Social media is an important part of today's society and Facebook has become a place where more and more companies are being seen. With this, Facebook Brand Communities (BC) has become more common and a part of this phenomenon means that members use of electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) has become important for the consumers and also for the company. In this paper, we investigate how and why eWOM are being used on Fredagspoddens vänner, a BC on Facebook that can be connected to several brands, such as Daisy Grace and Perfect Day Media, and that today has over 10 000 members. The investigation is based on the eight factors for motivating eWOM among users that Hennig-Yhuraus et al. (2004) describes in their article. These are: platform assistance, ventilating negative feelings, concern for other users, positive self-improvement, social benefits, economic driving force, helping the company and seeking advice. Theories on posters and lurkers are also being used, as user behavior is shown to depend on the type of user being investigated. In order to answer the question, a case study has been conducted containing three methods: observation, questionnaire and interview. Respondents for all methods have been members of the community. The result shows that members of the community can not only be divided into user groups of posters and lurkers, but that another user group, likers, are required to define the members that are somewhere between these two completely different user groups. It also emerged that connection between members is important for the members of the community and that eWOM is commonplace, both in terms of negative and positive parts of the community.

L’avènement des communautés virtuelles de marque (VBC) bouleverse les relations avec les consommateurs et pousse les annonceurs à adopter une véritable Orientation Clients. Or, la littérature a mis en exergue certains avantages induits sans pour autant offrir une analyse holistique des bénéfices et impacts des plateformes d’engagement communautaires. Tel est donc l’objet de cette recherche qui tente d’apporter une première modélisation des bénéfices qualitatifs et quantitatifs des VBC. Le cadre théorique de notre recherche s’inscrit dans celui des théories relationnelles et de l’engagement des consommateurs. L’exploration conceptuelle de la littérature nous a permis de mieux appréhender les enjeux des VBC pour le champ du comportement du consommateur et le management du Marketing, avant de dresser une typologie des bénéfices induits. Aussi, compte tenu du faible nombre de VBC et de l’aspect stratégique de notre problématique, nous avons opté pour des entretiens semi-directifs avec des experts ou Dirigeants Marketing. Cette recherche hypothético-déductive nous a permis de mettre en lumière des catégories de bénéfices, avec notamment les impacts sur la Connaissance Clients, la Relation Clients, l’innovation participative, le crowd sourcing ou encore la gouvernance et le management. La phase exploratoire a validé les propositions de recherche avec des nuances récurrentes, notamment pour ce qui est de la représentativité relative des membres. Les principaux apports de cette recherche sont la mise en avant des facteurs d’optimisation de l’engagement des membres au sein des VBC, ainsi que l’impact sur le retour sur investissement. Ce travail ouvre de nouvelles perspectives de recherche du fait de son aspect pluridisciplinaire et des enjeux pour le management du Marketing, de la Relation Clients et des marques. / The advent of Virtual Brand Communities (VBC) is changing customer relationships and pushing advertisers to adopt a true Customer Driven Strategy. The literature has highlighted some of the benefits that have been gained, without providing a holistic analysis of the benefits and impacts of community engagement platforms. It is therefore the object of this research that attempts to provide a first modelization of the qualitative and quantitative benefits of VBC. The theoretical framework of our research is in line with relational theories and consumer engagement. The conceptual exploration of literature allowed us to better understand the stakes of the VBCs for the field of consumer behavior and marketing management, before drawing up a typology of the profits induced. Also, given the low number of VBCs and the strategic aspect of our research, we have opted for semi-directive interviews with experts or marketing executives. This hypothetico deductive research has allowed us to highlight families of benefits, with impacts on Customer Knowledge, Customer Relationship, participative innovation, crowd sourcing, governance and management. The exploratory phase validated the research proposals with recurring nuances, in particular with regard to the relative representativeness of the members. The main contributions of this research are the optimization of the factors of member’s engagement within the VBC, as well as the impact on the return on investment. This work opens new research perspectives, because of its multidisciplinary aspect and the stakes for Marketing management, Customer Relations and brands.

Bakgrund: I dagens samhälle ligger inte fokus bara på den fysiska produkten utan även på konsumentbeteendet och värdet av ett varumärke. Varumärken bär på symboliska värden som konsumenter använder sig av för att identifiera sig själva och skapa gemenskaper, även kallat Brand communities. Idag påverkas konsumenter mindre av reklam och produktplaceringar och marknadsförare arbetar därför ständigt med  att tolka konsumenter och vad som motiverar deras konsumentbeteende. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka vilka bakomliggande faktorer som motiverar konsumenter till att välja en smartphone. Frågeställningar: Vilka faktorer är motiverande för kunden när de väljer att köpa en smartphone? Vilken av dessa faktorer är dominerande för kunden? Hur påverkar den dominerande faktorn konsumenten? Metod: Studien baseras på en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi. Uppsatsens metodologiska ansatser utgör ett förhållande mellan teori och praktik och fortsättningsvis har forskningsstrategin utgått från en deduktiv ansats. Studien har tillämpat källtriangulering via två fokusgruppsintervjuer med åtta personer och kompletterats med tre telefonintervjuer med tre olika försäljare. Slutsats: Slutsatsen visar att samtliga kulturella, sociala och psykologiska faktorer motiverar konsumenter till att välja en smartphone, dock är den främsta påverkande faktorn konsumentens vänner som tillhör kategorin för de sociala faktorerna. Konsumentens vänner introducerar konsumenten för nya produkter, varumärken och trender. Tillhörande de sociala faktorerna finner vi även status och roller. Smartphones associeras med vissa värden såsom exklusivitet och kan bli ett hjälpmedel för att att uppnå en viss status eller leva upp till en viss roll. Detta skapar sedan preferenser och associationer hos konsumenten som driver den till att välja en smartphone. / Background: In today's society, not only is the focus on the physical product but also on the behavior of the consumer and the value of a brand. Brands carry symbolic values ​​that consumers use to identify themselves and create communities, also known as Brand communities. Today, consumers are less affected by advertising and product placements and as a result, marketers are constantly working to interpret consumers and what motivates the consumer behavior. Purpose: The aim of the study is to investigate the underlying factors which motivate consumers to choose a smartphone. Issues: What factors motivate the customer when they choose to buy a smartphone? Which of these factors are dominant for the customer? How does the dominant factor affect the consumer? Method: The study is based on a qualitative research strategy. The methodological approaches of the study constitutes a relationship between theory and practice and, as a consequence, the deductive approach has been selected. The study has applied source triangulation through two interviews with a focus group consisting of eight people and supplemented with three telephone interviews with different sales representatives. Conclusions: The conclusion shows that all cultural, social and psychological factors motivate consumers to choose a smartphone. However, the main influencing factor is consumers friends who belong to the category of social factors. Consumer friends introduce the consumer for new products, brands and trends. Among the social factors we also find status and roles. The smartphone is associated with certain values ​​as exclusivity and can be a tool for achieving a certain status or living up to a certain role. This then creates preferences and associations of the consumer that drives it to choose a smartphone.

There has been much enthusiasm over the power of online brand communities (OBCs). Ensuring that OBCs achieve their potential, however, is a challenge. Adopting the view that an OBC is a social entity at its core, this study examines consumers’ perceptions of OBCs and how consumers manage the continuous tension between social-related and brand-related aspects of OBCs through brand-related and non-brand-related social practices. The researcher took a symbolic interactionist approach and qualitative data were collected using ethnography and in-depth interviews from OBC participants in South Korea. The study was divided into two phases: the exploratory phase and the main study. In the first stage the researcher inspected OBCs and focused on understanding the social context by investigating four OBCs in the fashion and digital camera categories. Evidence of an OBC as a virtual third place (VTP) in the consumer’s mind was revealed. A typology was developed and social practices were revealed and defined. In the main study the researcher developed the framework of brand meaning negotiation and revealed how consumers symbolically interact and negotiate brand meaning through social practices. The tension between social-related and the brand-related aspects during this process was illustrated. The key contributions of this research are as follows. Firstly, the study reveals that an OBC has a strong VTP quality, whereby consumers hate to leave. Second, the study extends our understanding of an OBC by categorising consumers’ different perceptions of OBCs according to their attachment to the brand, the OBC and other participants. Third, the study reveals underlying social practices within OBCs that show the characteristics of a collectivistic culture. The study also fills the research gap by examining the brand meaning negotiation process and suggesting a framework that shows how underlying practices link brand and social-related aspects of an OBC together, which was formerly a “black box”. Lastly, it demonstrates that social bonds, regardless of their importance for making an OBC thrive, can be a double-edged sword and should be balanced carefully with brand-related practice.

With the rise of the Internet and the emergence of social media, conditions of communication for both companies and the public have changed. Today, the audience is a co-creator of content and is an active participant, and through platforms such as Instagram, there is now a space where the audience and companies meet. It has developed new features and changed the structure of a so called brand community , which is about how people gather around a shared interest of a brand. Based on this, we intend to investigate how the company NOCCO's communicative activities on Instagram involve consumers and what motivates them to participate. The study will answer the research questions through three focus group interviews with 3-4 informants in each group as well as a brief analysis of NOCCO's Instagram. We identified six themes of participating in our analysis: social aspect, personal gain, awareness and influence, information, identification and trust.

A strong brand community is characterized by its value co-creation practices and brand community consumer relationships. Although previous brand community literature explains the contribution of brand community entities through these practices and relationships separately, no identified research has focused on how these practices are connected to the consumer relationships. In short, this body of literature has neglected to describe what practice corresponds to which consumer relationship. Therefore, the purpose of this study sought to describe the value co-creation practices within brand communities in relation to its consumer relationships. A comparative multiple case study of two Adidas Runners communities was applied to address this. The findings suggest that the higher level of brand community entity involvement in value-co creation practices, the stronger brand community consumer relationships. Furthermore, the study details the connections between the different value co-creation practices and their corresponding consumer relationships. Specifically, these connections are as follows; social networking and community engagement practices connected to the consumer-other consumers and consumer-marketer relationships, impression management practices connected to the consumer-brand relationship, and brand use practices connected to the consumer-product and consumer-marketer relationships. In addition, the findings suggest the practice of socializing to be added to the set of value cocreation practices.

Studiens syfte är att bidra med ökad kunskap kring varför medlemmarna i Oatlys brand community engagerar sig i communityn och hur de värderar information som kommer från Oatlykontra från externa källor. Studien syftar även till att undersöka om medlemmarnas konsumtionsbeteenden påverkas av negativ information de får om Oatly. Det empiriska materialet bygger på medlemmar i Oatlys brand community på Instagram och samlades in genom två fokusgruppsdiskussioner. Studien har visat att medlemmarna engagerar sig i communityn för att tillfredsställa behov av gemenskap, identitet, och information samt att medlemmarna värderar information från Oatly som pålitlig och positiv medan de värderar externa källors informationsom felaktig och opålitlig. Ännu en av slutsatserna från studien är att deltagarna i communityntolkar budskap utifrån en gemensam tolkningsram. Vidare visade studien att mer lojala medlemmar uppgav att de ökade sin konsumtion i mötet av negativ information om Oatly.

Background: In recent years, the emergence of the internet and social networks have allowed consumers to interact and communicate quickly, this means that online social media-based brand communities are an important part of the market. However, does the engagement and activity on social media-based brand communities affect the consumers’ attitude and repetitive purchase?. That is what this research set out to find out. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explain how Social Media Brand Community affects consumers’ attitudes and repurchase behavior based on their activity. Methodology: For this research, a quantitative method was conducted. The research was explanatory, and a cross-sectional research design was used. Afterward, a questionnaire was developed and shared via internet platforms to collect the data needed for this study. Findings: It can be seen that both Activity and Engagement within Social Media brand communities have a statistically significant relationship with Consumers’ attitudes. However, it could also be seen that neither Activity or Engagement have a statistically significant relationship with Repetitive Purchase. Conclusion: Two of the null hypotheses were rejected and two failed to be rejected. To conclude, the results showed that activity and engagement had an effect on attitude but it did not have an effect on repetitive purchases.

Background: Looking at many different studies, it’s known that the topics mentioned before are well researched. However, there are not many cases of brand community and customer engagement like the one with Estrella Damm. That’s why the authors wanted to work on the combination of all of them with the use of the company Estrella Damm, as they are highly involved in its community and it has made a big change in the last few years. Going from a brand of living life to a brand that generates consciousness about the Mediterranean Sea. Purpose: The purpose of the following research is to demonstrate that by putting into a side the brand's product the researchers can feel engaged through the actions they have. The objective is to answer the question; “How do consumers get engaged in a brand community? The case of Estrella Damm”. Method: For this qualitative study, case study and autoethnography methods were used to analyze in-depth the research question due to the deep knowledge of how this engages since the researchers are part of its brand community. These methods are the most appropriate since the analyzed brand is focused on creating awareness of the Mediterranean contamination, and the researchers know first-hand the engagement with the brand. Thus, a case study of this company, and with the support of the autoethnography of the authors, permit to develop as properly as possible study. Conclusion: Consumers get engaged in a brand community through different actions the company makes. In this study, the main factor of being engaged involves the company showing to the consumer that it is not only focused on its product/service, but is using its influence and power to improve social and environmental welfare, and thus, the company gets an engaged and committed consumer in its community.

The aggregate of a sport team’s fans may be viewed as a consumption community that surrounds the team and its brand (Devasagayam & Buff, 2008; Hickman & Ward, 2007). Beneath this larger consumption umbrella, smaller groups of consumers may exist (Dholakia, Bagozzi, & Pearo, 2004), such as specific supporter groups for a team. Individuals thus may identify with multiple layers of the consumption group simultaneously (Brodsky & Marx, 2001; Hornsey & Hogg, 2000). Although past researchers have studied supporter groups (Giulianotti, 1996, 1999a; Parry & Malcolm, 2004) and consumption communities (Kozinets, 2001; Muñiz & O’Guinn, 2001; McAlexander, Schouten, & Koenig, 2002), there has been limited research on the interaction among subgroups within the superordinate group. The current study examines the American Outlaws (AO), a supporter group for the United States men’s national soccer team (USMNT). AO members belong to local AO chapters (subgroups) as well the national (superordinate) group. This structure creates multiple levels of identification and is conducive to studying the phenomenon in question. Through employing a grounded theory methodology, data were collected via participant observation and ethnographic interviews over a two year period. The current study identifies six prominent foci of identification among AO members: the USMNT, the United States of America (national identity), the sport of soccer, AO National, AO Local, and one’s small social group. These identities are found to be mutually reinforcing and shape members’ interactions with the team, the supporter group, and social groups therein. Specifically, the regional subgroups (AO Local chapters) create opportunities for social interaction, which fosters members’ sense of community and group identification. In turn, this strengthens group cohesion at the subgroup and superordinate group levels. Further, supporter group members alter their team consumption experiences by creating places of prolonged identity salience at live games and when watching games on television. These events increase identification with the supporter group and its related identities. For practitioners, implications of this study include the understanding of supporter groups’ impact on members’ frequency and duration of brand-related consumption.