Web of science-based virtual brand communities: a bibliometric review between 2000 and 2020

Abstract

PurposeWith the continuous development of Internet technology, virtual brand communities (VBCs) have increasingly become essential fronts for enterprises and consumers to carry out professional communication and the leading platform for consumers and other consumers to engage in social and brand discussion. Meanwhile, numerous scholars began to pay attention to VBCs as their research topic. However, there is no systematic understanding of the existing literature on the VBCs research. Therefore, this study aims to provide a comprehensive and systematic review of VBCs research over the past twenty years.Design/methodology/approachBased on HistCite and CiteSpace software, descriptive statistics and bibliometric analysis were conducted in this study. Specifically, by adopting research cooperation network analysis, co-citation analysis of literature, cluster analysis and co-word analysis, the authors analyzed 1,157 articles on VBCs in the Web of Science database from 2000 to 2020.FindingsThis study summarizes the research of VBCs from three aspects. First, the general characteristics of VBCs literature are analyzed. Second, knowledge bases, research contents, theoretical foundations and theoretical contributions of VBCs are dug and integrated into a knowledge framework. Third, the evolution and trend of VBCs research topics are visualized and analyzed in two phases (from 2005 to 2012 and from 2013 to 2020).Originality/valueThis study describes the research status, knowledge structure and famous topics of VBCs research over the past twenty years. Further, the research topics for VBCs have maintained continuity in the last twenty years. Furthermore, the research topics have also been evolving with the development of network technology and changes in the external environment. These results also provide valuable clues about this field's future directions and practical implications.

The impact of corporate philanthropy on the evolution of social media brand community – based on the case of ERKE

“…In the era of relational marketing, social media brand communities are vital and constitute strategic instruments to induce and nurture consumer-brand relationships (Santos et al. , 2022; Zheng et al. , 2022).…”

“…Although the relationship between corporate philanthropy and performance has always been controversial (Sauerwald and Su, 2018;Zhao and Zhang, 2020), there has been a broad consensus that corporate philanthropy is increasingly becoming one such aspect where enterprises try to improve their brand image (Kim et al, 2020) and a vital decision-making basis for consumers to purchase and establish relationships with enterprises (Abubakar et al, 2022;Chen and Huang, 2016). In the era of relational marketing, social media brand communities are vital and constitute strategic instruments to induce and nurture consumerbrand relationships (Santos et al, 2022;Zheng et al, 2022). The social media brand community has gradually become one of the critical places where consumers can share experiences and enthusiasm for their preferred brands (Osei-Frimpong et al, 2022).…”

The analysis of dynamic emotional contagion in online brand community

“…To correctly and effectively manage OBCs and creat a harmonious atmosphere, firms cannot ignore one of the critical factors in OBCs: emotions ( Daradkeh, 2021 ; Villa et al, 2021 ; Liu, 2022 ). Unlike other non-brand-related online communities (e.g., microBlog communities), OBCs are brand-leaded and gather consumers with similar experiences ( Zheng et al, 2022 ). Therefore, this kind of community organized by loose relationships relies more on the harmonious sentimental atmosphere to promote the members’ continuous involvement ( Nadeem et al, 2020 ).…”

How do firms use virtual brand communities to improve innovation performance? Based on consumer participation and organizational learning perspectives

“…The traditional communities of firms are limited by time and geographical factors and cannot meet the communication needs of consumers anytime and anywhere (Jagongo and Kinyua, 2013). With the rapid development of Internet technology, as public platforms for consumers to participate in corporate activities, virtual brand communities (VBCs) have gradually stepped into the shared horizon (Zheng et al, 2022). VBCs break the boundaries of time and space and gather individual users scattered in different regions through the network providing an online platform for real-time communication and interaction between firms and consumers as well as consumers and other consumers (Heinonen et al, 2015).…”

“…The traditional communities of firms are limited by time and geographical factors and cannot meet the communication needs of consumers anytime and anywhere (Jagongo and Kinyua, 2013). With the rapid development of Internet technology, as public platforms for consumers to participate in corporate activities, virtual brand communities (VBCs) have gradually stepped into the shared horizon (Zheng et al. , 2022).…”