Brands as Friends : An Investigation into Consumers’ Motivations to form Relationships with Brands in Online Social Networks

Title data

Gimpel, Henner ; Graf-Drasch, Valerie ; Semmler, Jakob:
Brands as Friends : An Investigation into Consumers’ Motivations to form Relationships with Brands in Online Social Networks.
2016
Event: 78. Wissenschaftliche Jahrestagung des VHB , 18. bis 20. Mai 2016 , München, Germany.
(Conference item: Conference , Paper )

Official URL:

Abstract in another language

Digitization and associated technologies change the way businesses and customers interact. This change also affects the respective relationships between both parties by enabling interaction within communities – i.e., brand communities – in Online Social Networks, such as Facebook or Twitter. While research on customers’ motivations for brand community participation is mature in offline and digital contexts, this study addresses the differences originating from the contextual change. We develop and validate a theoretical model for participation in brand communities as a specification of general communities. Further, we compare the model’s factors in the digital and offline context. With a series of survey-based empirical studies, we find that digitization does not radically change the customer brand interaction. However, digitization increases the relevance of particular factors (five out of nine factors) motivating customers to participate in brand communities, indicating that digitization shifts the focus of customer brand interaction.

Further data

Item Type:	Conference item (Paper)
Refereed:	Yes
Keywords:	Online Communities; Brand Communities; Online Social Networks; Customer Brand Interaction; Factor Analysis
Institutions of the University:	Faculties > Faculty of Law, Business and Economics > Department of Business Administration Research Institutions Research Institutions > Affiliated Institutes Research Institutions > Affiliated Institutes > Fraunhofer Project Group Business and Information Systems Engineering Research Institutions > Affiliated Institutes > FIM Research Center Finance & Information Management Faculties Faculties > Faculty of Law, Business and Economics
Result of work at the UBT:	No
DDC Subjects:	000 Computer Science, information, general works > 004 Computer science 300 Social sciences > 330 Economics
Date Deposited:	26 Sep 2019 07:40
Last Modified:	26 Sep 2019 07:40
URI:	https://eref.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/52440