The Impact Research Of Consumer Interaction On Community Identity In Virtual Brand Communities

The rapid development of internet and mobile technology make it possible for the vigorous development of the community built around the brand in the virtual world.Virtual brand communities become new places for companies to excavate consumer information and carry out marketing strategies.There are many successful virtual brand communities have gathered a large number of loyal customers.How do these successful brand communities attract loyal customers? We know that the interaction is the core means to establish relationships.How can we make use of interaction among brand community members to keep them more persiste nt in the virtual brand community? According to former researches,we know that different types of products can influence the cost input(Dhar&Wertenbroch,1999),brand community integration(Zhu Xumin &Yu Hongyan,2017),promotion types(Okada,2005)and retaliation or avoidance measure after failure of a product(Pang Juan,Zhuo Zhao &Lv Yilin,2014.Will brand communities built around different types of products influence the interactions in the community and consumers' attitude to the community identity? It needs our research to explore the effect of social interaction on community identity in brand communities.So this passage will delicate to:(1)Determine the factors of brand community interaction by summarizing the related literature of consumer interaction,social identity and community types in virtual brand community and define the hedonistic brand community and functional brand community reference to the difference of hedonic and functional products;(2)Construct a theoretical model of community interaction influencing community identity in virtual brand community,determine the measurement dimension and propose hypotheses;(3)Use the questionnaire to explore the relationship between the different dimensions of community interaction and the community identity,and use the structural equation model to test the theoretical model and hypotheses of two kinds of virtual brand communities;(4)Provide suggestions for managers of hedonic and functional brand communities according to the community interaction differences.The results show that:(1)The brand familiarity positively influences consumers' community identity in both hedonic and functional virtual brand community and there exists no remarkable difference in two kinds of brand communities;(2)The high level of entertainment acquired in the brand communities,the high level of identity to the brand community in both hedonic and functional communities and there exists remarkable differences between these two communities;(3)The mutuality positively influences consumers' community identity in hedonic brand community,while the mutuality does not positively influence consumers' community identity in functional brand community and the group analysis shows that there is notable difference between two brand communities;(4)Community members' influence positively affects consumers' community identity in both hedonic and functional virtual brand community and there exists no remarkable difference in two kinds of brand communities;(5)The connectiveness negatively influences cons umers' community identity in hedonic brand community,while the mutuality positively influence consumers' community identity in practical brand community and the group analysis shows that there is notable difference between two brand communities;(6)The brand familiarity has the biggest effects on community identity in both hedonic and functional brand community.while in hedonic brand communities,the path coefficient of entertainment influencing community identity is greater than others and the path coefficient of connectiveness influencing community identity is greater than others in functional brand community except the brand familiartity.According to the research results of the impact research of community interaction on community identity in hedonic and functional virtual brand communities,combining with the technical characteristics of internet and consume features of millennial generation,the following suggestions are put forward:(1)Increasing brand publicity to improve consumer brand familiarity(2)Enhancing the interest of the hedonic brand community and promote the emotional input of consumers.(3)Improving the connectivity of practical brand communities to enhance the speed of information dissemination.