Finansiell Kommunikation 2.0
En kvalitativ fallstudie om de svenska storbankernas syn på och användning av sociala medier i syfte att bättre tillfredsställa ekonomiska journalisters, investerares och finansiella analytikers informationsbehov
Social media has today reached a level of maturity similar to the Internet in the beginning of the millennium. More and more people get involved both on a private and professional level and companies are starting to realize the need to keep up with the new online behavior of its target groups. The Investor Relations(IR) function has for a very long time been carried out by writing reports and press releases, but maybe as times change so will the tools needed to communicate the IR-issues for the companies? The purpose of this paper was to examine the views on and involvement in social media for IR-purposes at the four main banks in Sweden: Nordea, SEB, Handelsbanken and Swedbank. The study was carried out in the form of a qualitative case study in which the banks were analyzed separately with the help of Davids and Venkateshs TAM2-model(2000) and also analyzed against one another. The results show that the four banks differ quite significantly in both their views and their actual engagement and presence in the social media. SEB by far saw the most potential and also did take part actively in the area. Handelsbanken was the furthest away from actually launching a social media project, while Nordea and Swedbank ended up between the two. However, all of the banks respected the social media to a large extent and were certain of its impact on the way companies will do business in the near future. The paper adds to the very limited research base on social media for IR-purposes and hopefully inspires more studies in this interesting and growing field of research.