Consumer devotion to a different height: How consumers are defending the brand within Facebook brand communities

Abstract

Purpose

Effective handling of negative word of mouth in the social media has dramatic impact on customer retention, deflects potential damage and improves profitability. Although marketers enact various defensive strategies to combat such negative publicity, consumers are increasingly acting on behalf of marketers and new value creating behaviors are noticed within virtual brand communities. The purpose of this paper is to explore the kind of consumers’ defensive behaviors present within Facebook brand communities (FBCs).

Design/methodology/approach

A netnographic approach guided the data collection. Data were gathered by downloading messages; only the threads related to member’s defensive behaviors were downloaded and archived. This resulted to 34 pages of data with 418 individual comments and 6,257 words in total.

Findings

Data reveals that defensive behavior is practiced within Facebook, noticing that more diverse types of defensive behaviors are practiced in high involved products. Also, defensive behaviors are more prevalent within utilitarian rather than hedonic brands.

Research limitations/implications

This study suggests that marketers should be open to engage and empower consumers to fulfill the role of defending the brand within brand communities first.

Originality/value

This work adds to previous literature on handling complaints in social media by analyzing how devoted consumers may defend the brand against negative remarks done by other consumers in FBCs. This study not only confirms that defensive behaviors are apparent within the eight FBCs considered, but also investigates possible differences between high and low involved brands and also utilitarian and hedonic brands.

Citation

Hassan, M. and Casaló Ariño, L.V. (2016), "Consumer devotion to a different height: How consumers are defending the brand within Facebook brand communities", Internet Research, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 963-981. https://doi.org/10.1108/IntR-03-2015-0090