Co-creating value through social capital in an online health community for Motor Neuron Disease

At first glance online health forums, led by consumers, appear to be of little interest to marketers. Indeed most scholarship addressing these health-related social networks emanates from within the fields of Sociology and Communications, with very little attention from marketing scholars. This study demonstrates that online health forums are highly relevant to the marketing discipline, with consumers co-creating consumer value within a socially embedded consumption experience. With more than 1.3billion users worldwide spending more than 30 hours each month connecting with others via the internet (ComScore, 2012a, 2012b), it is vital that marketers seek to understand this new environment where consumers are as easily influenced by peers as they are by carefully designed marketing messages (Benkler, 2002; Liang & Scammon, 2011; Vogt & Knapman, 2008). It is critical that marketers understand how internet-based social activities impact upon consumers’ attitudes to health and the consumption of health services.