How social media brand community development impacts consumer engagement and value formation; perspectives from the cosmetics industry

Marchowska-Raza, Magdalena (2024) How social media brand community development impacts consumer engagement and value formation; perspectives from the cosmetics industry. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

Social media and social media brand communities (SMBCs) are powerful tools for long-term consumer-brand relationship building. As a result, SMBCs are becoming significant marketing channels. Despite the wide use and adoption of SMBCs, further research is called for, as both practitioners and academics lack an understanding of the processes taking place within SMBCs. This study aims to contribute to knowledge of: (1) consumer engagement, (2) value formation in SMBCs, and (3) establishing the relationship between consumer engagement and value formation within the SMBC environment. This thesis adopts netnography, a method commonly employed to explore online communities in the social media environment. Three cosmetics brands were selected for this study. The selection was driven by geographical location, posting frequency and user activity. Data were retrospectively collected from Facebook SMBCs between 1st December 2019 and 31st January 2020. The data analysis employed thematic analysis techniques and was further guided by netnographic procedural steps, encompassing 25 distinct data operations. In total, 87 conversation threads were examined, which included 6,401 consumer comments. The findings present a typology of brand posts consisting of five overarching themes: presentation of offerings, belongingness building, engagement building, value-led, and educational. The research also identified a consumer comment typology consisting of four overarching themes brand-centred communication, cognitive-centred communication, conversation-centred communication, and personal experience-centred communication. Additionally, the thesis explores value formation processes within SMBCs, and the value types formed through consumer-to-consumer value formation interaction, brand-to-consumer value formation interaction, consumer-to-brand value formation interaction, as well as individual value formation processes, i.e., customer independent value formation and brand independent value facilitation. Through the findings, thesis broadens knowledge of the implication of SMBC development on consumer engagement. Additionally, this study extends the scope of value formation beyond service marketing, providing valuable insights into how value is created and perceived in the context of SMBCs. This research is also of significance for practice as it offers guidance and insight into how different brand posts can facilitate SMBC development, and, in turn, consumer engagement and value formation. The research provides a link between SMBC development and consumer engagement, highlighting the importance of SMBCs in the successful facilitation of consumer engagement. In particular, it provides evidence that the development of an SMBC has a significant impact on consumer engagement. The typology of brand posts that this study generates highlights the link between the types of posts published by the brand and SMBC development. In addition, the typology of consumer posts also suggests that there is a link between the types of comments published by consumers and the degree of SMBC development. As a result, the findings indicate significant growth in the variety of topics discussed within more developed SMBCs alongside a shift within the topics discussed. The study also investigates value formation within SMBCs, thereby enhancing the understanding of how SMBCs can facilitate value formation. By doing so, this research successfully extends the value formation lens predominantly applied in service marketing. In particular, the findings highlight the role of different actors in enabling the formation of different value types. Furthermore, the research emphasises the value of SMBCs as knowledge repositories as important virtual spaces for both brands and consumers. The findings facilitate understanding of the importance of SMBCs in value formation processes, contributing to advancing knowledge of the role of SMBCs in the development of consumer engagement and value formation. The thesis presents a contextualised conceptual framework of value formation within SMBCs, that captures different interactions taking place in the SMBC environment but also draws attention to the different value types generated through interaction between different actors. Finally, the thesis offers a conceptual framework of SMBCs, consumer engagement and value formation, which captures the correlation between the three researched concepts.