Edinburgh Napier University

  Online value co-creation is not only about co-creating the content such as sharing status, sending invitations, sharing videos, and sharing photos, it is about the development of exchanging experiences to build and maintain online service dominant intimate relationships (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Muniz et al., 2009; Luo et al., 2015). Understanding value co-creation in an online, service-dominant environments such as user-generated content (UGC) and social networking sites (SNSs) is critical to firms' strategic decision making. Healthy brand communities are rife with dynamic practices that continuously evolve and inspire interactive engagement within and among members. Such engagement is a vector of value creation, and co-creation, from which brands can reap the benefits, in the form of increased brand equity and loyalty (Edvardsson, et al., 2011; Cova & Dalli, 2007). The service dominant logic approach emphasizes the users role, particularly in co-creating value (Payne et al., 2006; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004).Unlike traditional creation of economic exchange value, online value is a dyadic exchange of co-created content by the user and firm in Service-Dominant (S-D) logic (Vargo et al., 2008). The user is the denominator, exchanging experiences materialized through UGC (Vargo & Lusch, 2004) to co-create communities. However, most status updates on SNS are not entirely intimate (Barash et al., 2010; Utz, 2011). Yet customers co-create communities by self-disclosing public and private: well-being, identity and experiences to co-create value and build relationships (Pennebaker & Chung, 2007; Tanis, 2008)To advance the understanding of the mechanism underlying self-disclosure, this study examines the phenomena of public and private self-disclosure. Prior research mainly focused on public disclosure (Treem & Leonardi, 2012; Marwick & Boyd, 2011, Krämer & Haferkamp, 2011). But users are increasingly expressing personal experiences by actively uploading self-images. But the boundaries between the public and private self is often blurred between publicness and privacy; which raises questions about self-disclosure and information control in social media, and what motivates users to self-disclose images and experiences given the inherent risks of vulnerability to privacy and personal control (Altman, 1975). Disclosure decisions and strategies reflect conflicting needs aimed at maximizing strategic rewards and minimizing personal risks (Petronio, 2002). But, value co-creation among online communities is integral to managing co-constructed impressions (Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001; Luo et al., 2015). These impressions are created by users choosing outcomes and dispersing relationships if they dislike their self-presentation (Baker & White, 2011). Interviews (n=65) were conducted on active Instagram users to explore the motivations behind users to share public and private self-image. The findings are captured in a conceptual model that illustrates how users co-create their identity through a personal branding exhibition embedded in personalized experience and evaluation of their psychological well-being (Meier & Gray, 2014; Sirgy, 1982).