D. W. (2003).
Trust and TAM in online shoppingQuarterly, 27, 5190.tignocomn, H.,
& Robertson, T.munication. AdvanceS. (1986). An exchange theory
model of interpersonandsocinternet self-efcacyal networking sites.
Jas predictors of the I-generations attitudes towarurnal of
Interactive Advertising, 8(2), 515.exploration of assistance and
sharing among end-users. Research Policy, 32,157178.
Gackenbach, J. (1998). Psychology and internet: Interpersonal,
intrapersonal andtranspersonal implications. San Diego: Academic
Press.10 Brand trust BT1- My brand gives me everything thatI expect
out of the productBT2 I rely on my brandBT3- My brand never
disappoints me
Note: All responses are based on 5-point Likert scales anchored
by: 1 = Totallydisagree and 5 = Totally agree.
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17551767 1767
The effects of social media based brand communities on brand
community markers, value creation practices, brand trust and brand
loyalty1 Introduction2 Theoretical background2.1 Social media2.2
Brand community2.3 Social media based brand communities
3 Development of the model and the hypotheses3.1 Effects of
social media based brand community on community communalities3.1.1
Shared consciousness of kind3.1.2 Shared rituals and
traditions3.1.3 Moral responsibilities/obligations to society
3.2 Value creation practices3.2.1 Social networking
practices3.2.2 Community engagement practices3.2.3 Impression
management practices3.2.4 Brand use practices
3.3 Effects of value creation practices on brand trust and brand
loyalty
4 Method4.1 Subjects and procedure4.2 Measures4.2.1 Brand
community4.2.2 Shared consciousness, shared rituals and traditions,
and obligations to society4.2.3 Social networking4.2.4 Community
engagement4.2.5 Brand use4.2.6 Impression management4.2.7 Brand
trust4.2.8 Brand loyalty
5 Results5.1 Internal consistency5.2 Unidimensionality5.3 CFA
results5.4 Discriminant validity5.5 Convergent validity5.6
Structural model estimation
6 Discussion and implications7 Limitations and future research8
ConclusionAcknowledgementsAppendix A Summary of
measuresReferences