Possibilities of social networks usage in the process of brand value building and managing – results of survey focused on the customer's perceptions

Worldwide importance of brands has acquired a new dimension and an increasing emphasis putted on the marketing strategies of branding has become an imperative of the company’s success. One of the possible ways how to develop branding strategies is the e-marketing usage. The basic problem of the realized survey was the insufficient use of e-marketing in the context of branding. So, the aim of the survey was to obtain information about the specifics of Slovak customer's perception of branding activities, which is necessary to take into account in the process of implementation of foreign theoretical concepts formulated in the context of e-marketing implementation.Given the above, the aim of this paper is to present results of the questionnaire survey. But according to its limited extent, we focus only on the selected findings which form the basic framework for social networks usage in the context of branding in specific Slovak conditions. These are indicators of the following:•the communication policy has a significant impact on brand value perception, what implies the necessity of new trends (social networks usage also) monitoring and their application into praxis,•usage of the social networks is redeemable also by their nature, because they themselves represent the life style of user which plays a very important role in the process of customer’s identification with the brand identity,•social networks create a suitable environment for internet advertising which influences the customers mostly in the process of brand value creation,•social networks are suitable for propagation of messages concerning about brand's social responsible behavior, which has an impact on the perceived brand value.On the other hand we consider necessary to point out the findings which are able to disprove effectiveness of the social networks. These findings are as follows:•advertising is suitable tool of the marketing communication only in the first stages of the brand’s life cycle,•customer's trust into the communication activities of brands realized via social networks is still low.The whole text of the paper is focused on the justification of all mentioned findings in the context of the results of realized survey with acceptance of the specifics of Slovak customer's behavior.