Virtual communities: A marketing perspective

The Marketing Scale Effectiveness of Virtual Communities

Virtual communities have been a prominent business model of the World Wide Web, leveraging the potential of the IP infrastructure to deliver a unique combination of reach and selectivity based on user needs. In a recent paper (Bughin and Hagel, 2000), we argued and provided empirical evidence that virtual communities had witnessed a stronger operational performance than other B2C models in thei...

Digital Identity Management and Satisfaction with Virtual Travel Communities

Virtual communities are emerging as an effective marketing tool with increasing number of technologies supporting online communications. This study proposed that members’ satisfaction with virtual travel communities (VTCs) is positively influenced by their perception of, attitude towards, and trust in digital identity management (DIM) system employed in VTCs and tested the model using SEM analy...

Branding Cultural Analogues in Virtual Communities

This chapter discusses cultures as analogues of actual environments, specifically socially constructed communities and the individuals who compose them. Analogues replace actual environments in human perception. Virtual communities provide context for this discussion. Virtual communities have evolved as analogues of actual communities to the degree that technology permits. Greater technological...

Virtual Communities and the Assessment of Online Marketing Education

Non Commercial B2c Virtual Communities: Definition and Classification an Exploratory Qualitative Study

This paper highlights some confusion in the marketing literature concerning virtual communities of consumers which are initiated by companies in their web sites. Some researches in Marketing tend, indeed, to design any community within the official Website of the brand as a B2C virtual brand community. However, the paper notes that the passion to the brand, which is an essential characteristic ...