Crowdfunding in the development of social media fanbase – case study of two competing ecosystems

Abstract

The aim of the explorative study is to understand the role of crowdfunding in the development of the fanbase using data from two recent cases of competing business ecosystems. We conducted an event study that employed social set analysis (SSA) of Facebook data to uncover and better understand the users' interactions and brand associations before, during and after a crowdfunding campaign event. Key contribution of the study is the introduction of a new data source on co-creative interaction between companies and their customers, as well as an approach to support the study of ecosystems from a customer perspective. Our paper focuses especially on the role of Jolla's tablet crowdfunding campaign in the development of its fanbase in relation with Nokia's tablet launch during Slush 2014 event. We discuss the results, present substantive interpretations of the findings, implications of crowdfunding on fanbase development and conclude with directions for future work.