There is no doubt that Covid-19 has affected the world on several different levels. However, it is less clear how the wellness industry has had to adapt to the Government's and the Public Health Agency's recommendations and restrictions. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how gym companies have adapted their marketing mix and their social media marketing as a strategy for taking social responsibility during the Covid-19 pandemic. Empirical information has mainly been collected through interviews with respondents from Nordic Wellness and Studio Aktiverum, which are two different gym companies in Sweden. They have been interviewed about aspects of their attitude towards Covid-19 and their use of social media. Data has also been collected through observations and information on the company's social media platforms. A mixed method was used to link the empirical findings to the theory. The authors of this thesis discovered 5 different themes, namely, measures - training, customer response, challenges and opportunities, marketing communication and finally training support. The overall picture showed that the case companies were hit hard by the crisis, but that they still managed to continue their business by adjusting their marketing mix. Social media has been a useful tool for the case companies as they have been able to market their activities and offers, which has been especially valuable during times of crisis when budgets and income are lower.

Date: 2021/06/03 Level: Master Thesis in Business Administration, 15 cr Institution: School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University Authors: Shadi Botros, Yacoub Said (87/07/24) (95/01/01) Title: LUXURIOUS BRAND AND SOCIAL MEDIA Tutor: Edward Gillmore Keywords: Luxury brands, Social media marketing activities, Brand perceptions, Brand awareness, Purchase intention. Research questions: What are the outcomes of social media marketing used by luxury brands, brand awareness and brand perception, on purchase attention? Purpose: The purpose of this research is to study if social media marketing can have an effect on luxuries brands perception in consumers mind and if social media can influence consumers purchase intention. Method: This study is following a quantitative approach by using statistical methods to test the hypothesis. Conclusion: Luxury brands are considered as exclusive and expensive brands. Social media is a mass communication tool that is usually used to reach a broad segment of consumers. The authors found out through the gathered data that consumers are aware about the brand and they perceive the brand as a luxury brand. However, consumers were not only relying on the official home page of the brand to obtain information.

The world today has successively been shrinking in terms of distance between us as individuals, globalisation and the increased digitalisation of our society have made information accessible and connectivity simpler and more profound. In conjunction with digitalising our lives, a new medium within the digital world has risen to such prominence that it is now a factor of constant influence upon us and our environment, social media. As a consequence, people have to a large extent become digital natives. This has led to firms and brands sensing opportunities within the medium and the utilisation of its different unique vehicles. In combination with practitioners increased interest and utilisation of social media from a business standpoint, business and marketing researchers have conducted increasing amounts of research on the area. Subsequently, the researchers of this paper identified the need for an increased understanding of social media marketing strategies, as further highlighted by other researchers in previous studies on the field of social media marketing. Thus, the purpose to contribute to an increased understanding of social media marketing and how this international medium, with its unique features and possibilities, could be used as a marketing tool by companies in their respective industry and market was formulated.  To provide the profound understanding stated, due to the complex nature of the matter at hand, an abductive approach was used and motivated for. The theories and concepts used for formulation of the questions in the operationalisation, for the semi-structured interviews, was presented from a broad to narrow structure under the literature review. Furthermore, the theories were summarised in the conceptual framework. The following analysis categorised and positioned the informants and their respective firms under four sub-concepts of the main concept of social media marketing strategies. These categorisations laid the foundation for the conclusion of the paper and the answering of the posed research question. The final chapter then concludes by stating the researcher’s recommendations and the presentation of an example of a possible model for the stages of utilising social media to its fullest extent. Finally, limitations and avenues for future research topics are presented and concludes the paper. The paper provides an increased and profound understanding of how four Swedish firms, in different sectors, utilise the same tool for digital marketing. We suggest that all firms active on social media for marketing purposes, should aim to adapt their marketing towards the full utilisation of all its features and possibilities. Furthermore, a process of adapting traditional marketing to the new form of social media marketing, utilising the mediums unique features and possibilities are subsequently discussed. A possible future model to describe this adaptation process are presented and further elaborated upon as one avenue for future research.

Diploma thesis "The marketing usage in the social media" deals with the application of the social media in the marketing communication. My target is to create a comprehensive outlook on social media in marketing promotion. What are the most commonly used tools of social media marketing? Which forms of promotion does it offer? How to use these tools correctly? Is the promotion that uses social media effective? How big is its role in the current communication and how do the clients understand the social media marketing? The thesis is divided into two parts. The theoretical one describes the basic definitions of terms for my thesis. Later in the thesis, I am explaining the position of marketing in media and what new elements it has brought. I do this throurgh mapping of the online and social media marketing and promotion resources. Another section of the theoretical part is devoted description of selected social media. As an own contribution to my practical part of diploma thesis, I conducted my own research. It was done in a form of qualitative research, more complex open-ended questions, focused on a smaller group of respondents intended to detect the advantages and disadvantages of the use of social media in current marketing. The conslusion of my thesis deals with the results of my research. Here...

Masters of Art / Social media has become a popular tool adopted by libraries and play a major role in marketing library services, facilitating communication between libraries and staff, and assisting libraries in connecting with communities. The use of social media by City of Cape Town Libraries has been recently established, and it has not yet been adequately assessed how Librarians have taken to this new implementation. Literature revealed that there is not enough research done in assessing Librarians’ perceptions on the use of social media for library work purposes, especially as a tool that is used to provide information services to users, and also how users responded to libraries’ adoption of social media in meeting their information needs.

This study aimed to examine how a company like Anamma creates a platform where people can connect and inspire others to buy vegan food and what strategies they use to do so. The empirical material consisted of eight posts on Instagram made by the Swedish vegan company Anamma. The posts are showing how vegan meals can be healthy, tasteful but also how it is good for the environment. Since the material in these posts were both text, pictures and animated videos a multimodal analysis was most suitable to get a valid and true result. Initially the posts were analyzed one by one. Then we summarized the result into three themes based on what was discovered during the first analysis. The study shows that Anamma is using strategic tools like the theory of Two-step-flow, or Word of mouth to make people hear about them. By using hashtags and tagging people they are creating a chain of equivalence, using the digital platform to spread their message. They also use words like, “together”, “all of us” and “save the planet” et cetera, which is assumed to make people want to be a part of making the world a better place. Also, they frequently use statistics as a strategy of persuasion to show how much less effluent vegan food is to the environment compared to meat. Using the word “Anamma-friends” is a strategy that helps create a strong community for their customers. All their strategies combined contributes to creating social identity and a feeling of belonging. However, this study is not a study of communication effects, since that would require a different approach. Therefore the conclusion of this study is that Anammas communication is effective and adequate towards the social context and can be seen as successful in relation to the purpose of the study.

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The restaurant industry is the second largest employer in the United States; however, only 33% of restaurants are successful during the first 3 years of operation. The purpose of this exploratory multiple case study was to determine what marketing strategies small independent restaurant owners need for profitability. Aaker's brand equity model was the conceptual framework used to ground this study. Using a purposeful criterion sampling technique and semistructured interviews, 12 individuals (2 managers and 2 employees from 3 restaurants in Philadelphia) participated in the study. Data collected from interviews and archival business records were analyzed to generate themes, also allowing for triangulation. Five marketing strategy themes emerged from this study: word of mouth and social media marketing, limited financial resources, product differentiation and atmosphere, blogging and using the point of sale (POS) system, and employee engagement and upselling. Participants stated that word of mouth and social media marketing were powerful strategies that small independent restaurant owners should use to retain customers and gain new customers. Participants noted that product differentiation and atmosphere are unique characteristics that guide marketing strategies, brand positioning, and influence competitive advantage and profitability. Implications for positive social change include business development opportunities, opening resource centers for training programs, and free webinars associated with marketing and brand equity strategies. Communities, organizations, and new entrepreneurs will benefit from positive social change from the increase of social resources, community economic growth, employment opportunities, and sustainability.

Background As people become more aware of environmental protection, green purchasing has gradually become a trend among consumers. Social media, as an emerging marketing approach, has also started to gain more and more companies' attention and application. Therefore, this study will explore the relationship between different types of social media and green purchasing behaviour. Purpose The aim of this paper is to explain how social media marketing (Owned Media, Earned Media and Paid Media) affects consumer' green purchasing behaviour in Chinese market. Methodology This study is based on positivism, and the researchers conducted the study through a quantitative research approach by developing a quantifiable online questionnaire and placing it on different social media platforms. The respondents of this study were in the age range of 18 to 39 years old, and they were highly followers of social media. Finally the researchers collected 264 effective questionnaires and entered them into SPSS and analyzed the data through descriptive and multiple regression analyses, KMO tests and Cronbach's Alphas. Findings The different types of social media marketing (Owned Media, Earned Media, and Paid Media) have a positive impact on Chinese consumers' green purchasing behaviour.

Since its inception in the early 2000s, social media has quickly become a meaningful source of online community for people across the globe. The use of promotional advertising on social media has brought both helpful and potentially harmful exposure to a wide variety of information. This dissertation aims to uncover certain underlying physiological mechanisms, specifically, neural mechanisms, that drive donation behavior in online contexts involving a mediated form of communication. Understanding donation behavior online is vital to make more effective campaigns that reach mass audiences to solve world problems. Focusing on donation behavior as a primary online prosocial action, this dissertation explores the following research question and associated hypotheses, “How do our physiological processes influence donation decision making in varying online contexts, and what types of information influence those decisions?” Although much is known about factors that influence donation behavior, less is known about what physiological processes are correlated with prosocial behaviors, especially in online situations. This approach is taken in an effort to connect psychophysiology with a common, ecologically-valid modern media experience to help understand why people decide to act on social media posts or keep scrolling. Chapter one reviews psychophysiological responses to media and their traditional place in the literature, connecting the seemingly dissimilar fields of psychophysiology and communication. A secondary goal of this review is to establish the importance of measuring physiological responses in communication studies. Next, the history of research on prosocial behavior is discussed, including the operationalization of prosocial behavior to create context for the main study that connects physiological responses to online donation behavior. The second half of the dissertation describes a pilot study (N=155) focusing on social media post characteristics that contribute to online donation behavior. In the 3 x 2 x 2 pilot study, image emotional valence (positive, negative, neutral), popularity (low or high number of likes), and source intentions (label of an advertisement) were manipulated to examine their relationship to online donation behavior. In the main study, a revised design based on the pilot results is presented with the addition of neural fMRI data collection. The ultimate goals of this dissertation are to (1) investigate the physiological correlates of online donation behavior (through emotional appeals and other features of social media posts) and (2) contribute to the literature connecting the communication and neuroscience disciplines. The pilot study revealed that negative emotional appeals influenced people to donate more to causes than neutral and positively-valenced images. Additionally, other features influenced whether people acted on posts, such as the number of likes or a label as an advertisement (source intention). The dissertation involves combining this design with an fMRI study to investigate the neural responses to this facet of decision making online. The results of the studies described in this dissertation are the following: across multiple studies, participants donated the most money to negatively-valenced posts compared to neutral or positively-valenced posts. Other factors, such as the number of likes on a post, or whether the post was labeled as sponsored or unsponsored, presented mixed results (in terms of statistical significance and visual patterns). Additionally, the neural patterns seen when people were viewing negative, positive, and neutral posts, varied by region, with the high emotional posts (positive and negative) showing different activation patterns compared to the neutral posts. Neural patterns mirrored behavioral changes to provide additional support for the observed behavior. Applying a physiological lens to online behavior remains an area that is underserved in the literature, and this is a gap this dissertation seeks to fill. Combining neural data with behavioral findings is performed to reveal that people may be physiologically regulating their responses to the campaigns, and in turn, may take action based on their physical reactions. Ideally, the results will be applied to policy-making and lead to cause marketing efforts to help solve world problems with more effective messaging to the public. / Media & Communication