虛擬品牌社群意識形成因素與影響效果

Sense of Virtual Brand Community: Antecedents and Consequences

虛擬品牌社群是「一群人基於對某一特定品牌的崇尚，並透過網路介面互動、交流進而形成以顧客為中心的結構化社會關係」，然而，一個有著強烈意識的品牌社群會為社群及行銷人員帶來較高的價值。有鑒於意識對社群的重要性，以及過去鮮少有研究對虛擬品牌社群意識作深入的探討，因此本研究旨在探討虛擬品牌社群意識之組成構面、形成因素及其影響效果。首先，本研究透過探索性因素分析發現品牌社群意識之組成構面包含：（1）歸屬感與社群認同；（2）分享情感與需求達成；（3）影響力；（4）品牌認同，其次透過近似無相關迴歸聯立方程模式實證其與形成因素間之關係。本研究發現不同的形成因素會促進虛擬品牌社群成員產生不同的意識，而虛擬品牌社群意識亦會對社群忠誠及品牌權益產生正向影響。最後提出本研究結論與意涵提供企業作為經營虛擬品牌社群的策略規劃依據。

A virtual brand community is a community which contains a customer-centric structural social relation toward a specific brand among members through internet primarily. Moreover, a brand community with a powerful sense of community would generally bring greater value to marketers and community members. Based on the importance of sense of community, and lack of researches discussing the sense of virtual brand community, the purpose of this research will conceptualize the sense of virtual brand community and validate its antecedents and consequences. First, this research use exploratory factor analysis to confirm the dimensions of the sense of virtual brand community which include: membership and identification, shared emotions and fulfillment of needs, influence, and brand identification. Second, we use seemingly unrelated regression (SURE) to validate the relationships between the sense of virtual brand community and the antecedents and consequences. We find out that several antecedents will significantly produce different sense of virtual brand community, and it also increase community loyalty and brand equity. Finally, conclusions and implications for managing a virtual brand community are also provided.