Effects of review spam in a firm-initiated virtual brand community: Evidence from smartphone customers

Previous studies of spam focus on how to develop effective and efficient algorithms and technologies to monitor, identify, and filter spam to minimize its negative consequences. Few studies have examined the social and psychological impacts of spam on social media users and participants of virtual brand communities (VBCs). This paper develops and tests a research model to explain the mechanism of how review spam influences customer participation in VBCs. We collected both objective data and subjective data from smartphone users in China. We also developed a measure of review spam using objective data. We found that hyper review had positive effects on membership and influence (two dimensions of sense of virtual communities (SOVC)), while the effects of defaming review on membership and influence were negative. Neither hyper view nor defaming review impacted immersion (the third dimension of SOVC). Further, non-review had negative effects on all three dimensions of SOVC that positively influenced future customer participation.