Users’ Generated Content On Facebook: Make Or Break For Digital Reputation Of Firms
Abstract
Social Networking Sites have emerged as one of the best way of communication between firms and their customers. Marketers have capitalized on this opportunity to increase brand’s popularity and reputation; on the other hand, a complex network of customers belonging to different backgrounds has emerged. The raging trend of social networking sites usage has given users somewhat control over image and reputation of firms. Marketers’ efforts to boost their firms’ reputation have been managed by online users’ generated content. Due to this change, earned media has taken over the paid media of firms. Whereas, users’ generated content’s dependency over trust is not the same as in offline markets. This research illustrates that online user with low propensity to trust show different behavior than previously studied in offline environment. Further, firms can take lead from this sturdy to change their social network site’s marketing policies to emphasize on earned media.