Sentiment analysis of virtual brand communities for effective tribal marketing

Abstract

Purpose By doing sentiment analysis of netnographic data, this study aims to explain the need to give special attention to negative sentiments expressed in virtual tribes, as they play a significant role in translating the informational mode of conversation to the relational mode of conversation. The overall purpose is to aid brand managers in the process of brand co-creation by articulating brand communication targeted to specific audiences based on their shared passions and interests. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a mixed-methods approach. The primary data were collected from two virtual brand communities through qualitative net-based ethnographic methods. Semantria Excel plug-in was used to categorize the extracted consumer statements based on positive, neutral and negative sentiments. Findings Managing the negative interactions in the virtual communities and relationship development with members through non-commercial conversations should be the two main priorities for effective brand management. Sentiment analysis specifically helps to identify pain points and consumer sentiments at each stage of the shopper journey. The findings of the study endorse the importance of offering and supporting communities as a valid marketing. Research limitations/implications This paper shows how systematic attention to user interactions on virtual brand communities can be used for tribal marketing, which in turn will impact the intangible aspects of the business, such as increasing brand value and loyalty. By engaging the consumers, the social ties among the target audience can be nurtured and strengthened. Originality/value This paper focuses on decoding their behavior by unpeeling the consumer statements rather than tangible aspects of the business, such as sales of products or services. It contributes to development of a theoretical framework that outlines how the interactions in virtual brand communities can aid in formulating the functional and communicational strategies for a brand.

Online shopping experience in an emerging e-retailing market

“…Second, the latter's ability to enact meaning from naturally occurring spoken conversations makes it a powerful technique for uncovering group behaviors embedded in group conversations. Finally, in line with previous studies that used netnography (Quinton and Harridge-March, 2010;Boulaire et al, 2008) and studies that used a combination of netnography and other qualitative methods (Pathak and Pathak-Shelat, 2017;Yuksel and Labrecque, 2016) to investigate the behavior of consumers in virtual communities, we argue that a combination of the approaches will yield deeper insights than both can do JRIM 12,2 individually. This is because netnography helps to offset the overemphasis of conversation analysis in "form" by focusing also in "content" of conversations.…”

Social media sentiment analysis: lexicon versus machine learning

“…Classification using a lexicon of weighted words (Taboada et al , 2011) is a widely used approach to sentiment analysis in the marketing research community (Bolat and O’Sullivan, 2017), as it does not require any pre-processing or training of the classifier. Alternatively, the machine learning approach to sentiment analysis, also described as a supervised learning approach, is often reported to be more accurate (Pang et al , 2002; Chaovalit and Zhou, 2005) and has also been used in marketing research (Pathak and Pathak-Shelat, 2017). However, the machine learning approach requires a training phase that is either conducted by the researchers themselves or by the sentiment software provider.…”

Redes sociales como medio de promoción turística en los países iberoamericanos

“…Una comunidad virtual alrededor de una marca es un grupo especializado construido sobre un conjunto estructurado de relaciones sociales entre admiradores de productos o servicios de una marca específica (Pathak, & Pathak-Shelat, 2017). La razón por el cual las marcas establecen una comunidad virtual alrededor de ellas puede explicarse por su deseo de fortalecer la construcción de marca a través de la retroalimentación que ofrece la relación establecida con los consumidores (Gummerus et al, 2012).…”