ABSTRACT

Creating brand posts that stimulate customer interaction in online communities is both vital and challenging to marketing managers. Using social communication process theoretical framework (i.e. SMCR), the current study examines the impact of brand posts in online brand communities on students’ responses in ways that potentially co-create value for universities and illustrate the moderating role of community types. Results show that source credibility and argument quality of online posts are positively associated with both cognitive and affective response, thus motivating brand co-creation activities, while information quantity has insignificant effect on affective response. Additionally, members of communities managed by different parties (student-created vs university-created communities) exhibit a different tendency to develop community and contribute to brand value. Thus, different digital strategies depending on the type of community host are suggested to capture the highest possible co-creation value from these communities.

摘要

创建品牌帖子来刺激在线社区中的客户互动对于营销经理来说既至关重要又具有挑战性。本研究利用社交传播过程理论框架（即 SMCR），探讨了在线品牌社区中的品牌帖子对学生反应的影响，这些影响可能为大学共同创造价值，并说明社区类型的调节作用。结果表明，网络帖子的来源可信度和论点质量与认知和情感反应均呈正相关，从而激发品牌共创活动，而信息量对情感反应影响不显着。此外，由不同方管理的社区成员（学生创建的社区与大学创建的社区）表现出不同的发展社区和贡献品牌价值的倾向。因此，建议根据社区主办方的类型采取不同的数字策略，以从这些社区中获取尽可能高的共同创造价值。