With the massive expansion of social media such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, companies are now communicating with the customers directly, on a daily basis, engaging with them in ways that were unimaginable just 10 years ago. Social media have managed to group people of every background together, around their personal interests and preferences. To companies, that sounds like a dream come true. For years, advertisers have pondered over how to personalize adverts to appeal to specific groups of people within the population.
 Today, people group themselves around their interests, hobbies and preferences. This means that, if companies create colourful, entertaining and engaging virtual environments, such as branded YouTube pages, Facebook fan pages, My Space branded pages, offering engaging and varied content, people will flock to the website. 
Another very important aspect of the expansion of social media, is the voice given to customers. For many years, companies organized consumer panels to get an insight into their own product offering. Today, customers naturally share their opinions, experience and reviews with each other through forums, discussion boards and reviews found in an array of social media and company websites. That allows companies to monitor customer satisfaction in its purest form, and make the needed improvements. 
Companies engaged in such activities established their brands as customer oriented, caring and entertaining. Consumers are always searching for the extra benefits when making purchasing decisions. As a result, the brands that provide that through online channels are gaining a competitive advantage in comparison with their conventional competitors.