ABSTRACT
People are often confronted by others' mentions of the brands they own or like on social media. This chapter proposes that the impressions formed based on brand mentions may not just be a matter of whether a brand is mentioned but how it is mentioned. It provides a typology of strategies that consumers use to mention brands for self-presentation on social media. Research on word-of-mouth (WOM) has focused primarily on self-presentation as a driver of WOM but has not examined how consumers self-present using products and brands, which is likely to impact the impressions of the communicator and the brand. The chapter attempts to develop a more nuanced characterization of the WOM phenomenon by looking at consumer self-presentation strategies in the online medium. It discusses some common tactics that consumers appear to use to manage the tension between bragging and likeability.
