Social media: Changing branding strategies

The evolving consumer culture is challenging the traditional definition and practice of branding. Brand managers now-a-days face a context where brand value increasingly is created outside the company in a co-creation with other constituencies and social networks. Increasing cynicism towards the commercial messages and power of consumers to communicate online are increasingly allowing consumers the power to dictate when, where and how they want to be reached. Consequently, there seems to be a wide gap between conventional branding models and the way in which modern consumers use brands. New branding theories advocate for a consumer-centric approach to branding, where branding is the process of adding new value to customers’ identity. With the point of departure in this altered ‘Brandscape’, this newly generated problem has made it necessary for brand managers to questions how companies can incorporate consumer culture in their branding efforts. The social media now-a-days is producing a brand loyalty for the various products & services. For the same reason as stated the companies are now implementing a new practice of the branding (i.e. engaging with consumers in digital, social communities).