Self-perceived Brand Relevance of and Satisfaction With Social Media

Branding efforts represent the promise of consistency and quality an organization makes to its constituents, typically through traditional media such as advertising, public relations, personal selling, sales promotion, and sponsorship. Focus on social media marketing was initially viewed as yet another way for organizations to tell their story. With the explosive growth of social media networking sites, however, social media is now viewed as the ‘glue’ that holds together an organization’s marketing campaign because it touches across each promotional medium. The purpose of this study is to investigate the self-perceived brand relevance of and satisfaction with social media as a brand. In this study, the social media site (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) represents both the brand and the brand community. We found that frequency and duration of use, gender, and other activities positively impact self-perceived brand relevance, however, these relationships change somewhat when social media is examined as high/low self-presentation and self-disclosure. Integration of the individual into a brand community positively impacts satisfaction with the brand on many levels: brand image, marketing communications, overall marketing strategy, relationships built through social media, and with social media in general.