Brand visibility is usually considered a marker for its success, but such thinking harks back to a time when options for customers were limited. A lot of companies even today, in order to be more visible and have more mentions online, beef up their digital marketing efforts primarily through social media. All this however, is no guarantee of actual success in terms of the bottom line. A lot of marketers are going so crazy about numbers that they are ignoring those metrics which really matter. A clear example of this is Spotify which is very popular, known to all but is hardly generating any real cash as its operating expenses are far greater. In the tech industry, the gap between actual brand value and its perception can be particularly skewed. This is best reflected in Microsoft’s takeover of LinkedIn which was valued at a price much higher than the actual returns projected.

Source: http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2016/07/10737.html#.V5Wwq9J95dg