Keep fans coming and don’t forget to make them stay A qualitative analysis of Netflix’s brand community relationship management

Although linear television is still an important player in our mediascape, the television industry has surely undergone a major transformation in the last decade. Subscription video on demand services such as Hulu and Netflix are now household staples, allowing the latter to become an authority in both content distribution and production. Netflix is also often exalted for its admirable presence on social media. Social media, like subscription video on demand services, are a major part of the contemporary mediascape. Although social media have been noticeably present for over a decade now, social media based brand communities (SMBBCs) have only started gaining ground in recent years. Nonetheless, consumers and brands alike are now vigorously using SMBBCs to connect with brands and (peer) fans. Since they are relatively new, in-depth research into specific social media based brand communities is slim and Netflix’s brand community has not been studied yet. One could assume that Netflix has a flourishing brand community, as the brand has 58 million fans on Facebook and is often praised for its social media marketing. To research the validity of this assumption, a qualitative thematic analysis was conducted on 100 posts and 826 comments from Netflix’s US Facebook page. The main research question for this study was: How is Netflix employing brand community relationship management on its US Facebook page? To guide this analysis, Ang’s (2011) three pillars of community relationship management were operationalized and utilized to assess Netflix’s conduct, leading to three main themes emerging from the data. The first theme, lopsided dedication, describes the tension between parts of the community that Netflix is dedicated to and other community management duties that the brand is seemingly ignoring. The second theme, predominant humanization, narrates how the brand employs a human voice, but also shows that its fans often deny these efforts. The theme fan entitlement reveals how displeased fans are generally negative towards the brand, which is a likely consequence of Netflix generally ignoring them. The results of this study show that brands should keep in mind that community relationship management is a continuous, iterate process that requires dedication on multiple fronts. This is something that Netflix itself could strive to perfect as well, as this study found few traces of community relationship management efforts from Netflix. In addition, this study has also provided a framework, inspired on the aforementioned pillars, for community relationship management that is useful for brands in designing their own community management strategies and for scholars in examining specific SMBBCs and the management of those communities.