  This study explores the role of external audiences in determining the
importance of family firm brands and the relationship with firm performance.
Drawing on text mining and social network analysis techniques, and considering
the brand prevalence, diversity, and connectivity dimensions, we use the
semantic brand score to measure the importance the media give to family firm
brands. The analysis of a sample of 52,555 news articles published in 2017
about 63 Italian entrepreneurial families reveals that brand importance is
positively associated with family firm revenues, and this relationship is
stronger when there is identity match between the family and the firm. This
study advances current literature by offering a rich and multifaceted
perspective on how external audiences perceptions of the brand shape family
firm performance.
