Bakgrund: Den digitala utvecklingen har förändrat hur företag kommunicerar med sina kunder och sociala medier spelar en allt större roll. Allt fler företag väljer att på sociala medier använda content marketing som syftar till att hjälpa sina kunder genom att dela relevant innehåll snarare än att skicka direkta säljmeddelanden. Det finns ännu begränsat med studier om content marketing via sociala medier i kontexten av små och medelstora B2B-företag och med anledning av det så ämnar denna studie utöka den befintliga kunskapen om hur och varför strategin används. Syfte och frågeställningar: Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur och varför små och medelstora företag verksamma inom business-to-business använder content marketing via sociala medier. Hur skapar och distribuerar företagen sitt innehåll? Vilka incitament finns till att använda content marketing via sociala medier? Vilken roll spelar kundengagemang för content marketing? Genomförande: Studien har utgått från en kvalitativ metod där svaren från intervjuerna lett till det empiriska resultat som sedan legat till grund för analysen. Resultat: Företagen använder content marketing via sociala medier för att generera leads med målet öka försäljningen. Strategin syftar till att förmedla ett värde baserat på företagets kunskap vid varje kommunikationstillfälle och en användning kan förenkla säljprocessen. Kundengagemang på sociala medier kan öka både synligheten och trovärdigheten av innehållet genom eWOM men tycks inte vara avgörande för att lyckas med content marketing om målet är att öka försäljningen. / Problem definition: The digital evolution has changed the way companies communicate with their customers, and social media are playing an ever-increasing role. More companies choose to use content marketing through social media which aims at helping their customers by sharing relevant content rather than sending direct sales messages. There are still limited studies on content marketing through social media in the context of small and medium-sized B2B companies, and as a consequence, this study aims at expanding existing knowledge about how and why the strategy is used. Aim and research questions: The purpose of the study is to investigate how and why small and medium-­sized businesses within business-­to-­business use content marketing through social media. How do the companies create and distribute their content? What are the incentives to utilize content marketing through social media? What role does customer engagement play for content marketing? Methodology: This study has had a qualitative research method where interviews have been conducted and transformed to the empirical results which have been the basis for the analysis. Findings: Companies use content marketing through social media to generate leads with the goal of increasing sales. The strategy aims to convey value based on the company's expertise at each communication opportunity and can simplify the sales process. Customer engagement on social media can increase both the visibility and the credibility of the content through eWOM, but does not seem to be crucial to succeeding in content marketing if the goal is to increase sales.

Background:  In recent years, Sweden’s micro consulting enterprise (MCE) industry has grown significantly. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, the MCE business in Sweden continued to grow in a positive direction, while bigger consulting firms were heavily impacted, with around 48% of firms seeing negative growth. Because of the growth, there is a necessity for MCEs to distinguish themselves in the market as smaller consulting firms face stiff competition from larger enterprises. Due to today’s digital generation, MCEs are provided with an excellent opportunity to develop a digital communication strategy. Hence, a common strategy being used is content marketing which acts as a communication strategy to attract new customers. Problem:  After founding a MCE, there is an ambiguity in how to reach customers, as a cause of the small size of the company. The low amount of employees leads to lacking intangible assets, which instead induce word-of-mouth marketing. However, such marketing is rather uncertain and difficult to strategize. Meanwhile, there is a growth of MCE’s utilization of content marketing to increase sales. Previous researchers within the area have expressed the need for understanding MCE’s relation to content marketing, to evaluate how MCEs can apply content marketing to acquire new customers. Purpose: This thesis aims to develop knowledge on the possibilities for MCEs to strengthen their chances to acquire new customers through content marketing. Method: This qualitative research has been conducted through multiple-case study with six different cases, which includes organizational documents and semi-structured interviews. The sampling was based on the criteria of being a CEO of a MCE in Sweden, which must have a website and a LinkedIn-profile. The data analysis followed a thematic analysis to identify patterns of how MCEs use content marketing.   Results: The empirical findings presented homogenous answers aligned with the process of how to conduct successful content marketing. By identifying the four steps of ‘Awareness’, ‘Initiate Contact’, ‘Sales and Delivery’, and ‘Long-term Relationships’ the ‘MCE’s Content Marketing Model’ was established. By utilizing the model, MCEs could sustain a competitive advantage in the crowded market.

I dagens samhälle cirkulerar stora mängder av reklambudskap genom olika digitala kanaler, vilket ställer högre krav på företagen att producera innehåll som är relevant, av nytta och värdeskapande för mottagaren. Innehållet har alltså betydelsefull roll för att ens nå ut till mottagare, vilket har lett till att marknadsföringsstrategin content marketing har vuxit med stormsteg de senaste åren. Ett företag som har använt content marketing under många år och visat stor framgång inom det är Volvo Trucks, vilket är ett av studiens fallstudieobjekt. Skånetrafiken är en organisation som nyligen har implementerat content marketing strategin i sitt marknadsföringsarbete, vilket är studiens andra fallstudieobjekt. Syftet med studien är att uppnå en ökad förståelse kring hur Volvo Trucks och Skånetrafiken använder content marketing i sina reklamfilmer idag, för att sedan öka insikten i hur Skånetrafiken kan utveckla sina reklamfilmer utifrån Volvo Trucks.För att analysera Volvo Trucks och Skånetrafikens reklamfilmer har fem näranalyser genomförts; tre av Volvo Trucks och två av Skånetrafiken. Därefter har en visuell low-fidelity- prototyp tagits fram för att påvisa hur Skånetrafiken skulle kunna utveckla sina reklamfilmer enligt Volvo Trucks användning av content marketing. Studiens resultat visade på att genom en utveckling av det underliggande budskapet och en ökning av igenkänningsfaktorn kan detta främja den känslomässiga reaktionen hos mottagaren och på så vis kommunicera det underhållande värdet. Prototypen visualiserar ett vardagligt händelseförlopp som består av ett barn som huvudkaraktär, en familjär miljö och ett tydligare underliggande budskap för att förmedla både det informativa och underhållande värdet. / In today's society, large volumes of advertising messages are circulated through different digital channels, which places higher demands on companies to create relevant, useful and value content for the customer. The content has a significant role in reaching out to the customers, which has led to the increasing growth of the strategy Content marketing (shortened CM in the paper) in the last few years. One company that has used CM for many years and proved successful in this is Volvo Trucks, which is one of the case study objects in this paper. Skånetrafiken is an organization that has recently implemented CM in its marketing work, which also is the papers case study object. The purpose of the study is to gain an increased understanding of how Volvo Trucks and Skånetrafiken use content marketing in their commercials, and then to gain insight into how Skånetrafiken can develop their commercials based on Volvo Trucks.To investigate which values Volvo Trucks is communicating and how Skånetrafiken can develop and improve its use of CM, five visual content analysis using Nordströms (1989) method called Näranalys, has been implemented; three of Volvo Trucks and two of Skånetrafiken. Subsequently, a visual low-fidelity prototype has been developed that shows how Skånetrafiken could develop its campaign film "Door closing" according to Volvo Trucks use of CM. The study's results showed that through the development of the underlying message and an increase in the recognition factor, this can promote the emotional response of the customer. The prototype visualizes an everyday storyline that consists of a child as the main character, a familiar environment and a clearer underlying message to communicate both the informative and entertaining value.

Purpose: Due to the rapidly increasing use of Digital Content Marketing (DCM) on social media and the lagging empirical research in the field, this study aims to determine how marketers can optimize DCM on social media and influence the purchase intention of Generation Z consumers.  Methodology: Since the study is based on a consumer perspective, a quantitative method with a deductive approach has been conducted. The empirical data consisted of a digital survey with responses from 141 Generation Z consumers.  Findings: Results of the survey reveals that it is possible to optimize the existing characteristics of DCM, as the most preferred traits were valuable, reliable, and entertaining. Furthermore, DCM has a strong impact on the target audience’s purchase intention and can be most advantageously conveyed through video and image formats on Instagram.  Research limitations: This study contributes to an increased understanding of how to use DCM on social media. However, more empirical research is still needed in the field that can be generalized to the entire Generation Z population.  Practical implications: Findings provide an optimized and up-to-date version of DCM that provides marketers with guidelines and opportunities for how DCM on social media can increase consumer engagement and purchase intention.  Originality/value: This study is one of the first to optimize DCM on social media based on consumer preferences, thus demonstrating how DCM can be designed to increase consumer purchase intention.  Keywords: Digital Content Marketing, Content Marketing, purchase intention, social media, digital platforms, digital formats

This thesis presents an inquiry into the concept and phenomena of content marketing and its corresponding market in Sweden by attending to its constituent practices. By adopting a practice based approach to markets, influenced by recent developments in economic sociology, it utilizes a constructivist  view of markets as constantly forming and emerging. This allows examination of a concept that is novel, ambiguously defined yet increasingly popular by focusing on its practical enactments along with actors' conceptions and ideas in order to study what constitutes content marketing. By archival analysis of trade media, examination of industry media and in-depth interviews with content marketing practitioners the paper highlights the formatting effect of ideas on practice, the existence of multiple and conflicting definitions and enactments of content marketing and the implications thereof. It also shows how different categories of content marketing practice are connected and interlinked, before arriving at a definition drawing on practitioners descriptions, enactments and ideas central to the market. The thesis contributes with an inquiry into content marketing where academic research is scant and also provides an empirical application of theory from the growing research tradition concerned with a practice approach to markets.

New technologies have increased the possible ways in which humans interact and as a result require new as well as old ways to establish trust. The findings of this paper suggest that trust should be divided into three main categories of trust drivers, exchange factors, design factors and motivational factors. The results indicate that tutorials can, and should, include drivers that build these categories. While we found varying degrees on how well implemented these were, we found that design factors were generally more prominent and found opportunities for tutorials to improve on the exchange side.

The digital media landscape has fundamentally changed the way audiences consume and share content, creating many opportunities and challenges for news companies and organizations of all types (private, public and non-profit). This research investigates how the latter have gained the ability to produce and distribute journalistic-like content through their owned channels, thus circumventing journalists and engaging with their audiences directly. It shows how digital media have altered the manner in which news about organizations is disseminated, and, subsequently, the roles of PR practitioners and journalists. Through a series of interviews with seasoned experts in these two competing and collaborating fields, this project provides insights regarding the erosion of journalists’ gatekeeping role and the advent of PR practitioners as content creators. It supports prior research regarding the value of reciprocity between journalists and PR practitioners and offers orientations as to the future of these two professions in the context of the digital media landscape.

I dagens samhälle syns reklambudskap överallt men allt färre tar emot dessa budskap. För att försöka komma under den så kallade reklamgarden har fokus inom marknadsföring på senare tid skiftats mot innehållet i budskapen. Denna typ av marknadsföring kallas content marketing och det finns idag begränsad forskning inom området. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur och varför reklambranschen påverkas och eventuellt förändras i och med content marketing som marknadsföringsmetod. Detta undersöks genom intervjuer med fyra personer som jobbar på contentbyråer. Resultatet visar på att reklambranschen kommer att förlora pengar och saknar relevant kunskap för att arbeta med content marketing. Detta resultat pekar på att reklambranschen kan stå inför en kris och måste förändra sig för att överleva. Det framkommer att content marketing är en mycket aktuell och framgångsrik marknadsföringsmetod som är här för att stanna.

The age of traditional marketing is beginning to end and the digital revolution will continueits journey. Today, most companies meet their business customers for the first time in a digitalenvironment and decision-makers stay longer more frequently in the digital world beforeinitiating contact with a company. Many argue that companies need to connect, collaborateand co-create with others to be able to succeed. Content marketing and value co-creation arejust some of the methodologies companies could adopt in order to succeed. Previous researchhas investigated value co-creation and partly content marketing, but these combined areashave not been previously researched together. Especially not from a business to businessperspective which this thesis has conducted. This study was initiated based on previousresearch, where a gap was found regarding these subjects. Therefore, the aim of this researchwas to study how value co-creation can be achieved through content marketing, from anenterprise perspective.This research was constructed by performing a multiple-case study on two Swedishcompanies, with two employees on each company. The data collection resulted in valuableinsights regarding the process of value co-creation and content marketing. The theoretical andempirical findings include similar views of the research areas, which are further presented inthe discussion chapter where the DARTT model has been used as a tool. Additionally, thisstudy proves it is possible to co-create value with a business's customers through contentmarketing and it also presents a general suggestion of how it can be achieved. Lastly, we hopeour thesis has the potential of acting as a base for further research, such as exploring the mosteffective digital platforms within content marketing from a business to business perspective,since it was not the purpose of this study to present that kind of insight. / Den digitala revolutionen kommer att fortsätta påverka dagens marknadsföring och dentraditionell marknadsföringen börjar att hamna i skymundan för de nya trenderna. Mångaföretag möter idag sina företagskunder för första gången i en digital miljö och flerbeslutsfattare än någonsin stannar kvar i den digitala världen innan de initierar kontakt medett företag. Många argumenterar även för att företag ska sammarbeta och samskapa med andraparter för att kunna nå framgång. Innehållsmarknadsföring och samskapande av värde ärnågra metodiker som företag kan anta för att kunna lyckas fortsätta attrahera kunder i endigital miljö. Tidigare forskning har undersökt samskapande av värde och även till viss delinnehållsmarknadsföring, men dessa områden har inte tidigare blivit undersökta tillsammans.Speciellt inte från ett business to business perspektiv som denna uppsats innehar. Dennastudie initierades på grund av tidigare forskningen, där ett gap hittades mellan dessa områden.Syftet med denna forskning är att studera hur samskapande av värde tillsammans med kundenkan bli utfört genom innehållsmarknadsföring, från ett företagsperspektiv.Denna studien är utförd med hjälp av en multipel fallstudie på två svenska företag, där tvåanställda har intervjuats på varje företag. Datainsamlingen resulterade i relevant insikt inomföretagens processer angående samskapande av värde och framtida kampanjer inominnehållsmarknadsföring. Både tidigare forskning och empirin inkluderar liknande perspektivinom forskningsområdena, vilket är presenterat i diskussionskapitlet där DARTT modellenhar används som ett verktyg. Denna studien bevisar att det är möjligt för ett företag attsamskapa värde med kunder genom innehållsmarknadsföring och den presenterar även ettgenerellt förslag på hur detta kan bli utfört. Slutligen hoppas vi att vår avhandling harmöjlighet att stå till grund för vidare forskning, exempelvis gällande vilka digitala plattformarsom är de mest effektiva i innehållsmarknadsföring från ett business to business perspektiv,eftersom detta inte var syftet med vår studie.

The digital media landscape has fundamentally changed the way audiences consume and share content, creating many opportunities and challenges for news companies and organizations of all types (private, public and non-profit). This research investigates how the latter have gained the ability to produce and distribute journalistic-like content through their owned channels, thus circumventing journalists and engaging with their audiences directly. It shows how digital media have altered the manner in which news about organizations is disseminated, and, subsequently, the roles of PR practitioners and journalists. Through a series of interviews with seasoned experts in these two competing and collaborating fields, this project provides insights regarding the erosion of journalists’ gatekeeping role and the advent of PR practitioners as content creators. It supports prior research regarding the value of reciprocity between journalists and PR practitioners and offers orientations as to the future of these two professions in the context of the digital media landscape.