When brands get personal in online chatter : the effects of self-disclosure and anthropomorphism on consumer-brand relationships

Companies are eager to build close relationships with their customers, with the aim to foster liking, attachment, and, thus, an increase in sales. Marketers have experimented with various means of getting closer to customers in the social media world. Increasingly brands are communicating directly with consumers through their corporate Twitter accounts, oftentime in conversational tones. For example, in Starbucks’s Twitter, employees talk about interesting happenings in their personal lives; in Gucci’s Twitter, the company shares celebrity entertainment news with followers; McDonald’s Twitter routinely reposts funny anecdotes about things that may not have a direct bearing on the company’s products or services. Just as in human-to-human communications, striking up a meaningful conversation with customers online requires the firm to get “personal.” The plurality of practices in conversing with customers on Twitter begs the question: Does sharing “personal” information about a brand shape customers’ brand perceptions? Despite their importance in interpersonal communication, the effects of personal disclosure have received little research attention with regard to consumers’ perceptions of brands—probably because the practice of self-disclosure is less common in conventional marketing communications. Now, with the emergence of Twitter as a brand communication vehicle, it is pertinent to examine whether resonant analogues to interpersonal relationships exist in consumer–brand communications in the Twitter context.