Research On The Operation Strategy Of Virtual Brand Community From The Perspective Value Co-creation

With the arrival of post-industrial age and the experience economy,customers are becoming more and more active in the market.According to the development of the new media,like the Internet and mobile phone,there are more way for customers to get information nowadays.Therefore,Customers are no longer passive recipients of marketing messages,and they are actively involving themselves in the market,to searching for the information what is they need.In this way,the roles of customers and enterprises need to be redefined in some degree.Co-creating value with customers has become a source of enterprises gaining competitive advantage.At the same time,the emergence of virtual brand community make customers get together and become an important part in the market which can not be neglected by enterprises.More and more enterprises realize that running virtual brand community can benefit for marketing and making profits.How to make use of virtual brand communities for seeking new opportunities has become a concerning subject for both managers and scholars.Virtual brand community has become a platform for value co-creation which can provide value-creation resources for both consumers and enterprises.There are two types of value co-creation in virtual brand community,one is sponsored by enterprises,and the other one is sponsored by customers.Enterprises and customers play different roles in these two value co-creation respectively.During the value co-creation,the need for cognition,the need for entertainment,the need for social contact and the need for personal accomplishment of customers has been satisfied.Meanwhile,enterprises also achieve the economic development,the customer loyalty raising and brand value achievement.However,the development of virtual brand community in China is still at an early stage,the mature research results were rare,especially from the value co-creation perspective.It is emergent to find a new way to find a full strategy for the development of virtual brand community.Co-creation theory provide the management of virtual brand community a new view,which will benefit for the enhance of core competence of enterprises.The development of enterprises rely on the creation of value.Noting the importance of customers in value creation and the significance of online communities to customers is crucial.Because it can provide enterprises with a deeper understanding of customers' activities and value-creation within an online network,which is helpful for developing new insights into service strategies and innovation.The key for enterprises to run virtual brand community successfully is to realize the value co-creation with customers and enterprises,and the value co-creation within customers.Which means that it is necessary to meet five requirements: customer engagement,the interactions;the value creation,the transparency and risk control.There are three strategies which are aiming at meet the five requirements.One is hold the mind that customers are important than anything else.Enterprises should realize the important of customers and satisfy the needs of customers during the engagement in the virtual brand community.Furthermore,it is also important to satisfy the key customers,which are more influential than other customers.Two is create a pleasant environment for value co-creation,since experience is significant for the customers who engage in virtual brand communities.It is necessary for enterprises to enrich consumers' experience from different ways.At the same time,enterprises should provide consumers material rewards and mental rewards to win favor from consumers.Three is create rules for interaction and establish feedback mechanism for risk.Rules can make sure that the process of value co-creation is successful.At the same time,it is also important to manage the benefits and risk,in order to reduce the risk to the minimum degree.