Is Social Media a Brand Community or a Brand Public?

Abstract

In a brand community study, it is important to understand the change of the community caused by the appearance of social media. The marketing strategy depends significantly upon whether we understand social media as a brand community or brand public. The two concepts can be used to understand the dimensions of brand public and can coexist empirically with the dimensions of brand community, and/or one might be more pronounced than the other in particular cases. However, previous studies have not considered coexistence. In addition, brand public is likely to be dependent on platform property. Therefore, in this paper we confirm the previous findings of the two concepts, and we research consumer behavior in Facebook pages managed by the firm. The conclusion suggests that there are properties of both brand community and brand public on Facebook pages managed by the firm.