Influencing consumer-to-consumer (C2C) interaction in online brand communities

With the rise of social media, consumers are increasingly interacting with their peer consumers in online brand and product enthusiast communities. As this online consumer collective environment becomes more important in terms of word-of-mouth and customer relationship management, marketers roles are being transformed. Finding themselves on the outside of consumer-to-consumer (C2C) interactions looking in, marketers are struggling with the question of how, where, and whether they should attempt to participate in this online C2C environment to interact with the consumer collectives. This dissertation suggests that the Customer-to-Customer Relationship Management (CCRM) strategies marketers employ in the online C2C environment generate desired outcomes and build positive relationships with the consumer collectives. The findings reveal that marketers assume a variety of roles when engaging in CCRM. The role the marketer assumes, in turn, alters the consumer members responses to the marketer and the valence of online C2C communications.