COMMUNICATION IN SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BRAND EQUITY BUILDING

Abstract

Social media (SM) has changed the traditional communication between brands and consumers and enabled consumer to make positive as well as negative influence on brand equity (BE). Therefore, it is important for companies to know, how to manage communicate in social media seeking to build brand equity. The first part of the article defines the conceptual essence of communication in social media for brand equity building: the communication between brand and consumer, the communication consumer–to–consumer and consumer's feedback to brand. The theoretical model of brand equity building by employing communication in SM has been proposed. The eight stages of the model were distinguished: environment and competitors analysis, brand equity research, preparation of communication, selection of proper channels, implementation of the process of communication, monitoring of actions, responding to negative comments, assessment and comparison of results by linking it to brand equity analysis. The qualitative (structural interview) and quantitative (content analysis and questionnaire interview) research methods were used to show the applicability of theoretical model of the brand equity building by employing communication in SM in practice. This study proposes the approach of consumer involvement into brand equity building by invoking communication in SM which can provide the brands with more favourability.