Quando i brand diventano influential su Twitter: creare brand engagement con strategie di comunicazione virale

The interactive nature of social networking sites contributes to reinforcethe engagement between consumers and brands in terms of cocreationof shared values. In this context, Twitter - the most popularmicroblogging service in the world - seems to act as a new frontier forviral marketing strategies and offers great opportunities to promote abrand as reference point and as a trusted partner among his followers.In a social network is possible to identify strategic and centralnodes - the «influential» nodes - able to activate information and influencespread. These nodes could be influential persons as well as influentialbrands which intend to communicate and interact with their consumerspromoting messages consistent with their brand personalities.The ultimate aim of influential brands is to increase brand awarenessand brand engagement among their followers .However the conception of Twitter as a tool to promote brand engagementis far from being mature, both in management practices andacademic research, and it is not clear how to best take advantage of thisnew marketing and communication channel.In light of what we have shown up to this point, in this paper weintend to develop a preliminary analysis of dialogic, interactive and relationalconditions that turn a brand into an engaging and influential actoron Twitter. More specifically, we explore three main case histories ofbrands which have considered Twitter as main viral marketing tool.