The Role of Online Social Interaction in the Recommendation of a Brand Community

In the last 15 years it has been established that consumers willingly look for others likeminded individuals and they are seeking for interaction around activities or objects that they are passionate about. They are forming communities that are focusing in this activity or object and they enjoy interacting having as common ground the activity or object of interest (Koh and Kim 2004). The activities can vary and they include the support of branded services (i.e. Carlson et al. 2008) or goods (i.e. Algesheimer et al. 2005; Bagozzi and Dholakia 2006; Matzler et al. 2011; Marzocchi et al. 2013). It is acknowledged that in these occasions brands can act as agents for development or relationships both the brand itself but also with other likeminded individuals (Veloutsou 1999).