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.

Vår uppsats utgår från det faktum att det har blivit svårare för företag att utmärka sig i det ökande bruset av marknadskommunikation. Konkurrensen om konsumenternas uppmärksamhet har tvingat marknadsförare och företag att använda sig av nya och annorlunda marknadsföringsmetoder för att nå ut med sina budskap. Samtidigt visar forskning att dagens reklamintensiva samhälle har medfört en ökande skepticism hos konsumenter när det gäller kommersiell påverkan och att konsumenters förtroende för företag generellt sett har försvagats. Frågan om marknadsföringsmetoder och kommersiell påverkan är ett känsloladdat ämne, eftersom fler metoder tenderar att inkräkta på konsumenternas integritet. Det har visat sig att konsumenter litar mer än någonsin på sina vänner och sin familj och allt mindre på reklambudskap när det gäller att bestämma vilka produkter och tjänster de ska köpa I USA har fler företag börjat använda sig av en marknadsföringsmetod som kallas Stealth Marketing för att skapa medvetenhet kring sina produkter/varumärken.

Allt fler kunder söker sig i dag till så kallade tredjepartskanaler på internet för att boka hotell. En tredjepartskanal är en hemsida som samlar ett flertal hotell som kunden kan jämföra och välja mellan. I anslutning till dessa internetbaserade tredjepartskanaler finns vanligtvis kommentarsfält där kunder som tidigare bott på hotellen kan dela med sig av sin upplevelse genom kommentarer, det vill säga word-of-mouth. Dessa kommentarer har enligt forskning stor inverkan på kommande kunders köpbeslut, vilket motiverar en studie som undersöker hotells kunskap och arbete med word-of-mouth. Detta undersöks genom en kvalitativ fallstudie av svenska hotell.

Purpose  The purpose of this paper is from a consumer perspective analysis whether or not blogs are affecting a customer?s purchase behaviour to a larger extent compared to traditional marketing methods through TV commercials. Additionally, within the scope of this try to identify the type of consumers that are more influenced to a purchase decision by blog contents compared to others.Methods Through a quantitative approach this study will examine the effectiveness of advertising in blogs. A survey was used in order to collect data where the respondents corresponded to the population in Sweden in the ages 15-79. Initially the size of the blog audience was estimated and thereafter it was examined how many of these that were affected towards a purchase decision by blogs.

Social media provides, as many points out, new possibilities for marketing. Marketing in social media requires a two way communication, rather than the traditional marketing where the communication model is typically sender ? receiver.To create a marketing campaign that is suitable for a two way communication model has its difficulties and risks as well as its opportunities. Opportunities in the sense that the campaign can become a viral, a Word of mouth and create a Buzz, which will reach potential customers, to a bigger quantity for lower costs, with a message that will make a different impact from the types of commercial messages we are used to. Risks in the sense that the message, if not properly aimed and phrased, can be turned overnight into something that humiliates the company and possibly harm its brand.The difficulties in creating such a campaign is to create something that will catch people?s attention, discuss and forward it, while at the same time avoid getting hurt.We aim to describe the internet from a cultural context, and from that point of view explore the types of misunderstandings which often seem to happen when a corporate message is created and sent out in social media, how to avoid putting the image of a company in danger when doing this, and examine if there is ways to know how the message will be received.

En av de största affärerna vi gör i livet är förmodligen då vi köper bostad. Idag råder det en relativt hård konkurrens bland både fastighetsmäklarföretag och fastighetsmäklare. Det gäller därför att leverera tjänsten bättre än konkurrenterna, för att kunna bli ett framgångsrikt fastighetsmäklarföretag på dagens marknad. Ett lyckat koncept kan då vara word-of-mouth, det vill säga rekommendationer. Studier visar att rekommendationer påverkas av kundlojaliteten som i sin tur påverkas av kvaliteten som tjänsten erbjuder, tillfredställelsen kunden känner samt kundnyttan.

Today's consumers are demanding more and more from companies and are no longer as easy to im-press as they used to be. It is now the consumers that hold an increasing amount of power over com-panies and not the other way around. This change in consumer behaviour has caused an identity crisis for traditional advertising, and companies are now searching for new ways of reaching their target audience. The purpose of this combined qualitative and quantitative case study is to examine possible risks and possibilities that a retailing company face when communicating through Facebook. Data has been collected through in-depth interviews with company representatives combined with a quantitative study of the company's Facebook followers in order to answer the questions of (1) which possibilities and risks a retailing company face through the use of a Facebook fanpage and (2) if there is a differ-ence in the attitude and behaviour of active respectively passive followers that may have been caused by a retailing company's marketing communication on Facebook.

Word-of-mouth marketing (WOM) has been considered as one of the most effective marketing tools, yet the least understood. While its lucrative effects have been well proven in academic studies worldwide, little is yet known of why consumers engage in WOM, and what factors actually drive this sought-after behavior, particularly in an online context. While today's research lacks holistic views on the simultaneous effects of multiple WOM-drivers, this paper takes on a meta-analytic approach by building on the pertinent literature to construct an aggregated model, including several previously acknowledged drivers divided into two categories: (1) Brand related drivers and (2) Personal and situational drivers. The authors then empirically examine what drivers are the most influential on WOM in an online social media context. By doing so, this thesis does not only contribute to marketing managers' better understanding of online communications management, it also sheds light on the theoretical knowledge of the behavioral drivers of WOM.

This bachelor thesis in tourism studies focuses on people's use of social media related to travel. The paper aims to provide a wider knowledge of tourist?s propensity to display destinations through social media and how they perceive others that display travelling. This is put in relation to the term of social status in order to find out if there is a possible link. The intention was to provide an insight into the phenomenon to contribute new awareness that destinations can exploit in their marketing.

The purpose with this study is to enlighten and discuss the information and communication which is spreading through social media, about the tourist operators and also to examine the operators view on social media. Social media can be described as a tool to use word of mouth on the Internet. To make this possible, five actors involved in tourism were picked on Gotland and interviewed for a content analysis. The results showed that the use of social media as an information channel before the consumer buys a trip, has increased. The study also shows that the selected actors have a lot of work to do, before they understand how to use the social media in their best interest for further developing their companies.

The purpose of this study is to highlight the opportunities of using social media as a communicative tool to attract and engage customers on different social media platforms. In recent years social media has become an important way for business to communicate with people both national and global. The idea behind this thesis was found when we saw different approaches of how companies used social media as a marketing tool. Through a qualitative approach we did eight interviews with six different companies and two social media consults which have given us a basis of what companies really want to achieve with social media. With these interviews we were able to analyze and discuss the abilities to interact with people and how companies distribute content that engage users and increase their credibility to the company..

The purpose of this study is to further develop the understanding of Nextopia, the belief that the next product will always be better, and the effects it has on Word of mouth, both oral (WOM) and electronic (eWOM), and investigate possible causes of this effect. This has been made through an experimental study of responses to two mineral water ads, with a manipulated time frame. First, this thesis supports the fact that there is a general Nextopia-effect on customers being exposed to a future product, which makes them evaluating the product higher in terms of feelings, attitude and intention. Further this study shows that there is also a Nextopia-effect on WOM and eWOM, by customers being more likely to recommend a future product rather than a current one. This propensity to recommend the product also has a relationship with responsibility, which correlates much stronger with WOM than eWOM.

The tourism industry in Sweden has expanded in recent years and the increasing industry has meant that customers are in need of a reseller for their trips abroad. Today there are three types of retailers available. These are : Traditional travel agencies , tour operators and online travel agencies.Online Travel agencies are the most modern online option for customers. Their existence has made it easier for the customer and reservation can be made anytime and anywhere. The competition has intensified between the three retailers and the traditional alternatives must find new ways to survive.

abstract buzz marketing, the phenomena Have you ever thought about why the small French pastries called macarons suddenly became so extremely popular? Soon they were seen everywhere in the media, on every celebrity party and shortly after of course on every Swedish person?s cake dish. Could it be that a trendy it-girl happened to mention these lovely creations in her blog?What (or who) is it really that decides and controls what is popular and what is going to sell? If one individual can influence a whole group of followers it is definitely something marketers should take advantage of. One cannot any longer rely on traditional advertising, one needs to be more creative and rethink the possibilities to get through the media noise.

Traditionell marknadsföring och reklam i tidningar och på TV minskar, medan tilltron till word of mouth som informationskälla har ökat. Forskare har gjort en differentiering mellan så kallad organisk och konstruerad word of mouth där skillnaden ligger i att den förstnämnda uppstår naturligt ur en positiv upplevelse, medan den senare varianten sker som ett resultat av ett ekonomiskt utbyte med en tredje part. Det största företaget i Sverige som använder sig av konstruerad word of mouth som marknadsföringsstrategi är det webbaserade företaget Buzzador. Få studier har gjorts gällande word of mouth ur den utövande individens perspektiv. Syftet med denna studie är således att kvalitativt intervjua privatpersoner som är medlemmar på Buzzador för att undersöka deras upplevelser av tjänsten och uppkomsten av eventuella dilemman rörande deltagandet i konstruerad word of mouth.