Empowered by information technology, modern consumers increasingly rely upon online word-of-mouth (WOM--e.g., product reviews) to guide their purchase decisions. This dissertation investigates how WOM information is processed by consumers and its downstream consequences. First, the value of specific types of word-of-mouth information (e.g., numeric ratings, text commentary, or both) was explored for making forecast. After proposing an anchoring-and-adjustment framework for the utilization of WOM to inform consumer forecasts, I support this framework with a series of experiments. Results demonstrate that the relative forecasting advantage of different information types is a function of the extent to which consumer and reviewer have similar product-level preferences ('source-receiver similarity'). Second, I investigate the process by which dispersion--the degree to which opinions are divided for a product or service--in WOM is interpreted. Using an attribution-based approach, I argue that the effect of WOM dispersion is dependent on the perceived cause of that dispersion, which is systematically related to perceptions of preference heterogeneity in a product category. For products for which preferences are expected to vary, dispersion is likely to be attributed to the reviewers rather than the product itself, and therefore tolerated. I provide evidence for my hypotheses in a series of experiments where WOM dispersion is manipulated and respondents make choices and indicate purchase intentions.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to see what implications the new communication channel of Covert Virals has on acknowledged communication strategies and whether or not these strategies are still viable within Covert Virals.   Background: The term Covert Viral has been given to pieces of advertisement, spread through the medium of electronic word of mouth over social networks, which are designed to look user made. With the defense mechanisms towards traditional advertisements in mind, and the extensive growth of the social networks, it is of high interest to understand how traditional branding strategies work in this new communication channel.  Method: To answer our research questions, and thereby conclude our purpose, we have used quantitative data which was collected through the use of non-random sampling. This was analyzed within the SPSS statistics software, using both descriptive and inferential statistics.  Conclusion: The implications this communication channel brings to traditional branding strategies has been divided into two categories, Brand Awareness strategy implications, and Brand Attitude strategy implications. Within Brand Awareness strategies it was found that Covert Virals were unfit to execute brand recall strategies. However, Brand recognition strategies were found to still apply, with a possible negative backlash of advertising for a competitor‟s brand. Within Brand Attitude Strategies, we found that a new restriction has been placed on the traditional strategies. This restriction is the obligatory use of emotional branding. Furthermore, this emotional branding must be constructed in such a way so that it caters to both the viral intent of the advertisement, and the branding intent. / Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att fasställa vilken inverkan den nya kommunikationskanalen Covert Virals har på existerande teorier gällande varumärkeskommunikation och om dessa teorier är tillämpliga på Covert Virals.  Bakgrund: Covert Virals är en term för reklam som har spridit sig via så kallad elektronisk „mun till mun‟ -marknadsföring via sociala nätverk där upphovsmannen framställs som icke företagsrelaterad. På grund av svårigheter att nå kunder via traditionell  marknadsföring och den omfattande tillväxten inom sociala nätverk på senare år, är det av största vikt att förstå hur företag ska marknadsföra sig genom denna nya kommunikationskanal.  Metod: För att uppfylla vårt syfte har vi använt oss av en kvantitativ undersökning som har samlats in genom ett icke slumpmässigt  urval. Svaren analyserades både med hjälp av trendanalys och beskrivande statistik genom mjukvaran SPSS Statistics.  Slutsats: Utfallen av undersökningen är uppdelade i medvetenhet om, respektive attityd till, varumärket. Covert Virals är inte lämpliga för att öka tittarnas förmåga att erinra sig ett varumärke, men fungerar väl för att skapa igenkännelse av varumärket. Det finns en risk att de positiva effekterna av en covert viral tillkommer konkurrenter i lika stor eller större utsträckning som det egna varumärket. När det gäller attityd till ett varumärke så har studien visat att det finns en ny begränsning i det att en Covert Viral måste använda sig av känsloladdade budskap. Detta känsloladdade budskap måste dels skapa en stark vilja att vidarebefordra meddelandet samt förmedla den känslan marknadsföraren vill associera med varumärket.

Framväxten av en ny kundlogik, orsakad av teknikens framfart, har tvingat företag och organisationer att hitta nya tillvägagångssätt för att nå potentiella medlemmar eller kunder. Sociala medier är ett fenomen som har utvecklats från att vara ett kommunikationsverktyg för privatpersoner, till att bli ”ett nödvändigt ont” och en viktig del av marknadskommunikationen för många företag. Med denna uppsats vill vi utforska hur en ideell förening använder sociala medier för sin marknadsföring, vilka risker detta medför och vad som kan göras för att undvika dessa. Uppsatsen är en fallstudie som bygger på metodtriangulering och karaktäriseras av en abduktiv ansats. Studien baseras på två kvalitativa personliga intervjuer och en kvantitativ undersökning i form av enkät. Den teoretiska referensramen utgörs av word-of-mouth marketing, word-of-mouse marketing och many-to-many marketing.  Resultatet påvisar att fördelar med användandet av sociala medier för marknadsföring överträffar nackdelarna. För ideella organisationer borde nätverkande med hjälp av sociala medier vara en del av det vardagliga arbetet, både av ekonomiska och strategiska skäl. / The emergence of a new customer logic, caused by technological progress, has forced businesses to find new ways to reach potential members or customers. Social media is a phenomenon that has evolved from being a communication tool for individuals, to become a “necessary evil” and an important part of marketing communication for many businesses.  In this paper we explore how nonprofit organizations use social media in marketing, the risks involved in the process and what can be done to avoid these risks. The essay is a case study based on a quantitative survey and two qualitative interviews. The study shows that the benefits of the use of social media marketing surpass the disadvantages. For nonprofit organization, social media networking should be an integral part of the marketing efforts, for both economic and strategic reasons.

The municipality of Kalmar have a problem, how to reach and communicate with young people in Kalmar. In today’s changing media environment it gets more difficult to stand out and reach audience with messages and especially with the new forms of media that has revealed. Therefore, we have been commissioned to develop recommendations on how the municipality of Kalmar can communicate with young people in Kalmar.    The purpose with this study is to investigate which media channels young people in Kalmar use and their attitudes towards social media in particular. We wanted to find out how the municipality should communicate to reach them and what attitude youths have against the municipality in general. In our study we used a qualitative approach in order to go deeper into the study and find out what opinions young people have against the municipality instead of just scratching the surface.   Our conclusion from this study is that the municipality should make use of social media to communicate with the younger people living in Kalmar. This is the most popular form of media among youngsters and a way for the municipality to communicate with the young people’s platform. We also came to the conclusion that it is important to have a new thinking and creative mind when it comes to communication with young people through social media.

Purpose/Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate future marketing channels from the perspective of professional marketers. Material/Method: The study is based upon interviews with six professional marketers. Main results: Traditional marketing is not being put aside but needs to be combined with new methods. There are several new and exciting ways to gain attention from the audience, all depending on the purpose of the campaign. Mobile technology is considered upcoming and target group defining is a key issue.

Social media provides, as many points out, new possibilities for marketing. Marketing in social media requires a two way communication, rather than the traditional marketing where the communication model is typically sender – receiver.To create a marketing campaign that is suitable for a two way communication model has its difficulties and risks as well as its opportunities. Opportunities in the sense that the campaign can become a viral, a Word of mouth and create a Buzz, which will reach potential customers, to a bigger quantity for lower costs, with a message that will make a different impact from the types of commercial messages we are used to. Risks in the sense that the message, if not properly aimed and phrased, can be turned overnight into something that humiliates the company and possibly harm its brand.The difficulties in creating such a campaign is to create something that will catch people’s attention, discuss and forward it, while at the same time avoid getting hurt.We aim to describe the internet from a cultural context, and from that point of view explore the types of misunderstandings which often seem to happen when a corporate message is created and sent out in social media, how to avoid putting the image of a company in danger when doing this, and examine if there is ways to know how the message will be received. We truly feel that linking marketing in social media with internet culture is a field of research with great possibilites. Number of pages: 33 Course: Media and communication studies C University: Department of informatics and media, Uppsala University Period: Fall 2011 Keywords: Internet culture, social media marketing, word of mouth, viral marketing, participatory culture, transparency, anonymity, Web 2.0,

Tyrimo objektas: virusinės internetinės rinkodaros komunikacijos kanalų pritaikomumas Lietuvos turizmo įmonėse. Tyrimo tikslas: Nustatyti virusinės internetinės rinkodaros kanalų pritaikomumo galimybes Lietuvos turizmo įmonėse. Tyrimo uždaviniai: 1. Nustatyti virusinės internetinės rinkodaros vietą rinkodaros sistemoje. 2. Atskleisti virusinės internetinės rinkodaros veikimo sistemą. 3. Pateikti susistemintą virusinės internetinės rinkodaros apibrėžimą. 4. Identifikuoti pagrindinius virusinės internetinės rinkodaros komunikacijos kanalus. 5. Palyginti interneto vartotojų ir turizmo įmonių rinkodaros specialistų suvokimą ir reagavimą į virusinės internetinės rinkodaros komunikacijos kanalus. Pagrindiniai rezultatai ir išvados: Išanalizavusios mokslinę literatūrą nustatėme, kad virusinė internetinė rinkodara priskiriama vienai iš internetinės rinkodaros formų, kuri yra modifikuoto „Aštuonių P“ internetinės rinkodaros komplekso elemento - rėmimo dalis ir kurios veikimas prasideda nuo pranešimo skleidimo vartotojams, sukeldamas provokuojančias emocijas, jis skatina vartotojus komunikuoti ir platinti jį per savo socialinius tinklus. Pagrindinius komunikacijos kanalus: el. paštas, video, „Blogai“, socialiniai tinklapiai, forumai, internetiniai žaidimai. Mūsų sudarytas virusinės internetinės rinkodaros apibrėžimas - tai panaši į virusą, greitai sklindanti reklaminė žinutė, kuri skatina savanorišką informacijos platinimą tarp individų. Tyrimų rezultatai rodo, kad el. paštas ir... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / -.

This essay examines Lionsgate’s viral marketing campaign for The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012) and the marketing teams’ use of new marketing techniques and the online fan base. The essay also asks the question to what extent the fans’ participation in Lionsgate’s marketing campaign can be called fan labor. The study is based on a film industrial perspective and academic literature that deals with film marketing, the film industry, fandom and digital labor. The material used for the analysis of The Hunger Games marketing campaign is collected from newspaper articles and news interviews with Lionsgate’s marketing personnel. The study shows that although Lionsgate used many new marketing strategies associated with viral marketing, it is problematic to depict these strategies as a wholesale movement from older marketing techniques. It points to the importance of a nuanced understanding of how producers and consumers operate in the digital age with a holistic view on film marketing practices. The study also shows that Lionsgate’s use of the online fan base correspond with many characteristics of fan labor on the internet. It is, however, problematic to establish that this necessarily means that the fans’ contributions to the marketing campaign were exploited or that it demands compensations. The essay argues that the popularity of viral marketing among film studios and their use of fans and fan created content for promotional purposes calls for further investigations.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-119).

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Carlos Alberto Kamienski / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do ABC, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia da Informação, 2015. / O presente trabalho apresenta uma abordagem de análise da rede social Twitter a fim de entender como os usuários se tornam influentes, através das suas características pessoais e das características dos seus tuítes. As redes sociais online vêm sendo utilizadas, cada vez mais, para análises de diferentes áreas de pesquisa que se propõem a entender como as relações humanas ocorrem e como são estruturadas. Este projeto se propõe a entender como os conteúdos são difundidos no Twitter, quais as características dos usuários denominados influentes, por serem formadores de opinião, e as características das mensagens que se tornaram virais. Entender como as pessoas se comportam em um grupo é um grande desafio. Com este objetivo, foi criado um coletor de dados para capturar tuítes criados em sete temas diferentes e servir como entrada de dados para as análises de influência através de diferentes técnicas, como: contagem de retuítes e menções, entendimento de quais características costumam apresentar os tuítes que alcançam maior disseminação, criação de grafos relacionando usuários, seus seguidores, tuítes e retuítes para aplicar técnicas de redes complexas e análise com mineração de dados utilizando árvore de decisão. A estratégia utilizada foi aplicar diferentes técnicas para comparar os resultados e chegar em um modelo que possa prever quando um conteúdo ou usuário será influente. Ao todo, foram coletados mais de 62 milhões de tuítes entre os anos de 2014 e 2015. Apesar da grande quantidade de dados, não foi possível desenvolver um padrão exato de como um usuário ou conteúdo se torna influente, porém foi possível entender diversas características que estão presentes nesses usuários e que podem ser utilizadas para aumentar o potencial de disseminação de um conteúdo específico. / This paper presents an analitical approach of the social network Twitter in order to understand how its users become influential through their personal characteristics and the characteristics of their tweets. Online social networks have been increasingly used for analysis of different areas of research that intend to understand how human relationships occur and how they are structured. This project aims at understanding how content is spread on Twitter, what the characteristics of users called influential are, for being opinion leaders, and characteristics of messages that have gone viral. Understanding how people behave in a group is a great challenge. For this purpose, a data collector has been created to capture tweets created in seven different themes as well as to serve as input for the analyzes of influence through different techniques, such as, counting retweets and mentions, understanding of what features usually present tweets that reach further spread, creating graphs relating users, followers, tweets and retweets to apply techniques of complex networks and analysis with data mining using decision tree. The strategy used was to apply different techniques to compare results and get a model that can predict when content or user is influential. In all, we collected more than 62 million tweets between the years 2014 and 2015. Despite the large amount of data, it was not possible to develop an accurate standard for how a user or content becomes influential, but it was possible to understand several characteristics that these users are presenting and can be used to increase the potential for dissemination of specific content.