Integrating and Retaining Members.
In traditional communities a prime concern is communal survival. Behavior consistent with this end is considered a basic responsibility of community membership. To insure long‐term survival it is necessary to retain old members and integrate new ones.
In traditional communities there is the presence of a social moral consciousness. The communities formally and informally recognize the bounds of what is right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate. While there is often more (or less) variability than is officially described by members of the community, there is a sense among community members that such a social consciousness and contract exists. This is true in brand communities as well. Consider Jill’s comments regarding what she considers (more than half seriously) to be a moral failing of a former employee who switched to an IBM clone. “Skip used to be a Mac person, but switched. I found this morally reprehensible . . . . He’s kind of a Mac turncoat.” Skip had joined the ranks of PC users, and Jill believes that it affected their personal relationship. Jill also sees Skip as a defector from a like‐minded social group (community). In a similar fashion, Saab community members resent Saab drivers moving to another car and apply corrective coercion to prevent them from doing so. One informant, Mary, refers to one Saab driver who left the fold as having “betrayed the brotherhood.”
Reasons for staying in the community are also publicly reinforced in computer‐mediated communication. Most of this commitment centers on personal experiences using the brand as opposed to the competition, such as Mac pages providing horror stories about using a PC or listing the reasons Macintoshes are superior to PCs. This list includes the dangers of becoming a “faceless clone” using a PC. In a similar way, derisive comments made about lightweight import SUVs on Bronco pages serve to reinforce commitment to the brand and the community. While serving to elevate the brand, such pages also serve as a publicly posted reminder to stay loyal to the brand and a rehearsal of counterarguments against leaving the fold. To those well acculturated in the ways of the community, these reminders are not trivial. Taken collectively, these examples demonstrate a community‐based process of perpetuating loyalty to the community and the brand.