Building Brands through Social Listening

Marketers are using social media as a way to promote their brands and build consumer relationships. Research has shown that brand relationships can provide consumers with resources in making decisions, meeting their needs, and motivating them. With a growing number of marketers reporting that social media is important to their businesses, keeping a watchful eye on what the customers are saying on social media, and what competitors are doing, is critical. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook enable the creation of virtual customer environments, where online communities form around specific firms, brands, or products. For this project we hope to demonstrate, using digital tools and survey research, that social media comments can serve as a valuable indicator of shifts in brand sentiment. This research examines how emotional brand-based relationships and perceptions develop in online social communities. This project will utilize brand monitoring tools to track and analyze three global brands and examine the new and rapidly changing digital marketplace, and the various tools that can be used to help develop and maintain competitive brands. This research will also compare online and survey data to see how well they align, and reflect a window into the marketplace for assessing and developing brands.