Achieving continuous interaction with users: An in-depth case study of Xiaomi

Abstract User innovation has received widespread attention in academia and industry over the past four decades. However, not all users play a role in innovation. Fans, who are users who continuously interact with firms, have become new drivers of innovation and have helped firms achieve great success in practice, which has been enabled by ongoing advances in information and communication technologies. We utilize the concept of social presence as a theoretical lens and conduct a case study to explore the mechanisms through which continuous interaction is achieved to transform users into fans. The findings identify two types of fans, namely, amateur and professional fans, and their corresponding ways of achieving continuous interaction. The present work can benefit academics by contributing to research concerning fan innovation and social presence and can help practitioners by enabling more fans to participate in innovation activities.