Title: The role of social media on today?s markets ? Companies? desire to understand theircustomersAuthors: Kristoffer Avci-Nåmark & Patrik WidlundBackground: The markets of today are characterized by dynamic conditions because of thecontinuous change in consumer preference. Due to this, the interaction between the company and its consumers is gaining importance as companies find the need to increase their knowledge about the market. Out of this need social media has emerged as a tool forcompanies to improve their communication with customers. The popularity of social media isincreasing at a rapid rate and sites such as Facebook now has around 500 million usersworldwide.

The social media arena is rapidly growing and more and moreorganisations take part in the daily ongoing conversations indifferent social media channels. Conversations are being heldacross borders on every available topic and ratings and reviews ofconsumer products and services is one of them. This focus onglobalisation is also the reality of the hospitality- and tourismindustry. Their customers travel across borders and are eager,given the opportunity, to share their experiences with each other.As organisations within the hospitality- and tourism industry meetthese demands in terms of providing technological infrastructurefor information sharing and involve themselves in theseconversations there are some issues that need to be addressed.What does the logic of social media look like? How iscommunicating in social media any different from traditionalmarket communication? And how can hospitality- and tourismorganisations adapt their communication to fit into the logic ofsocial media?To conclude how organisations within the hospitality- and tourismindustry can benefit from the use of social media, I haveinterviewed representatives from a number of organisations andstudied their communication.

The increased use of social media in recent years has attracted the attention of different kinds of nonprofit organisations. The purpose of this study is to identify a foundation for viral strategies for nonprofit organisations as well as to understand the current interactivity between the organisation and its followers in social media. Following that we have chosen the research question: In what ways can nonprofit organisations develop viral marketing in social media? The study has a qualitative research methodology with empirical findings as base. We have throughout the research process strived for an inductive nature in the study though there are deductive elements.

Social media is by many believed to be the core of a new type of Public Relations. This new PR is called PR 2.0. Most larger companies today are to be find using dif- ferent types of social media to interact with their publics. Each year companies invest more money in this type of digital public relations. Social media is a relatively new online phenomenon and still used at a very early stage.

Purpose: The purpose of the essay is; to explain and clarify how the company is acting to lead members in social media to achieve valuable external communication. The authors believe that it is important to act with credibility and quality in social media, to accomplish long lasting relationships. When employees communicate with consumers their conduct is relevant to the company's credibility.Methodology: An inductive approach has been used for the empirical data collection since the authors have been studying the reality without existing theories. A qualitative research method has been used for collecting the empirical material. Primary data was collected from telephone interviews with seven companies, active in social media.Conclusions: The study shows that the power of employees? can be used when designing strategies for social media.

Purpose The purpose is to analyze the parliamentary parties political communication in the social media channels before the election 2010.Methodology This essay is a descriptive study from nine interviews of the responsible people in the parliamentary parties. In addition to that two more interviews were done with social media expertsTheoretical perspective This essay is based on two-way communication and communication strategiesConclusions The parliamentary parties use social media as a complement to traditional media. The purpose is to create dialog and to minimize the gap to the voters, but in many ways it is being used as a one-way communication channel.  The parliamentary parties are trying to use the social media channels in Swedish conditions, but in many ways they try to imitate an American used strategy..

Title: Social Media ? And customer interaction in smaller firmsSeminar date: 2011-06-10Course: Information Logistics, D-level.Authors: Marie Stenhammar and Ulrika CarlssonAdvisor: Jaime CamposKey words: Social Media, Web 2.0, Co-creation, Viral marketing, Word of Mouth, smaller firmsPurpose: This paper aims to describe the relevance of social media to smaller firms, the challenges and opportunities they face and what strategies they use, in the interaction with their customers.Methodology: The study is qualitative in nature and has an abductive approach. The empirical material consists of in-depth interviews with chosen companies and Internet observations.Theoretical perspectives: Social Media, Web 2.0, Co-creation, Viral marketing, Word of MouthEmpirical foundation: The study takes its empirical base from in-depth interviews with representatives from the small companies and internet observations connected to these.Conclusions: Smaller companies have great interest in social media. They preferably use Facebook, blogs, YouTube and Twitter. Their strategy is mainly to be very active and update their social media regularly.

Social media constitutes an increasing part of organizations and businesses today, regardlessif its segment is B2B (Business to business) or B2C (Business to consumer). The use ofsocial media has been self-evident for many companies, especially throughout the B2C area.The study examined attitudes towards Web 2.0 and social media in the B2B-segment, andwhat advantages and disadvantages that might exist with the use of the implementation. Inorder to answer the research question a qualitative case study on the company IFS (Industrialand Financial Systems) was made..

Purpose: The aim of this thesis has been to study and obtain greater understanding of the consequences of active social media use. Specifically, in terms of social identity, social life and the sense of belonging. Secondly, the thesis studies the consequences of disconnecting and for a limited amount of time opt out of the social media context.Method/material:  The study is based on an explorative, cultural ethnographically-inspired method, in which four respondents were studied: two men and two women, all frequent users of social media. This was done in three steps: initial interviews, followed by social media diaries and finally a focus group. By allowing these methods to complement each other, the goal was to create an overall picture of the importance of social media in their everyday lives.The study's focus lies on the week in which the respondents kept social media diaries.

This study aims to investigate how and why teachers use social media to reach their students, and how they handle different levels of computer literacy among students.The purpose of this study is to investigate the experience of teachers using social media in their teaching. I have done interviews with two teachers, who use social media in different ways. One of the teachers makes her students publish their work on the Internet on wiki-spaces, and the other one use Facebook for discussions and teamwork. This report uses the pedagogy theories laid forth by Vygotskij as a vantage point to analyze the answers from the teachers. I have also looked at some of the published student texts on the Internet.This study concludes there are students who don?t have access to computers and Internet at home.

This study is based on an inductive approach where the collected empirical data has been categorized in themes on which we have based the discussion in this paper. Using a qualitative method, nine appropriately selected respondents were questioned with an unstructured interview guide. The transition to a society characterized by interaction has caused a greater part for bilateral communication between consumer and consumer but also between consumer and company. The increased usage and integration on Internet has resulted in so called social media channels. User generated material is published on these media channels which leads to discussions about companies, products and services.

Title: When municipalities are keeping upAuthors: Hansson Käll, Ida; Jonasson, MikaelaTutor: Waks, CarolineCourse: Bachelor thesis, 15hp, Department of Business Studies, HT 2010Background: During the recent years social media has evolved into a powerful communicative medium. From an organizational standpoint social media has become a way for organizations to get closer to, and create a dialogue with, their environment. Swedish municipalities have began to use social media in their daily communication with the environment, but a problem has been raised about how public organizations should organize their social media when formal guidelines from the government are missing.Objective: The objective of this thesis is to examine how eight Swedish municipalities have organized their use of social media due to the lack of official guidance from the government, and also what difficulties that have occurred during this process.Method: The method used is qualitative with data collected through interviews with one respondent from each municipality.Results: The result show that the organizational solutions varies through each municipality but also the choice of social media. It has been important for municipalities to have someone in charge of the new communication tool since social media is a fast and communicative channel. Seven out of eight municipalities have already developed or are in process of developing their own formal guidelines on how to use social media.

Is social media becoming a new form of interview? This is a quantitative study about the use of quotations from social media in Swedish newspapers. We chose the online editions of two of Sweden?s biggest newspapers for this, namely aftonbladet.se and dn.se.Although we noticed a big difference between the more serious dn.se and the more scandal-oriented aftonbladet.se both newspaper still frequently used quotations from social media.The thing that we found most troublesome about this phenomenon was the fact that we found that journalists very rarely contacted the person whose quotations they used. That meant that the interviewee had a very slim chance of correcting any misunderstandings.It also opened up the opportunity for certain people to use the media to spread their own agendas without getting questioned.We used the social institutionalizing theory and the social responsibility theory to verify our findings.

Purpose: The purpose of the essay is; to explain and clarify how the company is acting to lead members in social media to achieve valuable external communication. The authors believe that it is important to act with credibility and quality in social media, to accomplish long lasting relationships. When employees communicate with consumers their conduct is relevant to the company's credibility.Methodology: An inductive approach has been used for the empirical data collection since the authors have been studying the reality without existing theories. A qualitative research method has been used for collecting the empirical material. Primary data was collected from telephone interviews with seven companies, active in social media.Conclusions: The study shows that the power of employees? can be used when designing strategies for social media.

The effects of social media usage in a professional context, specifically the effects on social media usage in relation to leadership have been studied in order to determine weather or not usage can be productive for leadership in general. The study concludes that there are several benefits as well as drawbacks to leadership in using social media, but has yet to conclude weather productive or not. This study gives an overview of a relatively unexplored subject.Leadership in terms of leader, communication and group dynamics have been defined and explained in accordance with existing literature. A  brief review of computer and Internet history attempts to explain the formation and evolution of social media. Risks in terms of risks related to leadership and risks related to IT-security are taken into consideration and have been briefly explained.