Brand communities embedded in social networks
研究了社交网络中品牌社群的存在性、功能及不同类型，通过网络志方法发现其存在，并探讨了参与动机，对品牌管理者如何低成本运营社群有参考价值。
Brand communities represent highly valuable marketing, innovation management, and customer relationship management tools. However, applying successful marketing strategies today, and in the future, also means exploring and seizing the unprecedented opportunities of social network environments. This study combines these two social phenomena which have largely been researched separately, and aims to investigate the existence, functionality and different types of brand communities within social networks. The netnographic approach yields strong evidence of this existence; leading to a better understanding of such embedded brand communities, their peculiarities, and motivational drivers for participation; therefore the findings contribute to theory by combining two separate research streams. Due to the advantages of social networks, brand management is now able to implement brand communities with less time and financial effort; however, choosing the appropriate brand community type, cultivating consumers' interaction, and staying tuned to this social engagement are critical factors to gain anticipated brand outcomes.