KOLEKTIVITAS VIRTUAL FANDOM DALAM PROSES BRANDING TOKOPEDIA (ANALISIS MODEL ADPLAN STUDI NETNOGRAFI FANDOM ARMY DI TWITTER)

Back in the day, a fan is identical with a group of people who are hysterical and crazy. But now along with the development of technology, fan culture in supporting their idol has developed to become more advanced. This is marked by a variety of virtual activities that are carried out collectively by a fandom on social media. Since Tokopedia released BTS as its new brand ambassador, ARMY which is the fandom of BTS has collectively participated in distributing Tokopedia information and content and also always responding to Tokopedia’s Twitter account uploads related to BTS. From this background, this study aims to analyze how ARMY's virtual fandom collectivity takes part in the Tokopedia branding process on Twitter using qualitative netnographic research methods. This research data collection method is by participant observation conducted at a certain time period to take data in the form of screenshots of ARMY conversations on Twitter related to TokopediaXBTS. In addition, the data were also taken by online interviews to reinforce the findings. Data analysis techniques in this study used the Miles and Huberman model that was adapted to the needs of netnographers. Triangulation in this study was carried out with source triangulation techniques. The results of this study is ARMY's virtual fandom collectivity on Twitter took part in the Tokopedia branding process in terms of increasing Tokopedia's brand awareness on an international scale