9. Social Media: Millennials, Brand Fans and the Branding of Fans

In this chapter we discuss social media and how it relates to being a fan, and how companies use Web 2.0 technologies to further their relationships with fans—particularly millennials—and better understand them as consumers. We will also reconnect with some of the concepts discussed in Chaps. 2 – 4, particularly the discussions surrounding brand fandom and consumer culture, which will be further linked to aspects of social media usage and fan behaviour.The superstructures of social media encourage co-creation, occasionally referred to as fan labour, as it forges closer relationships between media producers and fans-as-producers—which could be beneficial for both, but often appear to favour the media producer as fans do work for them for free. However, business and marketing literature suggest that brand fans—through their “love” for the brand—willingly go the extra mile to support their brand. This explains why brands prefer fans to customers, but it also suggests that fans in consumerist society are deprived of real agency.