The anatomy of an online social community network

Abstract

The emergence of Web 2.0 has revolutionized the ways of communication on the Internet and has allowed people to form their virtual worlds involving online communities and social networks. People have started to generate their contents, share them, and communicate with each other in these communities and networks. In parallel to the generation of huge amount of contents in these platforms, these communities and networks have become valuable data sources for businesses. It is the fact that analysis of user content in online communities and social networks allows businesses to enhance their business value and achieve their goals. In this sense, to create and manage these communities successfully, managers need to understand how to motivate community members and keep them frequently involved. Therefore, this study employs social network analysis to map and understand the network structure of an online community and to detect sub-communities in it. Additionally, it explores and identifies user roles in an online community and proposes a research model that investigates members’ usage intentions of the community. The research model also analyzes the moderating effect of these investigated user roles on members’ usage intentions of the community. In this manner, this study combines various theories for a better understanding of what roles exist in online communities, what roles members prefer to adopt, what usage intentions members have by presenting a four-phase methodology. Additional to theoretical implications, the study also guides managers to develop motivational strategies to keep their members continually satisfied in online communities.