Branding and Communication on Twitter: Media Theory and Branding Strategies Applied to Social Media

New media developed in the 21st century allows conversations and interactions among people and organizations online. This capacity is referred to as social media (Safko & Brake, 2009). Twitter is the most active social media tool and influences the use of other social networks (Webster, 2010). Companies are entering Twitter to engage in conversations with their public and modifying their branding strategies to work within this new medium (Jansen et al., 2009). This study attempts to understand how news media companies that use traditional media, are integrating social media branding strategies into their efforts to engage consumers. In order to do that, a literature review was developed, which presented definitions and theories of media, social media and branding. Additionally, data were analyzed from six news media companies present on Twitter through a thematic analysis considering premises and theories from McLuhan (1994; 2002), Ong (2002), Poster (1995), Lévy (1997), Li and Bernoff (2008), Kotler and Keller (2006), Hatch & Schultz (2002), and others. This study presents the potential that companies have to develop an organizational identity on Twitter and social media.