DIAGNOSTICITY OF SOCIAL EARNED MEDIA VS. TRADITIONAL MEDIA: INFLUENCE OF THE COMMUNICATION SOURCE IN FORMING CORPORATE BELIEFS

摘要

Corporate brands are strategic as well as essential for business success (Barichand Kotler 1991; Fombrun 1996; Brown and Dacin 1997) since they are sources of differentiation and competitive advantage (Aaker 1996, Ghemawat 1986; Brown and Dacin 1997). To raise corporate brand accessibility, equity, trust, and credibility levels, corporations design marketing communication strategies that convey consistent messages across multiple channels. Historically, firms exerted major control over corporate communications; however, at present, many corporate claimants - shareholders, business partners, competitive users, consumers - are utilizing social media outlets to communicate about companies. Social media are gaining relevance as information outlets (Nielsen 2011, 2012) and have become a source of corporate brand information that coexist with corporate-initiated communications, and that are easily accessible to a massive number of consumers.