Valuing user contribution on virtual brand community

Abstract

Companies are increasingly taking advantage of contributions of users’ behavior on communities. Their contributions are then transformed into references as well as guidelines of user management. This paper categorizes the user contribution value into user-contributed content value evaluated by a weighted-knowledge super-network approach and a user interaction value evaluated by weighted social network analysis. The paper uses a data set that originated from the Xiaomi Forum and finds that users in the virtual brand community fall into four categories: valuable users, knowledgeable users, social users and regular users. Finally, this paper draws conclusions on how companies can increase user value through user classification management and user incentive measures.