Social-networkers of the world, unite and take over: A meta-introspective perspective on the Facebook brand

Every marketer knows that the hottest barometers of popular culture are social networking sites like Facebook. Along with other forms of computer mediated communication, they have transformed consumers from silent, isolated and invisible individuals, into a noisy, public, and even more unmanageable than usual, collective. At the same time, grappling with social media strategies has been difficult for many companies. By adopting a meta-introspective approach, this paper attempts to synthesize the insights garnered from a large collection of introspective essays about Facebook penned by the very consumers for whom it was invented. Ultimately, the paper illuminates the dynamics of the Facebook brand, and illustrates how a meta-introspective approach can potentially be of utility to consumer researchers.