Promoting Consumer's Participation in Virtual Brand Communities: A New Paradigm in Branding Strategy

Abstract

Virtual brand communities have become a powerful tool for marketers since these communities may help to understand consumer needs and to promote brand loyalty and involvement. In this respect, this work analyses the effect of participation in a virtual community on consumer commitment and tries to explore how consumers can be motivated in order to take part of a virtual community. To be precise, we analyse the role of trust, satisfaction with previous interactions and communication in the member's intentions to participate in a virtual community. The data (obtained through an online survey made to members of several virtual brand communities) show first that participation in a virtual community has a positive influence on consumer commitment to the brand around which the community is centred. Second, we found that trust in a virtual community had a positive and significant effect on members' participation in the virtual community activities and, finally, satisfaction with previous interactions and the level of communication significantly increased the level of trust in a virtual community.

Keywords:

• Virtual brand communities
• participation
• commitment
• trust
• satisfaction
• communication

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the financial support received from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (SEC2005‐4972; PM34; AP2005‐2823) and the Aragón Government (S‐46).