As companies like Procter and Gamble started using social networking for promoting their products, there was an obvious question in the minds of marketing fraternity- will it really work? While no one can claim the degree of success they achieved through this media, no one would deny the fact that social networking gives an effective tool of brand promotion and image building.

Today’s customer is not ready to listen even for a moment what a company has to say. They are however ready to write and read what their experience was with a particular brand. They share something they value and not what they just noticed. They are not static in what they see thus it is not easy to grab attention with a simple advertisement. They are definitely not going to give a heed to what you are saying. Hence one needs to make them listen what they want to listen.

This situation gave rise to a situation where an advertisement describing your product might not be able to sell your product on its own. Marketing fraternity needs to know what people value. People do value a brand. A brand is what they think your company or product is. Hence it is necessary to strengthen the brand image.

Earlier a brand image was in control of the company. However the changing face of marketing shows that more and more brands are looking for participative social spaces. Companies are targeting spaces in the webpages of sites like Facebook, MySpace or Twitter to create resonance regarding their own product. They are banking on eye-catching videos posted on YouTube or a game on Facebook.

The companies which are using social networking sites for brand promotion are somewhere losing control on their brands in order to grab customers’ attention. This might sound frightening to a company which is yet to plunge into using social media for marketing or brand promotion. However social media is all about sharing and not controlling. It has brought an era of brand sharing. Social networking sites have become a major crowd puller and other companies are looking at gaining spotlight at their effort.

Opinion polls and reports say that there is a group of visitors who say that they go to Facebook to get in touch with their friends and relatives and not the brands. However, there is another group of people who readily agree that they are able to get benefits from the promotional videos and ads posted on these sites. Hence there is a fairly good opportunity for all the marketers.