Discovering interest groups for marketing in virtual communities: An integrated approach

Using mature computing technologies, firms are able to obtain consumer network data more easily now than ever before. Although marketers are interested in social networks for WOM marketing, they previously ignored the importance of understanding network structures (Van den Bulte & Wuyts, 2007). Therefore, this research proposes an integrated approach – the social network analysis (SNA) and web mining techniques – through which marketers can discover interest groups in virtual communities. This research demonstrates how a framework utilized within social networks can be used to construct a recommendation system and provide an example of social network marketing applications. The proposed method makes contributions to marketing research methods in terms of data collection and analysis. The integrated approach is a good fit by which to analyze social network data in virtual communities. This research offers managerial applications and implications by which marketers can effectively reach and communicate with consumers in virtual communities.