I det ständigt förändrande digitala landskapet har det för företag växt fram nya möjligheter för marknadskommunikation och sociala media marknadsföring (SMM) har blivit en stor del av företags marknadsstrategier. En växande trend är att använda sociala media influencers (SMI) för exempelvis reklamsamarbeten eller varumärkesexponering. Forskning inom området tyder på att marknadskomunikation med hjälp av SMI:s är effektivt men varför en del SMI:s är mer effektiva än andra framgår inte tydligt. Därför valdes detta område som fokus för studien, med syftet att undersöka vilka variabler inlägg med högt interaktions- och affektionsvärde innhåller. Detta med intention att etablera ett ramverk som företag kan använda vid val av SMI.Studien är en explorativ undersökning av deduktiv ansats, innehållande två kvantitativa innehållsanalyser vilka undersöker totalt 77 intagraminlägg från 17 svenska skönhetsinfluencers. Resultatet påvisade att det finns en tydlig korrelation mellan specifika variabler och högt interaktion- och affektionsvärde. Resultatet visar att inlägg som förekommer inom kategorin hög interaktion och hög affektion antingen innehåller en bild på SMI:n eller denne tillsammans med anhöriga samt använder emojis i inläggstexten. En slutsats kunde dras gällande värdet av att SMI:n även interagerar med sina följare samt har ett inläggsmönster och värderingar som som stämmer med de företag som ett samarbete avses ingås med. Även vikten av parasocial interaktion vilken skapas genom tillit och intimitet till SMI:n belyses i studiens slutsats. / In the ever-changing digital landscape, new opportunities for marketing communication have emerged for companies. Social media marketing (SMM) has become a large part of companies marketing strategies and a growing trend is to use social media influencers (SMI) by, for example, advertising collaborations or exposure of a brand. Research indicates that this trend is effective for marketing communication. However, there are no studies on why some SMI:s are more effective when it comes to marketing communication on Instagram than others. Therefore, the researchers chose to design a study where selected variables ¬¬were examined in instagramposts to determine which variables constitute high interaction and affection value. For the purpose of establishing a framework for what companies should keep track of when choosing to collaborate with an SMI.The study is an exploratory study with an deductive approach that contains two quantitative content analyzes and examined a total of 77 Instagram posts from 17 Swedish beauty influencers.The results showed that there is a clear correlation between specific variables and high interaction- and affectionvalue. Furthermore, the results show that posts that occur in the category of high interaction and high affection contains either a picture of the SMI or the SMI together with relatives. The use of emojis also occur in this category. The conclusion refers to the importance of a SMI:s interaction with its followers. It also proves important to having a post pattern that matches with the value of the brand which a collaboration is initiated with. In addition to this, the study's conclusion highlighted the importance of creating a strong parasocial interaction (PSI) by incorporating trust and intimacy of the followers.

Användningen av sociala medier i organisationer har ökat och bland annat kan det unika verktyget användas för att supporta kunskapsdelning mellan individer inom och bortanför organisationens gränser. En förståelse av individens upplevelse av sociala medier är kritiskt för såväl informatikforskningen samt för organisationer som kan dra lärdom av det vid införande av sociala medier i verksamheten. Därför är studiens syfte att beskriva och söka förståelse för vad individer i en organisation uppfattar att sociala medier kan bidra med till deras kunskapsdelning och utöka kunskapsområdet för hur teknik uppfattas ur ett affordance-perspektiv. Syftet besvaras genom en fallstudie och sju kvalitativa forskningsintervjuer. Det transkriberade materialet har hanterats individuellt och tolkats utifrån tidigare forskning samt analyserats utifrån den teoretiska modell som studien tar fram. Resultatet visar att kontexten har mångfaldig inverkan på hur individen uppfattar sociala medier och hur artefakten kan användas. Kunskapsdelning på sociala medier kan öka möjligheten till att identifiera expertis, skapa en kunskapskarta och bredda sitt sociala nätverk men leda till för mycket information och en kritisk syn på innehållet. Studien stödjer den forskning som visar på att explicit kunskap kan spridas på sociala medier och framför allt genom att den kombineras med annan explicit kunskap. / The use of social media in organizations has increased and among other things the unique tool can be used to support knowledge sharing between individuals within and beyond organization boundaries. An understanding of the individual's experience of social media is critical for both informatics research and organizations that can learn from it when introducing social media in businesses. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to describe and seek understanding of what individuals in an organization perceive that social media can contribute to their knowledge sharing and expand the research area for how technology is perceived from an affordance perspective. The purpose is achieved by a case study and seven qualitative research interviews. The transcribed material has been processed individually and interpreted in accordance with previous research and analyzed on the basis of the theoretical model that this study elaborated. The results show that context has multiple impacts on how an individual perceives social media and its area of use. Knowledge sharing on social media can increase the opportunity to identify expertise, create a knowledge map and broaden one's social network, but can also produce too much information and a judgemental view of the content. The study supports previous research that shows that explicit knowledge can be shared on social media foremost by combining it with other’s explicit knowledge.

Purpose: The study aims to explore the effects of social media influencers' credibilitydimensions (attractiveness, trustworthiness, and expertise) on consumer behavior (purchase intention and attitude towards the brand) while considering the followers' loyalty as the mediating variable in the fashion industry.Theoretical approach: The proposed conceptual model of the study is based on assumptions of source credibility theory and theoretical reasonings provided in the previous literature related to social media influencer marketing.Design/methodology: Quantitative research design is used and data is collected through selfreported questionnaires. The population of the study consists of social media users who follow social media influencers on different social media platforms. Findings – Based on data collection from 225 Pakistani respondents, the analysis of the study indicates a positive impact of the three social media influencer credibility dimensions on the purchase intention, and followers’ attitude towards the endorsed brands. Moreover, influencers’ credibility positively impacts followers’ loyalty to the influencers. In addition to the direct effects, followers’ loyalty towards the influencers partially mediated (1) the relationship between influencers’ credibility and purchase intention, as well as (2) the relationship betweeninfluencers’ credibility and followers’ attitude towards the brand. Practical implications – The findings of the thesis provide implications for businesses and marketers to understand the role of credible social media influencers in shaping consumer behavior and it also answers the question of how they influence it.Originality/value – This study adds to the influencer marketing literature by investigating the mediating role of followers’ loyalty in between the relationship of influencer’s credibility and purchase intention of followers as well as their attitude towards the brand.

This research intended to investigate how the arising SNS component of algorithms acts as a mediator for affecting SNS user habits amongst high school and university students in Sweden. The testing of this specific correlation was realized by first investigating previous research regarding algorithms, various components of user habits, and the complementary component of algorithm awareness separately. By extracting interesting and valuable findings from the previous studies, a questionnaire was constructed, implementing the previous knowledge into the response alternatives to provide components useful for building testing variables. The questionnaire collected 419 respondents, whereas 341 were considered valid after implementing a sampling phase based on the specified demographics. Testing variables were conceptualized to be able to provide the ability of testing in SPSS to show statistical significance by using chi-square testing. This was conducted to test 4 hypotheses, grounded on what was to be answered by the 2 research questions. The testing of the variables was not able to provide any statistical significance and had in general low testing validity. Thus, none of the hypotheses could be accepted, which furtherly did not provide scientifically valid answers to any of the research questions. Several potential factors could be considered to have impaired the testing, including the complexity of the variable construction, and an imbalance between the volume of respondents fitting within the constructed variables to mention a few majorly discussed arguments. However, the data collection provided valuable insights, answer data frequencies, and knowledge that have the potential to facilitate future studies, both regarding the perspective of informatics and also a range of areas of which perspective was not used for this research. Hence, it also enables and suggests future studies to evaluate the collected data, reconstruct variables, or investigating interesting responses of questions left redundant.

This research aims to investigate the impact of social media influencer’s credibility dimensions (Trustworthiness, Attractiveness, and Expertise), in shaping consumer's behaviour (Purchasing intention of customers and customer's attitude towards the brand). This proposed theoretical framework is based on social learning theory and the theoretical implications of the previous literature which is related to social media influencer marketing. For this empirical study, the data has been collected from Pakistani consumers who are following social media influencers who share and endorse products related to the fashion industry. Data is collected from 149 individuals out of which 135 were valid respondents.  Results reveal that social media influencer's credibility dimension (Trustworthiness, Attractiveness, and Expertise) positively influence the customer’s attitude towards the brands as well as the purchase intentions of the customers. In addition, the study has significance for social media influencers in the fashion and style sector in terms of understanding the factors of followers' devotion to them and the noticeable effects of followers' allegiance on their behaviour. This study adds to the literature on social media influencer marketing by demonstrating the importance of follower’s perspective towards the social media influencers. Previous studies lack in providing the Pakistan perspective related to social media influencermarketing and this research attempts to fulfill that gap. Another important aspect of this study is that the pictures of influencers have been used to conduct this research.

The increased use of social media has enhanced the way consumers make their everyday purchasing decisions. This has increased the importance of e-commerce companies to be present on social media. E-commerce companies that now use the capabilities of social media have led to the emergence of social commerce. Social media gives mutual gain for customers and companies but has also increased the amount of interactions e-commerce companies need to manage their customer experience (CE) in. As social media gives more control over the CE to the customer themselves it now becomes a challenge in maintaining the seamless CE that is demanded by the customer.  Customer experience management (CEM) is becoming a priority for managers and one of the most promising marketing approaches. CEM is about using customer insight to achieve long term customer loyalty. To gain competitiveness on the market and increase profitability e-commerce companies now need to provide a memorable CE in social media. Despite this, most companies have failed to implement CEM initiatives. There is moreover a lack in research on the combination of the topics of social commerce and CEM. This makes it highly relevant to conduct a study with the intention of answering the following research question: How can Swedish e-commerce companies work with their customer experience management on social media? This study conducted a multiple case study on Swedish e-commerce companies to investigate how Swedish e-commerce companies use CEM on their social media and what challenges and opportunities that exist. The study uses an inductive research approach with an element of deduction where the theoretical framework presents theories in the field of social media, social media marketing strategy (SMMS) and CEM. The study conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with seven marketing managers. The respondents' answer showed that feelings and company culture worked as strategic directions when creating CE that in turn created engaged customers that through two-way interactions gave valuable insight for the company to use for improving their CEM. Challenges for the management was the decreased attention span of customers and an ever-changing context on platforms while there were opportunities in social listening software and the possibility to forecast upcoming trends using the data gathered from social media.

This study started off during the spring of 2017 and had the goal of with the aid of a competitive analysis create a new social media strategy for the company Spree. During the last years, digitalization has grown increasingly and has become more integrated in our society. Together with the digitalization, the use of social medias has increased, both for personal use and for business use. For companies, the use of social medias is still relatively new, so a designed and developed social media strategy can be crucial for a company to reach out in the right way and to the right target group. This study show that a well-designed social media strategy can be created with the aid of a competitive analysis together with a deeper analysis of the company’s own social medias. The analysis of the company’s own social medias helps to illustrate the current flaws that exists, while the competitive analysis assist in finding relationships that can help the company get an apprehension of what their main focus should be on. / Denna studie borjade under varen 2017 och hade som mal att med hjalp av enkonkurrensanalys skapa en ny sociala medier-strategi for foretaget Spree. Under desenaste aren har digitaliseringen vaxt allt mer och blivit mer integrerad i vartsamhalle. Tillsammans med digitaliseringen har aven anvandningen av socialamedier okat, bade for den enskilda individen samt for foretagen. Men att anvandasociala medier for foretag ar fortfarande relativt nytt, sa att ha en utformad ochvalplanerad sociala medier-strategi kan vara avgorande for att na ut pa ratt satt ochtill ratt malgrupp. Denna undersokning visar att en val utformad sociala medier-strategi kan skapasmed hjalp av en konkurrensanalys tillsammans med en djupare analys av foretagetsegna sociala medier. Analysen av det egna foretagets sociala medier hjalper till attbelysa de nuvarande brister som finns, samtidigt som konkurrentanalysen bistar tillatt hitta samband som kan hjalpa foretaget att fa en uppfattning om vad de borfokusera pa.

With growing social media usage, social media influencers’ (SMIs) are getting more popular within the realm of social media marketing and are widely used by brands. Previous studies have shown SMI marketing influences consumers’ impulsive buying behavior in prominent ways such as by SMI-generated content, trust in SMI and SMI credibility, SMIs’ emotional appeal, SMI visual attractiveness and SMI expertise. Thus, to further elaborate on current knowledge, the purpose of this study is to describe the influence of social media influencers’ on consumers' impulsive buying behavior. A qualitative study including features of both a cross-sectional and a case study approach was conducted. It was found that SMIs’ individual characteristics and personal connections with consumers as well as SMI-generated content and SMIs’ demonstrated knowledge enhance trust and further influence impulsive buying behavior (IBB). Further, key patterns identified the interplay between SMI appearance, inspiration and trust showing that visually attractive SMIs increase trust, thus influencing impulsive buying behavior among consumers. Findings emphasize how characteristics influence each other to influence IBB as well as, how each characteristic recognized, independently influences IBB among consumers.

The Chinese E-commerce market is the largest in the world and E-commerce takes up more of the retail market in China than in western countries. Why are Chinese consumers such big spenders online? This thesis examines the differences in consumer shopping behavior in China and Sweden in the aims to find some of the factors explaining the reasons. Based on a review of previous research on consumer behavior a theoretical framework was created which was the foundation for a survey. Survey responses were collected through two surveys, with the same questions, conducted in the native language of Sweden and China. While the generalizability of the survey have some limitations in regards to sampling, this thesis provide some key findings: Chinese consumers are more social shoppers, influenced by social media, family and friends. The social experience of shopping online enhance Chinese consumers experience and is a factor in increasing their expenditures online.  Chinese consumers shop more on international stores and shop more through their cell phones than Swedes.  Chinese consumers are also choosing online shopping out of convenience and usefulness.

"We are you. You are us. TOGETHER we are The Fooo Conspiracy": a case study of The Fooo Conspiracys usage of social media for marketing purposes.In this essay I examine how the Swedish boyband The Fooo Conspiracy have used social media for marketing purposes. My purpose was to examine how the Fooo Conspiracy used social media for marketing purposes when the band was launched. My purpose was also to examine why they chose to market themselves primarily through social media when they were launched, what the intended target group was, how the band promoted themselves to them and what disadvantages there was to using social media for marketing purposes versus traditional media.In order to do this I did a case study which included an interview with their former manager Daff Kjellström and a thematic content analysis of the bands YouTube-, Instagram- and Twitter accounts. The theories I chose to use was marketing in social media, the standardization of popular music, the young audience and the mass media teenage culture, and media convergence and the participatory culture.The results showed that even though The Fooo Conspiracy are marketed as a band that became known through social media, they were exposed in the traditional media early on in their career. This was because they were given the opportunity to be Justin Biebers opening act when he visited Sweden in april 2013, which was the month that The Fooo Conspiracy was launched. The results also showed that the way they use their social media has made the fans involved in their career and created a bond between themselves and their fans.