Is social media helpful for creating a brand?

yes, only social media can do it and no one can substitute it.

Social media really helping brands to spread. Social media is now NEED of everyone. We can't meet friends, bus. associates on daily basis, but can interact on daily basis through social media. After NO-NO everybody joining various platforms. We are regularly doing networking on net, if we get good brand/product at there we will surely buy it! 
At the end, social media is good way to attract more cusotmers!!!
Thanks!

I thik brand is something aboult recognition and psychology of cunsumers. If consumers are able to remember your product when they need to fulfil their demand, that means you have created your brand. Social media could be one the way to make such an awareness. social media cater the vision of common people. If your target customer comes under a perticular social media type then it could be a effective way....

Yes it helps a lot sine social media gives both sides of the coin .So apart from giving a bigger platform it gives a neutral feel unlike bombarding with daily ads 24*7.

very rightly put ::: reinforcement ::

The purpose of all branding, surely, is to fix your brand in peoples' subconscious minds, so that whenevr they see the brand or, even hear the brand name, positive emotions are invoked.

Hence Coca-Cola, for example - I would venture to suggest that the brand name is one of the bet known, wherever you go.

Nevertheless, the Company evidently feels the need perpetually to remind us of its product, each time reinforcing its basic message.

We could all learn, from their example, I feel.

A really sagacious statement presenting the opinion, Ajay. It is yet another example proving "how examples work better in changing conceptions". I was about to vote for the opposing argument until when i saw your posting.

Social media will definately help in building brand. This i call as indirect branding. when a company supports any social cause, the society at large know who did what to support the cause, indirectly the society understands this and shall always remember the brand. but truely social media should not be used with intentions of promoting brands.  

No Doubt Social Media is made for Branding whether its B2C or B2B, Corporate Branding or Personal Branding.

Yes Jayant the picture that you are drawing is quite close to how social media is used to create brand without hardcore selling. Let me share a case study:

Unilever is present in over 80 countries and in 2008 had over $61 billion USD in sales. For any business that commands a respectable “Wow” if you didn’t know that data. But what is more impressive from a marketing standpoint, is that within the Unliver family, is Dove’s continual drive to understand what women really want and understand the depths of how woman across the world see themselves. What makes this giant different, especially in this specific campaign, is that Unliver and Dove get it, it’s about their customer and their issues, not just asking for a sale. That’s deep and that’s what any sized brand should be about.

Be Tireless In Finding Out What Your Customers Want
According to the Center for Management Research, Dove has been asking the question for 5 years, “What are women’s perception to beauty and well-being”. By asking this question of thousand’s of women across multiple countries they’ve gained insight into what’s in it for the customer. It’s undeniably that understanding this question will help them sell more product but it also enabled them to give back to their community without having their selling message turned on.

Taking A Peak At How Giving Builds A Better Brand
2 years ago The Campaign For Real Beauty would have never existed as part of a marketing campaign, brand building or even a call to create community involvement in this manner. Why? Because this form of communication is not about selling, it’s about building relationships between the customers and the brand. A critical mind won’t relinquish the fact that Dove needs to sell but what’s wrong with that? Selling equals economic health, jobs, and supplying customers with something they want. Selling is good in the right place at the right time but not in the middle of your social networking activities.

Dove get’s it as a brand and the evidence is in the questions and dialogues in their Share Your Views section like; “She thinks she’s fat. Let’s tell her she’s wrong”, “What does self-esteem mean to you?”, “An honest chat about aging”. In these sections you’ll find pages upon pages of women sharing and talking and collaborating about their real issues… no sales going on here, just people being real around real issues.

Again, another respectable “Wow” should be on the edge of your thoughts. How many women of all ages, countries and lifestyle have suffered under the imposed vision of perfection that the beauty industry demands. While Unilever and Dove can not be abdicated in their present and past roles for being part of that problem they are also doing what good corporate/businesses should do, working toward  a future change without abdicating responsibility.

It is getting hot here !!!

Ok my take:

Let us get into fundamentals first: The psychological aspect of a brand will cherish through this social networks. It will help in constructing a great brand image within the minds of people and consist of all the information and expectations associated with a product or service.

Brand is a thought & relationships with customers, we should not forget that !!!

Let me explain how social media can help.

In order to get visibility for your Brand in social media, you need to network. In order to get people to remember your brand, you’ll have to make sure they see it over and over again. In order to achieve this, you’ll need to get people to keep coming back to your brand or branded communities. You can do this by giving updates about your brand, and adding interesting content such as photos and videos.

I strongly believe social networks can be used to build up your presence in larger communities. This social sites offer tools that will let you incorporate additional content that’s important for branding purposes, as well as ways to manage your overall web presence, offering compatible tie ups with larger networks.

Like in Orkut users make use of widgets. So if companies can create a widget with content that’s directly related to brand, and if this widget is exportable directly, you are encouraging others to place the widget on their own profile, letting them work for you while still expanding the recognition of your brand.

You won't believe there are many well-known brands like disney, pepsi who created a social network for their own brands. And these networks are doing better when this companies invested in a new brand and drove that network separate from it's own brand.

Over to you :) Buddy !!!

@Makrand Will pick up your last word "just"..If somebody says that engaging "just" social media is good enough to create a brand buzz then he is wrong. Social media is fast becoming an important weapon in a brand managers arsenal, you cant ignore it. Latest example is Tropicana packaging misadventure, they tried to wrap up one of there best product in a clothing that didnt appeal with its loyal customer.They swarmed the social media and pepsico was forced to bring it down.Instead what they could have done is create a cross-cultural, cross-market online platform and could have collected views about it and should have undertaken changes accordingly. They didnt do it and they lost it,flat 20% sales drop in a month. Point Jayant and me wants to make here is, that social media is "one" of the tool and not "just" the tool for branding. And when we talk about social media look beyond Toostep, Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace , there is much more it!   Over to you :)  Now jayant and me will make it more interesting for you!! :)

Social media acts as a tool to create brands. Similar like word of mouth. What, in fact, we are witnessing now is not so much a superficial, stylistic period of change in creative terms, but a revolution against self-imposed conventions and self inflicted handicaps. It is the advertising methodology which is being challenged, not merely its creative manifestation.

Dear Makrand....

I agree with the viral thing you said but my simple point is, the social interactions on web will help the organizations to go for co-creation (as the product is created for consumers) & the power of this social sites will enable that. This is where businesses are trying to catch up. For creating successful brands, one should not approach social media like any other media, but should see the full ecology of business environment and the interactions of all communities within that.

I have been telling this for a while :) - It is all about Social Media Ecology and Engagement Lifecycle to get success. The negative hype or image will be created for the product (which we can see offline also) but the good product with timely changes (right feedback's taken) will overdo the bad.....

If we take country like India, online sales & promotion and online branding is entirely new and pretty soon it is going to affect indian culture......

Over to you :) Makrand ji

I beg to defer on this Makrand Orkut, Facebook, Linkedin & even this TooStep etc are networking sites were people  around the globe are connected. These sites are not just for the benefit of keeping relation between people but also help anyone to post job oppertunities, create communities of specific area of interest where people who are interested to the subject can join in, advertise brands and their products too. Brands have to interact and these sites are best place for it.....


These networking can be used to advertise any local & global brands.The benefits involed in it is that, once you advertise about a brand or product it spreads to a vast number of people at the same second.Its easier for people to know about the brand and enquire about the same within minutes. And as we are connecting to people we know,it helps to understand better about the product & decide more easily whether to buy the product.People will tend to know more about the product and tend to buy the branded product because they came to know about it through the people they trust.

As such interactions are done through these networking sites it really helps the brands to popularise their products to a great extent. More interactions and feedbacks from consumers it will inturn increase the consumer base.

I strongly support to social networking sites as a beneficial tool for creating a brand but yes it takes a considerable efforts in doing it.

what my grandfather passed on to my father he passed on to me ::: this knowledge base helps me in living life in the tried and tested way with least mistakes in a socially acceptable manner :::

in a generic way :: we trust brands whom our trusted one have trusted::::( exceptions acceptable)

imagine we all remeber binaca( now cibaca) sangeet mala aired from vividh bharti ceylon,,  i don't remember the radio jockeys name but his voice is still registered in my brain:::

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Yes I think social media creates a brad for people. If we look at youngsters they create there own brand either b logging on to social media sites like Orkut, Facebook etc. not only this they create their own communities and that community shows their brand.