The rise of social media has brought an increasingly open and transparent environment, where everyone can share thoughts and opinions with other people. This new transparent world creates new challenges in many fields. One of these is in the field of crisis management. The question is how companies should handle a crisis in social media. The thesis starts by investigating theory regarding areas affecting crisis management in social media. From this theory; a quantitative survey, qualitative interviews and investigation of secondary data are conducted. This resulted in findings, regarding what is important for companies, concerning crisis management in social media. It is important for companies to monitor social media, to be quick in replying in social media and to reply in a human, non corporate, voice. It is as well important to have a crisis plan, a crisis response team and a main responsible for crisis management in social media. We have seen that it seems like larger companies generally are more prepared for crisis management in social media and that they consequently are better in handling a crisis in social media.

Background: In the past decade, Social Media has been an interesting Internet phenomenon. Social Media has increased the ability for Internet users to communicate and interact with one another, allowing them to overcome boundaries that once made communication difficult and slow. It has become a big part of everyday life and has fundamentally changed the way we send and receive information. This transformation has led to businesses acknowledging the need for a change in the way they communicate with their customers. The purpose of this thesis is to understand what makes a business successful in Social Media and what are the tools that businesses may use in order to communicate with their consumer community. Method: This study is exploratory and qualitative in nature. Authors conducted a case study research and used an inductive approach in order to answer research questions. Several methods of gathering data are used in the thesis for the full analysis of the case study: interview, survey, netnography (“internet – based ethnography”). Qualitative measures are used to draw conclusions regarding Social Media metrics and consumer engagement. Conclusion: Authors state that there is no universal communication strategy suitable for every company, but the appropriate one may be build according to the company goals and means. Process of creating the communication strategy should focus on several targets which companies may identify by themselves or with the help of guides. One of those targets is identifying appropriate ways of engaging with the customers with the combination of Brand Awareness, Brand Engagement and Word of Mouth. Three main parts of the communication strategy are interconnected: Brand Awareness, Brand Engagement and Word of Mouth. Effectiveness of communication strategy (different combination of Brand Awareness, Brand Engagement and Word of Mouth) may be measured by specific metrics or statistical ones. Increasing those interconnected metrics depends on ability to follow the customer needs and the quality of content. Main B2C Social Media tools nowadays are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. This thesis found out strong relationship between those three (“Social Media Triangle” model). Company having accounts in each of those networks should use it as a whole and not as separate tools.

As of the moment Facebook is the world’s largest online social network with over 800 million active users and more than 50% of the users log on to the website on any given day. It is considered to be the most important social platform on the Internet since it reaches more people than any other social network. Social networks present a completely different way for consumers and companies to interact with each other, compared to traditional communication, and create an incredible challenge for corporations. The hard task that companies have to face is how to engage their consumers through interaction, participation, entertainment and innovative creativity. The pursuit of consumer engagement plays a key role in coping with the ongoing changes in social life as well as in consumer behavior. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how companies engage customers through online communication at Facebook. In order to fulfill the purpose the authors chose to conduct observations of six Swedish companies active on Facebook; Marabou, Nelly.com, McDonald’s Sweden, Liseberg, ICA and Fotografiska. The research showed that companies use integrated marketing communication as a tool to involve and engage customers on Facebook. The results imply that there are key factors that characterized the observed companies’ Facebook communication. Frequent updates, clear information, visualized messages and customer involvement were vital in creating customer engagement and indicate how communication on Facebook is carried out by companies.

Social media on the Web has become more common over the last decade and in recent years it has grown immensely. The social media with the highest amount of members is Facebook, where not only private persons are found - companies started to establish their profiles on the network in 2006. However, little is known about how these companies succeed and reach their audience with information dissemination and interact with them. The aim of this study is to contribute with information to local companies on how they can manage to maintain their activity with different approaches and strategies. This study examines how three different local companies chooses to spread information and maintain relationships with their members on Facebook. The research question in this thesis is: How are companies active on Facebook, in regard of dissemination of information and interaction? This is examined with the help of a framework which suggests three strategies with different grades of activity, which is applicable on the companies Facebook sites. The three strategies proposed by Waters, Burnett, Lamm and Lucas (2009) include disclosure, information dissemination and involvement. Disclosure contains a description about the company and its services, logo and opening hours. Information dissemination comprises photographs, video and audio files as well as news and campaigns in posted announcements or links. Involvement includes interactivity with customers, and between customers where ways to contact the company, such as e-mail and message boards exists. An e-commerce store is also presented in this strategy. The outcome of this thesis is that companies will have the best approach and strategy if they mirror their Facebook strategy with their business strategy. It is also of great importance to have continuous activity, both information dissemination and interactivity on the companies Facebook sites.

Syftet med detta arbete var att få en insikt i hur privata Facebookanvändare uppfattar artisters identitet på Facebook. Intresset väcktes då jag för en tid sedan lade märke till det ökade användandet av Facebook bland såväl företag som kommersiella personer. Facebook har på kort tid kommit att bli en plattform från vilken många personer och företag väljer att visa och marknadsföra sig själva på. I studien undersökte jag begreppet identitet och hur privata Facebookanvändare förknippar detta begrepp med artisters Facebookanvändande. För att uppnå mitt syfte utförde jag en undersökning med en kvalitativ ansats. Den metod som jag använde mig av var fokusgruppintervjuer där ett ramverk av frågor ställdes till intervjudeltagarna som fick behandlas fritt för diskussion inom gruppen. Som analysmetod vid tolkningen av materialet från fokusgruppintervjuerna använde jag mig av en tematisk modell där materialet noggrant lästes upprepade gånger tills olika teman i texten gick att utläsa. Resultaten som framkom visade att det rådde skilda uppfattningar i hur artisters valde att agera på Facebook. Uppfattningarna bland intervjudeltagarna var generellt sätt positiva men på ett antal punkter skilde sig åsikterna. Främst gällde detta i hur den egna identiteten speglades på Facebook samt i hur artisters aktiviteter som till exempel statusuppdateringar uppfattades. Statusuppdateringarna gav utrymme för kritik då de i många sammanhang upplevdes som irriterande. Likaså kunde den som skrev statusuppdateringarna och det språk som då användes påverka artistens identitet och image både positivt och negativt. I resultatet påvisade intervjudeltagarna vikten av en personlig prägel på kommunikationen och identiteten som artisten visade upp på Facebook.

Background: Researchers have investigated display advertising in the past several years from different perspectives but only in connection to traditional Web sites and not specifically for social networking sites. Facebook is the most prominent social networking site in terms of number of users and its main source of revenue is its online advertising business. Having display advertising in their virtual space is the reason why social networks are able to offer free service and as such the need to understand how users perceive it arises The most important way of understanding users’ perceptions about the advertis- ing messages is by studying attitudes. In order to understand the attitudes toward Facebook display advertising, it is necessary to examine the factors that affect the attitude-toward-the-ad. Ad perceptions, ad credibility, attitude toward advertisers, attitude toward advertising and mood have been identified by previous researchers as clearly influencing the attitude toward specific ads. Purpose: The purpose of this research is to investigate user’s attitude toward display advertising on Facebook by identifying the main factors that influence the formation of attitudes. Method: In order to fulfill the purpose and uncover the main factors that influence the attitude towards display advertising on Facebook, a qualitative research has been conducted. Both a primary and a secondary data search was per- formed. The primary data was collected by carrying out semistructured interviews with students at Jönköping University which resulted in a number of 20 respondents. The secondary data was gathered through the use of the resources available at the university library, both digital and paper based. Internet Web sites have also been reviewed when needed. Conclusions: The authors found that users display an accepting, positive attitude toward display advertising on Facebook. There have been identified five main fac- tors influencing Facebook users’ attitude and these are ad credibility, ad perceptions, attitude toward the advertiser, informativeness and lack of irritation. Moreover, the informativeness factor was found to have the greatest influence in terms of the behavior Facebook users have toward display advertising.

Abstract Title: The first thing I do when I wake up is to log on to Facebook. A study regarding how users of Social Networks experiences the User Generated production. (Det första jag gör när jag vaknar är att logga in på Facebook. En studie om hur användare av de sociala nätverken upplever den användargenererande produktionen.) Number of pages: 37 (39 including enclosures) Author: Per Magnusson Tutor: Christian Christensen Course: Media and Communication Studies C Period: Fall semester 2010 University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University Aim: The ambition with this essay is to examine how the online users of social networks experience the development of the Internet towards Web 2.0, and the enormous User Generated Content emerging from it. How do we receive User Generated Content from other people, and particularly what do we think about our own production. Material/Method: In order to obtain a deeper understanding of the attitudes and perceptions amongst people regarding this subject I used qualitative interviews with 9 people. To get a breadth in the representation I used three different categories of people. With active bloggers as the first category, people who frequently and actively uses social networks as the second, and as the third and last category I interviewed people who actively logs on to at least one social network without participate to the user generated content. The interviewed people are between 20-30 years old. Main results: The essay shows that the development of Internet, towards web 2.0, has a positive impact on the human life. The reason that the participants in this study produces and participates in social networks is mainly because it is social, fun, educational and a great pastime. Social Networking has become ingrained into people´s lives, and they all like to observe what other people do. It turns out that the general attitude of how you look at your own User Generated Production is that you do not even think about it. The participants do not see the User Generated Content as a production, instead they rather see it as a participation in a social context. Keywords: User Generated Content, Production, Produsage, Web 2.0, Social Networks, Internet, Facebook, Wikipedia.

Denna uppsats syftar till att ge en insikt i hur små webbolag kan skapa affärsnytta genom marknadsföring i sociala medier, samt föreslå riktlinjer för hur detta kan gå till. För att kunna besvara uppsatsens syfte genomfördes en kvalitativ studie av hur webbolagen Booli, Coolstuff och Freddie G Store marknadsför sig genom Facebook, Twitter och bloggar. De sociala medierna har skapat nya förutsättningar för företag vid marknadsföring. Företagen kan inte längre bestämma när och var en dialog ska ske, istället pågår ett konstant buzz. Detta skapar en flervägskommunikation som leder till att företag måste anpassa sin marknadsföringsstrategi. Varumärkets funktioner, företagets grad av transparens samt den snabba spridningen genom word‐of‐mouth bör finnas i åtanke vid denna interaktiva marknadsföring.

Title: “We become like a little ambassador in the country of Facebook” – an essay on the pres-ence of Swedish National Radio on Facebook. (“Vi blir som en liten ambassador I Facebooklan-det” – En uppsats om Sveriges Radios närvaro på Facebook) Number of pages: 34 (46 including enclosures) Author: Nina Willén Tutor: Christian ChristensenCourse: Media and Communication Studies C Period: Fall 2010 University: Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University Purpose/Aim: My purpose is to examine what the presence of the Swedish National Radio on a commercial network like Facebook means and how the editors themselves argue about it. For the analysis I use critical political economy as a theoretical point of view. Material/Method: The material consists of interviews made from a qualitative method. The informants are delegates from the editorial staff of the Swedish National Radio’s channels P3 and P4. Main results: Even though Facebook is a good tool for spreading information and getting in touch with people, it still is a commercial network and that cannot be forgotten. Companies use the surveillance structure of Facebook to collect information from their potential costumers so that the users can see tailored advertising on the site. The presence of the Public Service-based Swedish National Radio makes the users want to stay at Facebook and keep them entertained so that the companies can gather more information and thus earn more money. Keywords: Social networking, critical political economy, Facebook, surveillance, scrutinizing, communication, web 2.0, Public Service.

Uppsatsen syfte var att förstå hur fyra unga män formar sin identitet och sin livsstil genom sina användarprofiler och sitt beteende på Facebook. Arbetet beskriver även hur dessa personer anpassar sig efter andra användare och vilken funktion Facebook fyller i deras identitetsprocesser. Materialet består av fokusgruppsintervjuer, personliga intervjuer och uppföljningsenkäter. Den information som materialet genererade visade att de unga männen till stor grad anpassar sig efter omgivningen på Facebook. Facebook är en stor del av de studerade individernas vardag och är en bidragande faktor till deras självbild. Det finns ett behov att inte missa några händelser och därför är en aktiv användning viktig då männen annars upplever att de försämrar sina chanser att befästa sin identitet och livsstil på sidan. Undersökningen visar även att deltagarna framförallt anpassar sig efter potentiella partners.