Actualizing Continuous Interaction And Innovation Engagement With Fans

With the development of information technology and social media,innovation led by firms gradually fails to meet the needs of innovation.Many firms have obtained huge competitive advantages by involving users and fans in innovation.Compared with user engagement innovation,fans engagement innovation has the advantages of more innovative ideas,faster iteration,and lower innovation costs.By involving fans in innovation,firms can apply fans' innovative ideas and feedback to product innovation,and also allow fans to help solve the innovation problems that firms cannot overcome,thereby improving innovation efficiency and quality.Therefore,fans engagement innovation is very important for companies to achieve competitive advantages.This article aims to explore “how do firms achieve fans engagement innovation?”This article proposes that firms need to solve two important issues to achieve fan engagement innovation:(1)How do firms turn ordinary users into active fans?(2)How do firms involve fans in product development? Because the difference between users and fans is that fans have closer emotional connection with the firm and are more frequently and more willing to interact with the firm,this article turns the practice problems into the following two theoretical issues for research:(1)How do firms achieve continuous interaction with users?(2)How do firms involve fans in product innovation?This paper adopts the single case study method and selects Xiaomi as the case sample enterprise to study the two theoretical problems respectively.In the first stage,this paper selects the perspective of social presence to conduct a case study on the problem of "how firms achieve continuous interaction with users",and constructs the corresponding theoretical model.In the second stage,this paper selects the perspective of empowerment to conduct a case study on the issue of "how firms enable fans to participate in product innovation",and built the corresponding theoretical model.Finally,combined with the two-stage case study,this paper constructs a theoretical model for firms to achieve fans involvement innovation.This article identifies two types of fans: professional fans and amateur fans,which correspond to two types of continuous interaction methods.For amateur users,product attraction enables users to perceive the social presence of firms,then users are willing to interact with the firm.At the same time,virtual rewards and responses from firms and fans can motivate amateur users to continue to interact with the firm.For professional users,product attraction and cultural identity can allow users to perceive the social presence of firms,so they are willing to interact with firms.At the same time,firms' responses can motivate professional users to continue interaction with firms.In addition,in order to allow two types of fans to participate in innovation,firms should adopt different fan engagement innovation strategies and empowerment modes.For amateur fans,firms should adopt fan participation innovation strategies,and carry out psychological empowerment and structural empowerment to allow amateur fans to participate in product innovation.For professional fans,firms should adopt joint problem-solving strategy,and implement resource empowerment and structural empowerment to allow professional fans to help firms solve problems in innovation.This article not only reveals the processes and methods of firms to transfer users into fans and involve fans in innovation,but also provides valuable practical experience and theoretical reference for firms' fan operations and fan engagement in innovation.