Det finns idag ett väldigt stort urval av återförsäljare som agerar på Internet och dessa kan vid en första anblick te sig väldigt svåra att överskåda för konsumenter inför ett köp. Prisjämförelsesajter finns därför som en konsumentguide som med sina sökfunktioner snabbt hjälper konsumenter att hitta återförsäljare med de billigaste priserna samt även tillhandahåller information om såväl produkter som återförsäljare. Uppsatsen syftar till att studera prisjämförelsesajternas roll i samspelet mellan återförsäljare och konsument på den Internetbaserade marknaden för hemelektronik. Den kvalitativa studien grundas på intervjuer med de två marknadsledande prisjämförelsesajterna, PriceRunner och Prisjakt, samt intervjuer med tre återförsäljare inom detta branschsegment, CDON, Expert och Kameraexperten. Intervjuerna analyseras med hjälp utav en analysmodell där vi kopplat samman flera olika marknadsföringsteorier. Det resultat vi kommit fram till visar på att det nätverk av återförsäljare och konsumenter som prisjämförelsesajterna tillhandahåller har lett till en ökad konsumentmakt men att detta inte behöver ses som negativt för återförsäljarna då dessa har stora konkurrensfördelar att vinna om de sköter sina kundrelationer på ett bra sätt.

The rapid penetration of the Internet and the prevalence of various social media facilitated by new technologies provide new opportunities for how marketing techniques are developed and refined. The creation of viral marketing has been driven by technological innovations and cultural changes. Responding to marketing trends and catering to consumers’ psychological demands and behavioral changes, viral marketing represents the latest online customer-centric marketing (Shukla, 2010). Extending the advertising effects of word-of-mouth (WOM) communication and Internet marketing, viral marketing has demonstrated considerable success and utility in a promotional phase and development process of a product and/or service. This study intends to illustrate the benefits and challenges of viral marketing. The effects and concerns with the adoption of viral marketing are reinforced by previous research and findings from marketer and consumer focus groups. This thesis will contribute to building a theoretical and empirical foundation for viral marketing research and professional practice.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur Nudie Jeans kommunicerar sitt varumärke i olika kanaler, hur konsumenter uppfattar det, samt hur förhållandet mellan den kommunicerade och uppfattade bilden av varumärket ser ut. Teorierna utgår från ett varumärkesperspektiv med begrepp som identitet, image och kärnvärden. Även teorier rörande konsumentperspektiv innefattande aspekter som lojalitet, ansträngning och påverkan behandlas. Metoder som används i studien är dels text- och bildanalys av Nudie Jeans hemsida, intervju med sälj- och marknadschefen på Nudie Jeans samt en enkätundersökning, som besvarats av 177 konsumenter. Urvalet till enkäten är ett bekvämlighetsurval.   Kommunikation från och om varumärket sker dels via hemsidan och dels hos distributörer, ofta i form av butikssäljare. På hemsidan kommunicerar varumärket sin produkt, historia samt sina kärnvärden. Nudie Jeans har sedan starten 2001 arbetat mycket med att utbilda butikspersonal om varumärket, vilket gjort dessa personer till viktiga kommunikationskanaler för varumärket. Detta är en typ av storytelling och word of mouth, och har varit det sätt på vilket Nudie Jeans har marknadsfört varumärket.   Enkätresultatet visar att de undersökta konsumenterna har en relativt vag uppfattning om vad varumärket står för. Detta manifesteras bland annat i att det är få av respondenterna som förknippar Nudie Jeans med etiska och miljömässiga värderingar, trots att dessa är en så pass utmärkande del i varumärkets kommunikation. Det finns alltså en tydlig diskrepans i förhållandet mellan den kommunicerande och den uppfattade bilden av varumärket Nudie Jeans.   En slutsats som dras är att Nudie Jeans sätt att kommunicera varumärket gör det tidvis svårt för dem att fullt ut nå fram till konsumenterna med vad varumärket står för. Samtidigt har detta sätt att kommunicera framgångsrikt bidragit till att göra varumärket till vad det är idag. En annan slutsats är att det även tycks krävas ett visst mått av ansträngning, vilja eller intresse från konsumentens sida för att få en heltäckande bild av varumärket Nudie Jeans.

The rapid penetration of the Internet and the prevalence of various social media facilitated by new technologies provide new opportunities for how marketing techniques are developed and refined. The creation of viral marketing has been driven by technological innovations and cultural changes. Responding to marketing trends and catering to consumers’ psychological demands and behavioral changes, viral marketing represents the latest online customer-centric marketing (Shukla, 2010). Extending the advertising effects of word-of-mouth (WOM) communication and Internet marketing, viral marketing has demonstrated considerable success and utility in a promotional phase and development process of a product and/or service. This study intends to illustrate the benefits and challenges of viral marketing. The effects and concerns with the adoption of viral marketing are reinforced by previous research and findings from marketer and consumer focus groups. This thesis will contribute to building a theoretical and empirical foundation for viral marketing research and professional practice.

The goal of this study was to explore the customer journey of an online purchase of clothes and to identify potential opinion leaders in the decision-taking phase before the purchase. Important questions to be analyzed were through which channels might customers get influenced and by whom. A special focus was put on the role of Facebook and Twitter during this process. In a later part of the study, the communication strategies of three clothes brands (H&M, Nelly and Halens) were studied with respect to their Facebook and Twitter channels, in order to understand how and with what kind of content they approach their customers. In this study a mixed-methods approach was used (survey, qualitative interviews, content analysis), in order to get an as complete picture as possible from the customers’ behavior. To explore the customer’s perspective, an online survey was used as well as qualitative interviews. The content analysis was applied to investigate the company side. The results of this study show that the respondents are mainly influenced in their decisions by their friends in an offline channel (face-to-face), and not through social networks. Facebook and Twitter do not influence the customers (or maybe only to a minimal extent). Thus, one conclusion of the study is that social media like Facebook and Twitter do not have a major influence on the online purchase of clothes, at least not on a conscious level. Instead other factors can have more influence, like face-to-fact contact with friends, as mentioned in the study. These findings are important for companies and should make them consider the important aspect of the offline-impact in future marketing strategies.

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.

In today’s society, social media has become a part of many people’s everyday life. Social media can be seen as a new phenomenon with millions of daily users all over the world. Social media can further be defined as a forum where people are able to communicate and interact with each other. This bachelor thesis is based on the social media phenomena; blogs- a forum that cannot be ignored. Internet is today commonly used as an information source, the question is if blogs work in the same way and what influence do blogs have over its receivers? This created the purpose of the research; to describe to what degree consumers are getting influenced over what is being negotiated in blogs. The purpose will be answered with help of a research question; what type of influence do blogs have over consumers? Which further are complemented with three hypotheses. In this research a theoretical framework is presented with the theories; brand image, social media, blogs, word of mouth and opinion leader. To gain empirical evidence and to be able to answer the purpose of the research a quantitative method approach has been performed and the empirical findings where done though a questionnaire. Which was further analyzed, with help from the statistical data program SPSS. The conclusion of the research has developed knowledge in the area, blog and moreover to which degree the forum influences its consumers. It could be established that blog have an impact and a relationship to the variables, brand image, word of mouth and opinion leader.

Background: In the past decade, Social Media has been an interesting Internet phenomenon. Social Media has increased the ability for Internet users to communicate and interact with one another, allowing them to overcome boundaries that once made communication difficult and slow. It has become a big part of everyday life and has fundamentally changed the way we send and receive information. This transformation has led to businesses acknowledging the need for a change in the way they communicate with their customers. The purpose of this thesis is to understand what makes a business successful in Social Media and what are the tools that businesses may use in order to communicate with their consumer community. Method: This study is exploratory and qualitative in nature. Authors conducted a case study research and used an inductive approach in order to answer research questions. Several methods of gathering data are used in the thesis for the full analysis of the case study: interview, survey, netnography (“internet – based ethnography”). Qualitative measures are used to draw conclusions regarding Social Media metrics and consumer engagement. Conclusion: Authors state that there is no universal communication strategy suitable for every company, but the appropriate one may be build according to the company goals and means. Process of creating the communication strategy should focus on several targets which companies may identify by themselves or with the help of guides. One of those targets is identifying appropriate ways of engaging with the customers with the combination of Brand Awareness, Brand Engagement and Word of Mouth. Three main parts of the communication strategy are interconnected: Brand Awareness, Brand Engagement and Word of Mouth. Effectiveness of communication strategy (different combination of Brand Awareness, Brand Engagement and Word of Mouth) may be measured by specific metrics or statistical ones. Increasing those interconnected metrics depends on ability to follow the customer needs and the quality of content. Main B2C Social Media tools nowadays are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. This thesis found out strong relationship between those three (“Social Media Triangle” model). Company having accounts in each of those networks should use it as a whole and not as separate tools.

As of the moment Facebook is the world’s largest online social network with over 800 million active users and more than 50% of the users log on to the website on any given day. It is considered to be the most important social platform on the Internet since it reaches more people than any other social network. Social networks present a completely different way for consumers and companies to interact with each other, compared to traditional communication, and create an incredible challenge for corporations. The hard task that companies have to face is how to engage their consumers through interaction, participation, entertainment and innovative creativity. The pursuit of consumer engagement plays a key role in coping with the ongoing changes in social life as well as in consumer behavior. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how companies engage customers through online communication at Facebook. In order to fulfill the purpose the authors chose to conduct observations of six Swedish companies active on Facebook; Marabou, Nelly.com, McDonald’s Sweden, Liseberg, ICA and Fotografiska. The research showed that companies use integrated marketing communication as a tool to involve and engage customers on Facebook. The results imply that there are key factors that characterized the observed companies’ Facebook communication. Frequent updates, clear information, visualized messages and customer involvement were vital in creating customer engagement and indicate how communication on Facebook is carried out by companies.

Social media on the Web has become more common over the last decade and in recent years it has grown immensely. The social media with the highest amount of members is Facebook, where not only private persons are found - companies started to establish their profiles on the network in 2006. However, little is known about how these companies succeed and reach their audience with information dissemination and interact with them. The aim of this study is to contribute with information to local companies on how they can manage to maintain their activity with different approaches and strategies. This study examines how three different local companies chooses to spread information and maintain relationships with their members on Facebook. The research question in this thesis is: How are companies active on Facebook, in regard of dissemination of information and interaction? This is examined with the help of a framework which suggests three strategies with different grades of activity, which is applicable on the companies Facebook sites. The three strategies proposed by Waters, Burnett, Lamm and Lucas (2009) include disclosure, information dissemination and involvement. Disclosure contains a description about the company and its services, logo and opening hours. Information dissemination comprises photographs, video and audio files as well as news and campaigns in posted announcements or links. Involvement includes interactivity with customers, and between customers where ways to contact the company, such as e-mail and message boards exists. An e-commerce store is also presented in this strategy. The outcome of this thesis is that companies will have the best approach and strategy if they mirror their Facebook strategy with their business strategy. It is also of great importance to have continuous activity, both information dissemination and interactivity on the companies Facebook sites.