TY - GEN
T1 - The role of marketer- and user-generated content in sustaining the growth of a social media brand community
AU - Ding, Yi
AU - Phang, Chee Wei
AU - Lu, Xianghua
AU - Tan, Chuan Hoo
AU - Sutanto, J.
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - While recent research has increasingly indicated social media brand communities can bring about desired benefits for firms, the trade press has cautioned the unsustainable growth issue of such communities. Given that the realization of their benefits is contingent on sustained growth, this study investigates the role of two types of content central to sustaining these communities i.e., marketer-generated content (MGC) and user-generated content (UGC). Furthermore, we delineate between content of product-related (for product promotion) and social-related (for relationship building) nature. Our findings show that both social- and product-related UGC can promote growth over time; but only social-related MGC is effective in this regard. However, MGC regardless of their nature may stimulate UGC. Overall our findings suggest that sustaining the growth of a brand community requires a symphony of both marketer effort and consumer response, thus providing a more comprehensive and balanced view of their role.
AB - While recent research has increasingly indicated social media brand communities can bring about desired benefits for firms, the trade press has cautioned the unsustainable growth issue of such communities. Given that the realization of their benefits is contingent on sustained growth, this study investigates the role of two types of content central to sustaining these communities i.e., marketer-generated content (MGC) and user-generated content (UGC). Furthermore, we delineate between content of product-related (for product promotion) and social-related (for relationship building) nature. Our findings show that both social- and product-related UGC can promote growth over time; but only social-related MGC is effective in this regard. However, MGC regardless of their nature may stimulate UGC. Overall our findings suggest that sustaining the growth of a brand community requires a symphony of both marketer effort and consumer response, thus providing a more comprehensive and balanced view of their role.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84902256003&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/HICSS.2014.226
DO - 10.1109/HICSS.2014.226
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84902256003
SN - 9781479925049
T3 - Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
SP - 1785
EP - 1792
BT - Proceedings of the 47th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2014
PB - IEEE Computer Society
T2 - 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2014
Y2 - 6 January 2014 through 9 January 2014
ER -