Consumer-brand knowledge through social media environments: An analytical approach on the multi-vocal nature of the brand

The aim of the paper is to present an analytical approach that combines netnography with text-mining to build consumer brand knowledge in terms of brand associations deriving from social media contents. More specifically, it is based on the multi-vocal nature (Gensler et al., 2013) of the brand related to the participatory, collaborative and socially-linked behaviors by consumers that serve as creators of brand stories thus determining brand associations. It identifies and explores user-generated contents (UGC) as expression of brand associations emerging from different categories of actors in social media (consumers, influencers and other online prescribers), and measures their alignment with the company-defined brand associations.