Marketing Commons^™

As brands solidify their place in social media environments, consumers' expectations have amplified, thus spurring the development of technologies to assist with the engagement process. Understanding the ways in which brands can preserve the one-to-one characteristics and intimate relationship qualities offered by social media while still meeting consumer expectations amidst the escalating volume of interactions has become essential. Drawing on the communications literature, this research proposes that parasocial interaction (PSI) theory may be used as a theoretical lens for designing successful social media strategies. Three studies, using a multi-method approach, provide evidence of PSI's role in the development of positive …

The predictions of growing consumer power in the digital age that predated the turn of the century were fueled by the rise of the Internet, then reignited by social media. This article explores the intersection of consumer behavior and digital media by clearly defining consumer power and empowerment in Internet and social media contexts and by presenting a theoretical framework of four distinct consumer power sources: demand-, information-, network-, and crowd-based power. Furthermore, we highlight technology's evolutionary role in the development of these power sources and discuss the nature of shifts in power from marketers to consumers in terms of …

This research examines how people manage online personal brands in a Web 2.0 context. Using a novel mixed-method approach and consenting participants, the authors generated digital brand audits of 12 people and asked undergraduate students and a human resources professional to judge their profiles (made anonymous), both qualitatively and quantitatively. After comparing these evaluations with participants' own judgments of their online profiles, the authors conducted long interviews to understand how people manage online profiles and feel about others' judgment of the content they post. According to these results, people engage in personal branding, though their efforts are often misdirected or …