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.

Problem-definition: How companies work with social media to strengthen their brand equity and what other purposes might lay behind this usage.Purpose: How Volkswagen Sweden use social media in order to strengthen their brand equity.Method: Qualitative case- study of Volkswagen Sweden where a number of respondents will be interviewed with the help of a semi structured interview guide.Theories: A number of theories in the field of brand equity and communication theory will be used in this paper, some of these theories are, Post-model, Social technographics ladder, brand equity and word of mouth.Empiric: A semi-structured interview guide will be shaped from theory and answered through interviews with people who have knowledge within the field.Conclusions: Extracted from the results the research members has identified a number of important factors that business should consider when they work with social media or planning to. They have also answered how business can strengthen their brand equity with social media..

AbstractTitel:How do established companies communicate with their existing customers? Level:C-level in the Business Administration Author:Jessica Axelsson and Trang Nguyen Thi Thu Supervisor:Per-Arne Wikström Date:2012-05 Aim:Our aim with this essay is to describe how an established company communicates with its existing customers. We want to explore which communication strategy the company applies to reach their customers. We also want to see what kind of communication the company applies to get to market more effectively and remain on the market longer. Method:The study is a qualitative case study where we have conducted a personal interview with the company president.

Kommunikation mellan konsumenter om produkter, word-of-mouth (WOM), kan påverka konsumenters köpbeslut. Därför är det viktigt att förstå varför konsumenter sprider information om produkter. Tidigare forskning har till stor del undersökt drivkrafter bakom WOM som ett generellt koncept, men på grund av att vi allt mer kommunicerar via elektroniska kanaler kan motiven bakom att sprida WOM ha förändrats. Forskning om detta kan bidra med ny kunskap inom området, varför denna undersökning syftar till att studera vilka drivkrafter som finns bakom electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). En självadministrerad enkät besvarades elektroniskt av 150 respondenter för att undersöka sju olika drivkrafter.

During the past decades the competition for skilful employees has increased and companies and organizations compete to attract the right people. The Swedish municipalities and country councils need to recruit 420 000 new employees before 2020, but have a limited budget to promote themselves as attractive employers. To find a solution, many of the municipalities have started to work with fundamental values to become more attractive employers and to inspire employees to use word-of-mouth to recommend them. There are no empirical studies of how successful this strategy is, and the purpose of this thesis is to show if there are significant correlations between the fundamental values, the employer's attractiveness and word-of-mouth. The results of the study are based on a survey with 1996 answers from employees in three different municipalities in Stockholm, Sweden.

Aim: The aim of our study is to analyze and evaluate from a marketing perspective how estate agents can use facebook to strengthen their brand. Method: We have used an inductive study form where we?ve used a quality and a quantity data gathering method. The data has been gathered from an interview with Botkyrkabyggens marketing coordinator and from an internet survey based on a convience selection and a snow ball selection.Theory: SWOT, Brand Equity, Word of Mouth, Customer Relationship ManagementConclusion: Facebook can create and measure "word of mouth" effects, and also create better information management and flow of information compared to traditional marketing for an estate agent. The risks of facebook is the difficulty in educating the staff about the site and the fact that facebook dominates the policies and rules which suddenly can change.