User:13flowerpower/sandbox

Social media's market penetration is rising thanks to services like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok, Pinterest and Snapchat. Companies are using these external social media platforms to personally engage with existing and potential customers, reinforce brand messaging, influence customer opinions, provide targeted campaigns, and service customers more efficiently. '''Social media platforms are flexible communication tools that go beyond the traditional means of advertising and can interact with their audience personally or professionally. '''

Influencer Marketing: Influencer Marketing used to be focused on using celebrity endorsement to help influence audiences. Nowadays, with the growing outreach of Social Media, "common people" are becoming popular and are used as influencers for brands and products. '''Companies are beginning to spend time and money creating influence through resonance and reach. Return on Influence is not metrically trackable like Return on Investment is, but mechanisms such as specific links can be created to track conversion behavior of influence. '''

Linguistic Devices
A big part of marketing is how companies communicate, whether that be with clients and potential customers or internally with other departments within the business. When companies advertise, they can utilize linguistic devices to persuade the targeted audience; Different devices can produce differing effects. One of the linguistic device categories is simple language. The different devices under simple language include phonetic symbolism, numbers, sound repetition, and pronunciation. All four devices use the cognitive effort of automatic-processing. Phonetic symbolism is "a non-arbitrary relation between sound and meaning, and suggests that the sound of a word can convey meaning apart from its definition". Back vowels and consonants are lower in pitch due to the positioning of the tip of the tongue being further back in the throat. These sounds are associated with heaviness, masculine, and psychological distance. Conversely, front vowels and consonants are higher in pitch and associated with closeness, feminine, and light. The sound of a brand name can influence the perception of the brand from the consumers perspective along with product attitude and product recommendations. This being said, when a brand name sound preference is in alignment with the consumers preference, the perception of the preferred attributes are enhanced.

Branding
Branding goes beyond having a logo; it is how businesses communicate on behalf of their company, verbally and visually. A brand is a conversation — it is how people talk about your company when you are not in the room. Consumers are constantly interacting and meeting with brands. This can be through television or other media advertisements such as event sponsorships, personal selling and product packaging. Brand exposure such as this is known as a brand touch point or brand contact whereby the organization can try impressing its consumer. Without branding, consumers wouldn't be able to decipher between products and decide which one they like most. People may not be able to even tell the differences between some of the brands, they would have to try each brand several times before being able to judge which one was best. In order to help with purchase decisions, marketing communications try to create a distinct image for the brand. Brand associations are made to encourage linkages with places, personalities or even emotions which creates a sophisticated brand personality in the minds of the consumers. This shows how brand communications add value to products and why branding is a crucial aspect to the communication platform.

Consumer-Brand Relationship Constructs
To build brand loyalty is to build a trusting relationship with a brand so strong that you will repeatedly buy from them due to an emotional commitment to the brand. There are many CBR constructs but five of the main ones in the literature are brand love, brand attachment, self-brand connection, brand identification, and brand trust. All five of these constructs are not exclusive and firm, but can overlap each other. Brand attachment is the emotional connection a customer has with a brand. Brand love is the measurement of that emotional commitment to a specific brand from a satisfied customer. Self-brand connection is the degree to which a brand has become an important aspect of one's self-identity. In other words, this brand represents accurately their self-concept. Over the years, researchers argue that self-brand connection is the most important of all the CBR constructs. Brand identification is the consumers perceived unity and oneness with the brand. Lastly, brand trust is the consumers perceived feelings of safety and assurance in the brand's products and company.