How to Drive Brand Communication in Virtual Settings

The paper proposes an analytical approach that explores brands in virtual environments by creating indicators of consumer brand alignment and comparing them with measurements of social engage- ment. In particular, it combines indicators that estimate the correspondence between brand identity and brand image with measurements of engagement that emerge from platforms that monitor social media (Talkwalker and Social Mentions). The premise is that to gain objective awareness of the reputation a brand has achieved online, it is essential to filter the commitment that it produces on social media with assessments of the relations that consumers have with it. The latter is expressed through indicators of consumer brand alignment that are elaborated investigating virtual communities and adopting an inter- disciplinary method that integrates netnography and text mining. The results generated by the approach illustrated in this chapter can be useful to devise adjustments to brand communication. The analysis is applied to twenty-nine important brands belonging to the fashion industry.