Social Networking Site Brand Marketing And User Awareness

Social networking site (SNS) is one of the hottest, the latest and the fastest-growing arena of the World Wide Web. The mushrooming increase of SNSs has changed the purpose and functionality of the Internet. Its impact on consumers and, by extension, on brands is considerable and pervasive. The rapid growth of SNSs has caught the attention of marketers that hope to find new ways to harness these sites for their advertising purposes.Based on demonstrating Chinese Internet environment, SNS actualities and the brand marketing on SNSs, a survey was conducted to inspect different user impression on China’s top SNSs:Qzone, RenRen and Kaixin001, study the differences in customer perception of brands across the three SNSs, examine the differences in user reaction to various advertising types and investigate the desired content and form of propaganda on the brand page.Results show that there were significant differences on the user perception of the SNSs, the brands and the advertisements. Overall, Qzone was not a good platform to do brand marketing. RenRen and Kaixin001 had different characteristics and were suitable for different kinds of brands.’Joint event’,’virtual present’,’virtual gaming prop’ and ’awarded event in the game’ were the most desirable types of brand marketing. Businesses should make more efforts to improve the brand page. Hope this thesis can till the gap between the fast-growing SNS marketing and the laggard academic research, and also help the marketers understand the main Chinese SNSs better and communicate with their target audience more accurately, effectively and efficiently.