Full length article Testing an extended model of consumer behavior in the context of social media-based brand communities Mohammad Reza Habibi a , Michel Laroche b, * , Marie-Odile Richard c a Department of Marketing, California State University, Fullerton, 800N State College Blvd., Fullerton, CA, 92831, United States b Department of Marketing, John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve West, Montr eal, Qu ebec, H3G 1M8 Canada c Department of Business Management, State University of New York Polytechnic Institute, Donovan Hall 1264, 100 Seymour Road, Utica, NY,13502, USA article info Article history: Received 18 January 2016 Received in revised form 25 March 2016 Accepted 27 March 2016 Keywords: Brand community Social media Brand community markers Customer centric model Value creation practices Brand loyalty abstract Due to the benefits of brand community initiatives and the potential advantages of social media, many marketing managers made significant investments in building brand communities based on social media. A noticeable issue is how to measure the success of such investments in ways that are understandable and comparable to other marketing initiatives. To address this issue, it is essential to understand how social media-based brand communities influence customers' perceptions and behaviors. The purpose of this article is to develop and estimate an extended model of how different aspects of customers' re- lationships with such communities influence their perceptions and behaviors. The paper describes a way a customer's identification with a brand influences relationships with brand community elements, brand community markers, and ultimately brand relationship quality and brand loyalty. Then using a large sample of brand community members in social media and structural equation modeling, the authors estimate how social media-based brand communities influence brand relationship quality and brand loyalty. Managerial implications are discussed. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction “Social media has transitioned into an obsession and almost a way of life for online culture, changing the way we communicate with our colleagues, loved ones, and our favorite brands.” (Jones, 2013) Marketing in the social media environment is much more complicated than marketing before the advent of social media. Perhaps the best metaphor to describe marketing in the turbulent environment of social media is what Hennig-Thurau, Hofacker, and Bloching (2013) use as the “pinball” game as opposed to the “bowling” one. Marketing in social media environments is as interactive and chaotic as the game of pinball. Part of this complexity comes from the consumer who has gained the power of a strong voice due to the dense networked nature of social media and user generated content capability (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2013; Kohli, Suri, & Kapoor, 2015). When social media was at its emerging phase, some scholars were skeptical and considered brands as crashers of social media (Fournier & Avery, 2011), rather than entities that consumers might embrace (Habibi, Laroche, & Richard, 2014a). Bringing up many intimidating instances in which the brand's reputation was damaged by masses of social media-empowered customers, some scholars advised managers to protect rather than build brands on social media (Fournier & Avery, 2011; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). However, this was changed by the advances in social media research. According to recent studies, there is no doubt that social media use by brands and consumers enhances sales, brand per- formance, brand loyalty, brand trust, awareness and other mar- keting measures (Laroche, Habibi, & Richard, 2013; Laroche, Habibi, Richard, & Sankaranarayanan, 2012; Rapp, Beitelspacher, Grewal, & Hughes, 2013; Sonnier, McAlister, & Rutz, 2011). However, these studies are fragmented as they investigate the effects of social media on various outcomes and from different perspectives. Spe- cifically, questions such as what are the effects of marketing efforts in social media environments on fundamental marketing variables such as loyalty? And what framework should be used as a guide to reveal such effects? Thus, there is a need for a more integrated approach of consumer behavior in the context of social media. * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: mhabibi@fullerton.edu (M.R. Habibi), michel.laroche@ concordia.ca (M. Laroche), richarm3@sunyit.edu (M.-O. Richard). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Computers in Human Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.03.079 0747-5632/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Computers in Human Behavior 62 (2016) 292e302