Antalet bloggar växer och läsarantalet för bloggar likaså, framför allt har en ökning märkts hos unga kvinnor (Findahl, 2011). Att bloggläsandet har ökat medför att läsaren sätter sig själv i en situation där de kan utsättas för påverkan, både i form av bloggtext samt reklam i form av annonser. Frågan är om det nya bloggfenomenet nu kommer att ta över som en ny marknadsföringskanal gentemot de traditionella annonsreklamerna. Kommer de personliga blogginläggen att påverka mer än traditionell reklam? Syftet med denna studie är därför att undersöka om unga kvinnor upplever att deras köpintentioner påverkas av bloggar. Genom att undersöka om ett specifikt blogginlägg har en uppfattad påverkan på unga kvinnor och deras upplevda köpintentioner jämfört med en annons, ämnar vi att öka förståelsen för bloggar och makten bakom datorskärmen. För att uppfylla syftet behandlades följande två hypoteser; 1.    Unga kvinnors bloggvanor uppfattas ha en påverkan på dem och deras upplevda köpintentioner. 2.    Blogginlägget har en större uppfattad påverkan på unga kvinnors upplevda köpintentioner jämfört med annonsen För att undersöka detta tilldelades respondenterna slumpmässigt två olika enkäter vid undersökningstill-fällena. Den ena enkäten mätte den uppfattade påverkan av ett produktinriktat blogginlägg, den andra av en annons. Respondenterna är utvalda med hjälp av ett bekvämlighetsurval och består av 128 unga kvinnor som går sista året på gymnasiet. Undersökningen har bedrivits under skoltid på fyra av de största gymnasieskolorna i Jönköping. Datamaterialet som samlades in från enkätundersökningen matades sedan in i ett program för statistikbehandling, SPSS. Dessa grupper jämfördes sedan statistiskt för att kunna antingen förkasta eller acceptera hypoteserna. Resultatet av undersökningen visar att respondenterna upplever att deras köpintentioner blir påverkade av deras vanor av bloggar. Det visar även att sambandet mellan deras bloggvanor och upplevda köpintentioner är positivt. De vars bloggvanor är mer frekventa har också större intentioner att handla något som de har läst om i ett blogginlägg. De upplever också att deras köpintentioner påverkas mer av ett blogginlägg än av en annons. Skillnaden är dock liten. / Blogs are increasing in popularity, especially among young women, both when it comes to writing blogs and reading them (Findahl, 2011). As a consequence, readers are putting themselves in a situation where they are being exposed to influence. The question arisen from this is whether blogs should be given more attention and if companies should consider them part of their marketing strategies. Will the personal blog posts have a greater effect on consumers compared to traditional advertising? The purpose of this study is therefore to investigate if young women perceive that their purchase intentions are influenced by blogs. By investigating if a specific blog post has a perceived influence on young women and their purchase intentions compared to an advert, we aim to increase the understanding within the subject of blogs and to recognize the power on the other side of the computer screen. In order to fulfill the purpose, following hypothesis were addressed: 1.    Young women’s experiences of blogs are perceived to have an influence on them and their per-ceived purchase intentions. 2.    The blog post has a greater influence on young women and their perceived purchase intentions compared to the advert. The respondents were randomly allocated two different surveys where one measured the respondent’s perceived influence from blog posts and the other measured the respondent’s perceived influence from an advert. The sample was conducted by the use of convenience sampling and consisted of 128 young women who all are attending their last year in high school in the four largest schools in Jönköping. In order to receive statistical results, the collected data from the surveys were entered in a statistics program called SPSS. The groups were then compared in order to establish if the hypotheses would be rejected or accepted. The results from the study show that the respondents experience that their purchase intentions are influ-enced by blogs. Furthermore, there is a positive correlation between their blog experiences and their per-ceived purchase intentions; those who are more frequent in their use of blogs, have more intentions to buy something that they have read about on blogs. They also experienced that their purchase intentions are influenced more by the blog post than the advert. The difference is small though.

En ny värld har skapats med Internets möjligheter till marknadsföring med sociala medier i centrum. Det har satt marknadsföraren på okänd mark då sociala medier introducerar helt nya prövningar då konsumenten själv kan styra över det publicerade materialet som ett företag väljer att lägga ut. Kommunikationens tillvägagångssätt mellan en kund och ett företag har förändrats, och därmed även beteendemönstret för respektive part. Detta leder till många frågetecken som; hur går företaget tillväga? Behåller vi ett traditionellt angreppssätt? Aggressivt eller passivt? Viralt eller direkt? Studien tar an ett kvalitativt angreppssätt där två aktuella aktörer på marknaden har valts ut och därefter intervjuats. Det är två företag verkande inom varsin social medie-marknadsföring strategi, nämligen viral marknadsföring respektive direktmarknadsföring. Som primär informationsdata har delvis strukturerade frågor använts. Till hjälp för att besvara forskningsfrågorna och övriga frågetecken i problemdiskussionen har teorier utvecklats utifrån studiens grundteorier, viral och direktmarknadsföring. Båda av de intervjuade företagen tycks vara medvetna om att det nödvändigt att följa med i utvecklingen med social medie marknadsföring. De båda företagen tycks också bedriva framgångsrika marknadsföringskampanjer inom de båda marknadsföringsstrategierna viral och direkt marknadsföring. Kommunikationen är en gemensam nämnare för de båda marknadsföringsstrategierna. Det är även viktigt att nå rätt målgrupp vid rätt tidpunkt. Det går att hitta risker med båda nämnda strategier, men de ser ganska olika ut för respektive strategi. Att kunna definiera störningsmomentet och ta itu med det kan underlätta för budskapet. Viral och direktmarknadsföring är två vitt skilda strategier som används inom sociala medier. De båda tycks ändå vara framgångsrika strategier med stor utdelning då de verkar på rätt plattform. Det återstår att se hur social medie-marknadsföring kommer att formas i framtiden.

The current recession has made it difficult for companies to find customers and therefore tofinance their business which often leads to cuts in the marketing budget. Social mediamarketing could be the solution in these situations. The purpose of this study is to investigatehow marketing efforts in social media, specifically in blogs and Facebook, can be successfulin attracting consumers and also retain customers over time for start-up companies. This wasexamined through interviews with two recently started retail companies along with consumersurveys in these companies’ target markets. The paper has shown that Facebook is moreefficient than blogs and that social media is effective in spreading word-of-mouth andcommunicating with customers. The conclusion of this study is that Facebook is an effectivetool for start-up companies, both to reach new consumers and also to retain current customers.

<p>Consumers frequently share stories about consumption experiences with others through word of mouth (WOM). Past research has focused on how hearing WOM influences the listener; I examine how sharing WOM influences the speaker. My proposed model outlines variables that determine storytelling language, predicts how specific language influences speakers' evaluations of experiences, and identifies the process through which language influences speakers. I test this model in five experimental studies and in a field study using Amazon.com data. I find that stories containing relatively more explaining language influence speakers through a process of sense-making. Sense-making helps consumers understand and recover from experiences by allowing them to figure out why experiences occurred and why they liked or disliked them. Making sense of experiences through explaining language has several consequences for consumers. Explaining language can cause paradoxical effects of WOM in terms of consumers' evaluations of experiences and their intentions to repeat and recommend experiences. Explaining positive experiences can decrease speakers' evaluations of experiences, making experiences less positive and decreasing consumers' willingness to repeat and recommend these experiences. Conversely, explaining negative experiences can increase speakers' evaluations of experiences, making experiences less negative and increasing consumers' willingness to repeat and recommend these experiences. In addition, making sense of and explaining experiences decreases consumers' intentions to spread future word of mouth about their experiences.</p> / Dissertation

As the number of users grows, more and more companies and brands use Facebook to shape their own images. What they want is ¡§Word of Mouth (WOM). However, each user has his/her own characteristics, and it might affect the WOM activities on Facebook. This research try to (1) explore the traits of WOM on Facebook, (2) find users¡¦ motivations of WOM behaviors on Facebook, (3) figure out what kind of characteristics might influence the WOM activities on Facebook, and (4) find some situational factors that have impacts on WOM activities on Facebook. The results show that (1) users who have high needs of uniqueness likes to share WOM to out-group members, (2) users prefer to share non-business messages and the messages which are related to their own benefits, (3) users with different characteristics have different motivations of WOM activities on Facebook. Keywords: Word of Mouth, Facebook, Characteristics, Situational Factors, Focus-group Interview, On-line Survey, social network site.

In the networks of relationships that influence others behavior and attitude are called opinion leaders. The two-step flow theory suggests that information through a variety of media will receive by opinion leaders, and the opinion leaders will spread the information and have the effect to other people. Today's consumer market companies often offer a trial to the high popularity bloggers for product placement, to establish a positive attitude, good reputation, and to enhance consumers purchase behavior. The views of opinion leaders in the virtual community, either positive or negative affect, all have impact to the members of the community (Bansal & Voyer, 2000). In this study, we view the Xbox LIFE community website as a research field, and use depth interviews of qualitative research as a major research method. Through the depth interview we can know the type difference of community website members and understand how the opinion leaders in the community convey the information. In this study we found that opinion leaders¡¦high degree of participation and professional knowledge in the community played a great influence in the community. The opinion leaders¡¦ speeches and views have also become the main sources to the members of the group.This study will help enterprises to seek more marketing-effective way in use online WMO(word of mouth) in the future. From this study we can find that to operate the community website are not just set up the fan pages just because the community websites are in vogue. We must discover the key to affect the community websites¡¦ members, and create the way to bring the community members together. That is the key to promote brand and service.

In recent years, it is not hard to tell that in the retail market of flaming competition in Taiwan, and quality of service is worth of being paid attention. The study tries to investigate the relationships between buyer reactions to ethical behaviors of salespeople and customer-company identification. Several hypotheses are developed and tested to find out whether interactions with salespeople generates customers¡¦ ethical perceptions and impacts on customer-company identification. Moreover, the study intends to explore the consequences of customer-company identification (extra- or in- role behaviors). The study adopts structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the path estimates among constructs. The study adopts convenience sample and the valid return of survey is 296. Results indicate that the significant and positive effects of both moral equity and relativism on customer-company identification and repurchase intention and positive word-of-mouth followed up. At last, the managerial implications of this study may help retailers with professional ethics of salespeople and create loyal customers.

For companies, the cost of acquiring a new customer is several times the cost of retaining an existing customer. Furthermore, the purchasing power of an existing customer is usually more predominant than a new one. Therefore, more and more companies attempt to establish long-term relationships with customers in order to make them patronize again or do other useful behaviors. The concept of consumer-company identification (C-C identification) has been used to qualify the deep, meaningful, and long-term relationships between consumers and companies. This research analyzes the antecedents and consequences of C-C identification. We suggest that high identity distinctiveness and identity prestige may lead to high C-C identification. Also, high C-C identification should enhance consumers¡¦ repurchase intention and word-of-mouth (WOM). Our survey with questionnaire conducted to investigate and collect data is sent to the consumers who have shopping experience recently in department stores of Taiwan. The valid sample with questionnaire returned is 294. We analyze the results by using structural equation modeling (SEM) and find that identity distinctiveness and identity prestige have a positive relationship with C-C identification separately. Moreover, C-C identification also has a positive effect to repurchase intention and WOM. Eventually, the managerial implications of this study may help corporate managers to ponder their marketing strategies or even improve their firms¡¦ performance.

Waiting for service was often happen in Service setting. The literatures about the consequence of the waiting were strong in certain respects, typically negative and erode the customers¡¦ overall service evaluation, and underdeveloped in other respects. In this article, I consider the influence of the waiting on the customers perceived values. I propose the effect of waiting experiences on the customers perceived values depends on both how far the time lags of distances between purchasing and consuming and the word-of ¡Vmouth information supply. For the purpose, I choose the oversea leisure travel products that appear to have a significant time lag of consuming. The sample data from 290 college and graduated students were analyzed using descriptive statistics, T-tests, One-Way ANOVA and Two-Way MANOVA. The results of the three studies are presented as follows: 1. When customers perceived higher the value of the service products, they were more patient about waiting duration and more purchasing intentions. 2. The time lags of distances between purchasing and consuming were longer, the customers perceived values would increase first and then drop late. 3. Word of mouth information supply will enhance the customers perceived value.

Most of previous word of mouth studies focused on marketing and consumer behavior issues. However, for job applicants, word of mouth could be a significant reference when applicants are looking for jobs. The present study tried to find out if word of mouth will influence organizational attractiveness perceived by potential applicants and under what situations related to word of mouth have the stronger effect. Hence, the study examined if the impact of word of mouth and if these impacts are moderated by the situational variables of tie strength with presenters and expertise of presenters and moderated by individual-difference variables of self-monitoring, self-esteem, and risk-taking. Results indicated that word of mouth has significant impact on organizational attractiveness. The moderation effects of potential applicants¡¦ tie strength with presenters, expertise of presenters, and self-esteem are also supported.