“…Indeed, sales, discounts and special offerings are frequently mentioned reasons to follow a brand in social media (e.g, Edison Research, 2012). And although consuming brand related information in social media appears to be mainly predicted by needs for information and entertainment, at least some consumers like a page because of the direct benefits a brand offers (Muntinga, Moorman & Smit, 2011; see also Hennig-Thurau et al, 2004;Wang & Fesenmaier, 2003 The present study aims to answer this question by comparing the brand evaluations of a target brand over time in a pre-post measure design with a one month interval. In the design we compared a control group (non Facebook followers), and a group of consumers who already follow the brand's Facebook page and chose to do so themselves (current followers), with a randomly selected group of consumers who were instructed to 'like' the brand's Facebook page and thus follow its posts (new followers).…”