Research On The Effect Of Social Interaction On Consumer Brand Attitudes In Online Brand Communities

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused damage to people’s well-being.Despite the positive situation,consumers continue to suffer from the psychological impact of inadequate social support,and consumers are more eager than ever to satisfy social and emotional values.The online brand community provides a social place for brands and consumers,making communication between consumers and brands more immediate and free.It is an effective channel for consumers to meet social needs,and an excellent opportunity for brands to establish good brand relationships with consumers.How to fully utilize social media technology to operate online brand communities and actively interact with consumers to improve corporate performance is an urgent issue to be addressed.Online brand community interaction is divided into brand-consumer interaction and consumer interaction,and is also divided into interaction around information exchange and interaction around interpersonal communication in terms of content.Previous studies have suggested that interpersonal interactions only occur between consumers.However,with the continuous development of brand personification theory and practice,brands can also engage in social behaviors similar to interpersonal interactions with consumers in communities,but relevant research is insufficient.Nowadays,brands are constantly trying to interact with online brand communities,and theoretical support is urgently needed.Based on this,the study proposed the concept of social interaction in online brand communities and explored its impact on consumer brand attitudes.Referring to previous research and combining actual situations,social interaction in online brand communities is divided into two types:entertainment type and emotional type.From the perspectives of consumer traits and expression styles,this paper proposes two regulatory variables,self-construction and interaction form,with the aim of exploring the differences in the impact of two types of social interaction on consumer brand attitudes in different scenarios and explaining their mechanisms from the perspective of psychological distance.Firstly,through second-hand data,it is preliminarily verified that social interaction in online brand communities is more popular with consumers than other types of interaction(like it).Then four experiments were designed to validate the hypothesis,and the results showed that social interaction and self-construction had an interactive impact on brand attitudes.For consumers with interdependent self-construction,emotional social interaction(vs.entertainment social interaction)can lead to a more positive brand attitude;For independent self-constructive consumers,recreational social interaction(vs.emotional social interaction)can lead to a more positive brand attitude.Social interaction and interaction forms have an interactive impact on brand attitudes.When engaging in entertainment social interactions,using emoticon expressions(vs.text forms)can lead to more positive brand attitudes among consumers;When engaging in emotional social interactions,using text forms(vs.emoticon expressions)can lead to more positive brand attitudes among consumers.Psychological distance plays a mediating role in these two processes.The research has enriched theoretical research on online brand community interaction and expanded theoretical perspectives in the field of brand attitudes.In addition,the research has generated certain marketing insights.Inspiring enterprises to engage in different types of social interaction based on specific situations and performance goals,providing more complete theoretical guidance for enterprises.