Consumers are increasingly engaging with brands on social networking sites (SNS) through activities such as sharing, commenting, liking and recommending products or brands to other consumers. These types of recommendations are referred to as electronic word‐of‐mouth (eWOM) and are proven to have a significant influence on consumers’ purchasing decisions. Previous research has investigated motives for traditional WOM and motives for eWOM on opinion platforms. This study proposes that eWOM on SNSs is a combination of traditional WOM and eWOM on opinion platforms. By using a sample of 154 Swedish Facebook users, this study explores why consumers engage in positive eWOM communication on SNSs. This is done by testing 6 validated motives that are identified in previous research in the new context. The resulting analysis suggests that consumers’ need for social interaction and desire to express positive emotions are the primary drivers behind engagement in positive eWOM communication on SNSs. The findings confirm that eWOM on SNSs contains elements of both traditional WOM and eWOM on opinion platforms and should thus be considered as a unique context where eWOM takes place.

The challenge is providing teachers with the resources they need to strengthen their instructions and better prepare students for the jobs of the 21st Century. Technology can help meet the challenge. Teachers’ Tryscience is a noncommercial offer, developed by the New York Hall of Science, TeachEngineering, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and IBM Citizenship to provide teachers with such resources. The workshop provides deeper insight into this tool and discussion of how to support teaching of informatics in schools.

Facebook’s status as the world’s largest social networking platform is well documented. However, studies focusing on Facebook are largely limited to how individuals and businesses use the platform and not on how Facebook expands globally and affects markets and competition in foreign countries. Although international communication scholars have scrutinized the international expansion of major media corporations like Time Warner, Disney and News Corp., analysis on Facebook remains scarce. This thesis seeks to fill in the gap in scholarly research by conducting a meso-level (i.e. organizational level) analysis of Facebook’s expansion into developing countries through the theoretical lens of networks. The network perspective was chosen because it has previously facilitated the most comprehensive analysis of the globalizing strategies of media corporations. This paper simultaneously serves as a test of the applicability of theories of networked globalization and the Network Society to the global expansion of ICTs, and in particular, social-networking websites.

Network communication technology has developed for decades. As a result, nowadays, marketers can communicate clients more effectively through the use of social network media to develop a powerful relationship marketing strategy. This dissertation compares relationship marketing strategy with existing marketing theories. Based on the comparison, the dissertation uses qualitative approaches to analyze the cooperation between Newman Co. (It is a social media service firm that helps companies with relationship marketing strategy.) and PetroChina, so as to propose a successful way to integrate the social network media into a relationship marketing strategy. Some materials are gathered from email interview with Mr. Zhao, the Manager of the Service Department from Newman Co. Moreover, the dissertation conducts a case study (It is based on interview with Mr. Peik Hua, the General Manager of Southwest Branch of PetroChina) about what benefit that PetroChina has got through using Newman's social media system (Remote video conferencing system). The purpose of this dissertation is, by analyzing those materials, to identify what social media can do for relationship marketing strategy, and how it works, so as to find out and highlight the benefits of social media networking. Meanwhile, this dissertation attempts to definite how SMEs form large clients relationship, such as Newman co., to approach large clients and gain their trust to incorporate social networking media into their relationship marketing strategy.

New social networking and social web tools are becoming available and are easing the process of customizing online social environments. With these developments in technology, core design efforts are being extended beyond usability for individual users and beginning to include notions of sociability for the engagement of communities of users. This thesis is an investigation of these developments. It is guided by the principal research question: how do you design for social engagement in an online social environment intended to facilitate interaction in a community of users? To address this question, this thesis presents a domain-community model developed from the communities of practice concept and the Work Domain Analysis model used in Cognitive Work Analysis. The domain-community model provides a basis for the design a composition of web components for an online social environment that will addresses issues of social engagement and domain effectiveness. In a case study, the domain-community model was used as a basis for the redesign of a social networking portal used by an international development leadership community called UCP-SARnet. A social network analysis of core members of UCP-SARnet was conducted before and after the portal was redesigned. From the social network analysis, it was concluded that the structure of UCP-SARnet was positively affected by the redesign: core group members reported they knew one another significantly more after the redesign of the website than before the redesign. User experience measures of the UCP-SARnet portal, website usage data, and a tally of website communication activity also changed significantly with the redesign of the website. This provided more evidence that a design informed by Cognitive Work Analysis and communities of practice produced a measurable effect on the structure of the UCP-SARnet online community. As such, this model can provide a basis for designers of online communities to more systematically account for social phenomena in relation to collective efforts in a given work domain. Furthermore, it is expected the effectiveness of the model can be taken forward with future work by refining the domain-community model, developing techniques to translate the model into interface concepts, and building practices for community-based research and design.

Researchers, companies and managers have for a long time accepted word-of-mouth as being a crucial marketing activity, since it is extremely effective in shaping consumers’ attitudes and behaviour. Nowadays, the Internet has become a major part of many peoples’ daily lives, and social networking sites attract millions of individuals from all around the world. Because of this, word-of-mouth has shifted to the digitalized world and a new term has been developed, namely electronic word-of-mouth. Electronic word-of-mouth has been recognized to generate the same benefits to companies as word-of-mouth. Due to the growth of the Internet and social networking sites, electronic word-of-mouth has the power to reach more people and is therefore perceived as more influential. This makes electronic word-of-mouth along with social networking sites, two concepts to acknowledge. Thus, for companies to make the most out of them, they need to gain the necessary knowledge.  The purpose of this research is to analyse how consumers are affected by electronic word-of-mouth through social networking sites.   In the specific area, a research gap was noticed, namely, how electronic word-of-mouth through social networking sites affects consumers’ product perceptions and purchase intentions. Based on this gap, six hypotheses and a research model were conducted. The empirical data was collected via questionnaire, where the majority of the respondents were within the target group, which was students, aged 18-24.   It was revealed through the results, that electronic word-of-mouth through social networking sites has a direct positive effect on both consumers’ product perceptions and purchase intentions. In addition, age and gender were found to have a moderating effect on the relation between electronic word-of-mouth through social networking sites and product perceptions, as well as purchase intentions. Finally, it is argued that managers should take electronic word-of-mouth through social networking sites into consideration, and adopt it in their marketing tactics.

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.

The current study extends the exploration of online relationship building by examining how Business Next top 100 online sellers use the popular social network site Facebook to assist dialogic communication with their fans. A content analysis of Facebook fan pages maintained by Business Next top 100 online sellers (n=100) and individual posts which posted on those pages (n=2804) examined the use of dialogic features within the Facebook fan pages as well as the individual. The contraction process of social networking sites effectiveness indexes used literature review and content analysis. Those indexes were revised by reexamining the circumstances of Facebook. Four dimensions of indexes were ¡§Usefulness of information¡¨, ¡§Generation of return visits¡¨, ¡§Conservation of return visits¡¨, and ¡§Dialogic loop¡¨. 25 indexes were developed. Results indicated that online sellers which manage Facebook fan pages (76%) employed the dialogic strategies of dialogic loop mostly (M=16.76). It presents the highly interactive of Facebook fan pages. Interact games on Facebook fan pages which combine asking interesting questions and special discounts are significantly related with user responses.

Traditional built-up environment, traditional life and ecological tissue that have been created in time by human beings are ignored on behalf of archeological assets in archeological areas on the rural settlements. However, the coexistence of archeological, architectural, ecological and traditional invariants must be preserved / this coexistence is a product of life style coming from early periods onwards. A unique scientific conservation approach should be developed for this kind of settlements in order to sustain this rich &ldquo / wholeness&rdquo / . The requirement of preparing management plan for conservation area is an indisputable reality today. Participated management planning approach is embraced for the rural archeological sites on which assets produced by human being in time. Case study chosen for the dissertation is Eskihisar (Stratoniceia) which is settled since early times but abandoned today because of the various reasons. At the initial phase of management planning, namely, data collection and evaluation phase in this study / new methods were introduced like web-based participation. As a tool a social networking website (Facebook) used by ordinary people extensively was employed in the web based participation model introduced as a new technique. Gathered qualitative data in this way was analyzed together with quantitative data collected from site survey, historic and contemporary sources. Thus, it was examined whether there is usage of a simple communication tool in participatory planning studies or not, and what is pros and cons.

Many individuals with autism manifest problems in transitioning to adulthood due to social impairments, communication difficulties, and rigid behaviors. One of those challenges is developing a robust and sufficiently large network of people who can provide advice about a variety of everyday situations. In this dissertation, I investigate ways of supporting adolescents with high functioning autism in navigating their everyday life through specializing social networking services (SNSs). A series of studies were conducted to identify opportunities for the design and use of a specialized SNS to foster the independence. The results demonstrates SNS can support some adolescents and adults with autism in increasing the independence by 1) facilitating the asking of a variety of online networks beyond a primary caregiver; and 2) allowing acquisition of rapid, direct, and informational advice with crowdsourcing. Drawing on several formative studies and investigations, I synthesized design guidelines for inquir.us, a specialized hybrid social question-and-answer (Q&A) platform with features for scaffolding question creation and crowdsourcing answers. Through the initial evaluation of inquir.us, I examined the Q&A behavior of individuals with autism on this platform and identified both opportunities and barriers to adoption in the context of supporting transition skills for the independence. The contributions of this thesis are: (1) a rich description of challenges and opportunities related to attaining independent life using SNSs; (2) empirical studies of individuals with autism’s online Q&A behavior; (3) design implications for designing a specialized SNS facilitating the Q&A interactions; and (4) the design and exploratory study of a social Q&A platform in the real world.