Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur blockchain, den distribuerade ledger-tekniken, kan påverka arbetssättet för digital marknadsföring. Vårt mål är att besvara hur arbetet i digital marknadsföring ser ut idag och vilka egenskaper blockchain har som kan ändra förutsättningarna för arbetssättet inom digital marknadsföring. Genom intervjuer med tio digitala byråer har vi skapat förståelse för deras arbete och deras roll i relation till kunder och konsumenter. Resultatet från intervjuer och litteratur har visat på att de digitala byråernas arbetssätt kan förändras med blockchain genom förändrade kundrelationer och genom ett förändrat förhållande till konsumenterna. Den mest troliga adoptionen av blockchain innefattar adoption av vissa egenskaper från teknologin som kan effektivisera eller automatisera arbetet, samt ändra förutsättningarna för arbetet inom digital marknadsföring. Den stora utmaningen för adoptionen är arbetet med att flytta över tillgångar till nätverket och integrera alla användare, som både tar tid och omfattar stora kostnader. Distributionen och krypteringen av information i en blockchain skapar möjligheter för transparens, säkerhet och integritet, men ingen kan säkert veta om blockchain kommer att bli lönsamt. / This study aims to investigate how blockchain, the distributed ledger-technology, can affect the way that digital marketing operates. Our goal is to understand how the work-process in digital marketing functions today, and what characteristics blockchain has that can change the prerequisites for the digital marketing process. Through interviews with ten digital agencies, we have created an understanding of their work and their relationships with customers and consumers. The results from the interviews and literature have shown that the work of digital agencies can change the relationship with customers and consumers through blockchain. The most likely adoption of blockchain includes adoption of certain features from the technology that can streamline or automatize work, as well as change the conditions for the work in digital marketing. The major challenge for the adoption is the overall effort to move over assets to the blockchain network and integrate all users, which both takes time and includes huge costs. The distribution and encryption of information in a blockchain creates opportunities for transparency, security and integrity, but nobody knows for certain if blockchain will be profitable.

Implementing an effective social media marketing strategy campaign to engage customers and increase sales is a challenge for owners of small retail business owners The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the social media marketing strategies owners of small retail businesses used to increase sales. The conceptual framework for this study was the social media marketing strategy theory. Data were collected from 5 small retail business owners in North Carolina through semistructured, face-to-face interviews and a review of company documents, websites, and social media sites. Data analysis through Yin's 5-step process of compiling, disassembling, reassembling, interpreting, and concluding data resulted in 3 emergent themes: social media engagement strategy, outsourcing strategy, and target market strategy. Owners of small retail businesses might benefit from the findings of this study to increase sales by understanding how to integrate a mix of social media marketing platforms, improve customer engagement, use third-party social media experts to improve advertising, and target customers using social media. The implications of this study for positive social change include the potential for small business owners to increase job opportunities, lower local unemployment rates, and improve local economic growth and stability.

Background: In this world of rapidly developing technologies, it has become less of a challenge for individuals to start a career within music and promote their brand. The emergence of social media has revolutionized digital marketing and facilitated the distribution of music across different online platforms. Artists working independently in the music industry have been challenged to undertake a dual role of being both a creator of music, as well as a marketer. Purpose: This research covers an uninvestigated topic. The paper firstly explores the various possibilities for self-promotion for independent artists, provided by living in a technological world. The second aspect which is examined is how record labels can support artists in their careers through doing their promotion campaigns and establishing their brand identity. Method: This is an exploratory qualitative study, which was conducted deductively. Eight semi- structured interviews were held with independent artists working with music in Sweden, the findings from which were organized through a thematic analysis. The design of the research follows a case study approach. Conclusion: The empirical findings suggest that independent artists use a DIY (Do It Yourself) approach in their careers, specifically in the marketing of their music and their personal brand. Using features provided by social media channels, distribution companies and music streaming services, as well as having consistent personal branding were some of the ways in which independent artists digitally self-promote themselves. On the other side, labels support artists by having bigger budgets and doing more outspread digital promotion campaigns, which allows the artists to focus on the creation of music, rather than on marketing planning and decision-making. The study contributes to research within the field of music marketing. Furthermore, suggestions for future research are provided.

In communication and marketing there have been a shift from a transaction focus with emphasis on persuasion to a relationship focus referred to as a two-way communication with increased interactivity. Traditional companies are challenged to understand how their business can take advantage and adapt to the digital changes and opportunities when it comes to communication and building relationships and gain the ability to anticipate and deliver what customers expect them to. B2B companies have a slower adaption to digital media and digital changes compared to B2C companies and when it comes to digital channels there is many opportunities to discover. B2B companies still feel dependent on traditional communication when it comes to building relationships but the digital trend pressure companies to get involved and keep up digitally. The constantly expanding digital landscape force B2B companies to find a way to utilize digital platforms and channels in order to create strong digital relationships with retailer and audience The purpose of this study is to investigate and gain an understanding how B2B wholesalers communicate and build digital relationships with retailers. A qualitative method is used featuring a single-case study with Company X a B2B firm operating in the wholesale trade business as a producer and a wholesaler. Data used in the study is collected from semi-structured interviews with employees from the sales and marketing department. Digital marketing is one of the most emerging tools within communication, that B2B businesses not yet use to its full potential but are eager to discover the opportunities and advantages B2C companies adapted for a long time. B2B businesses use digital tools to support and strengthen the communication and relationship with retailers however findings reveal traditional tools is still the prefered communication method in B2B. Our findings suggest how there are still qualities lacking in digital communication that can only be achieved through traditional communication with psychical meetings. Empirical suggestion on how a B2B company can adopt techniques from B2C and apply it in a B2B context.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att skapa ett ramverk för mäklares fortsatta användning av sociala medier med utgångspunkt i digital marknadsföring och relationsbyggande. Sociala medier är fronten mot den digitala omvärlden där kommunikation sker och det finns därför ett stort värde för mäklare att veta hur man borde hantera sin digitala närvaro på ett långsiktigt hållbart sätt för att inte försvinna i bruset av all tillgänglig information. Värdeskapande åt andra och etik är därför två fundamentala byggstenar som undersökningen placerats ovanpå. Arbetet har kartlagt vad mäklare kan göra på sociala medier genom att observera vad de gör just nu, men framförallt har fokus legat på vad mäklare bör göra framöver genom att kombinera teorier om digital marknadsföring med resultat från enkäter och intervjuer. / The purpose of this thesis is to create a framework for brokers' continued use of social media based on digital marketing and building of relationships. Social media is the front towards the digital environment where communication takes place, and it is therefore of great value for brokers to know how to manage their digital presence in a long-term sustainable way so as not to disappear in the noise of all available information. Value creation for others and ethics are therefore two fundamental building blocks on which the thesis is placed. The rapport has mapped out what brokers can do on social media by observing what they are doing right now, but above all, focus is placed on what brokers should do in the future by combining theories of digital marketing with results from surveys and interviews.

The purpose of this thesis is to research how consumer recommendations can be used in terms of marketing and sales purposes in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods sector. Due to technological changes and a shift from traditional to digital marketing, the way of communicating to the audience has changed. Consumer recommendations, micro influencers and social media platforms are a part of digital marketing that is growing progressively. The paradigm of the thesis is interpretivism with following a qualitative research method, inductive reasoning and a case study in focus. The findings show that digital marketing, thanks to aspects as social media and e-commerce, has been growing, however has not completely taken over the marketing field. Influencers are getting a bigger role as marketing tools with the shift of power evolving. Due to these reasons is why and how consumer recommendations have become such a big trend nowadays.

Digital marknadsföring är i dagsläget en snabbt växande bransch och aktörer söker ständigt efter nya sätt att bedriva marknadsföring. I denna rapport studeras en av dessa aktörer, Adoveo, vars värdeerbjudande är att inkludera ett tävlingsmoment i reklamkampanjerna som ger deltagare möjlighet att vinna priser. Problematiskt är dock att priserna riskeras att inte delas ut till mänskliga deltagare, utan istället delas ut till bottar som deltar i tävlingarna både omänskligt många gånger och med omänskligt bra resultat. Syftet med rapporten är att med hjälp av data från denna aktör försöka skilja mänskliga deltagare från bottar. För detta tillämpades två oövervakade maskininlärningsalgoritmer för att klustra datapunkterna, Gaussian Mixture Model och K-medelvärde. Resultatet var en otydlig klusterstruktur där det inte gick att pålitligt identifiera något kluster som mänskligt respektive botliknande. Orsakerna bakom denna osäkerhet var främst designen av reklamtävlingarna samt att attributen i den studerade datan var otillräckliga. Rekommendationer gavs till hur dessa problem skulle kunna åtgärdas. Slutligen genomfördes en analys avseende affärsnyttan med botsäkra tävlingar och vilket mervärde det skapar för företaget. Analysen visade att affärsnyttan från att botsäkra tävlingarna skulle vara stor, då det skulle ge fördelar gentemot konsumenter såväl som annonsörer och konkurrenter. / Digital marketing is a fast-growing market and its actors are constantlylooking for innovative and new ways of marketing. In this paper, an actoron this market called Adoveo will be studied. Their specialization and valueproposition is to include a competition part in their advertisement campaigns,giving its participators the possibility to win a prize. What could turn out to beproblematic is that the prizes are not rewarded to human contestants, insteadgoing to a bot that can participate in the competition with unreasonably goodresults. The purpose of this paper is to try to separate bots from human contestantswith the data provided from Adoveo. To that end, two unsupervised machinelearning algorithms were implemented to cluster the data points, GaussianMixture Model and K-Means. The result was an uninterpretable cluster structurefrom which there was no reliable identification of bot-like and human-likebehaviour to be made. The reason behind this was twofold, the design of thecompetition and a lack of decisive attributes in the data. Recommendationswere provided to how both of these issues could be rectified.Finally, an analysis was provided on the business value of bot-securingcompetitions and the value it gives to the company. The analysis showed thatthe business value of bot-securing competitions would be beneficial, becauseit would give a competitive advantage against competitors and also improvebusiness with advertisers and consumers.

Tourism plays a crucial role in driving economic growth and regional development for countries worldwide as well as spurring economic growth in counties within regions. This thesis delves into the unexplored potential of two Swedish counties, Halland and Kalmar, as tourist destinations. Focusing on their degree of digitalization and digitization, we conduct a comprehensive comparative analysis to understand the current state of tourism and identify opportunities for sustainable growth within digitalization. All hotels in both of the counties were studied and compared to see how present they were online on third party booking sites.  The thesis has used secondary data from official tourism statistics sites simultaneously as well as combining them with gathered data from all of the different hotels own websites as well as third party sites used for booking. By examining the two key factors of presence online and package deals we evaluate potential room for improvement for the respective county.  Our findings show that there are several similarities between Halland and Kalmar when it comes to the degree of digitalization and how the regions offer package deals on a broad spectrum. There seems however to be room for improvement for both counties when analyzed to what the literature states. Hotels in Halland have a larger presence online than the hotels in Kalmar, when looking at how many guest nights per hotel the county has, Hallad comes out on top by a large margin. We argue that because of the larger online presence of hotels in Halland they achieve to attract more tourists than Kalmar, despite having fewer hotels in total.  To increase growth in the hospitality industry this thesis proposes a few actionable recommendations for both counties. Implementing more package deals and diversifying the contents of these package deals and focusing more on the digital marketing platforms that are readily available for every business in the hospitality business.  This thesis contributes to a deeper insight into how business owners should act to increase their odds of success as well as how policymakers might help business in their region to develop further. This thesis also gives stakeholders a way of measuring the online presence of hotels and by extension then a way of comparing presence online.

This study evaluates whether generative AI tools built on the language model GPT-3 can streamline the processes of digital marketing agencies. The method used for gathering qualitative data was two sets of semi-structured individual interviews with different digital marketing agencies. The agencies were interviewed regarding frequent processes, AI usage, and attitudes toward the technology. Two ChatGPT experiments were conducted to get the interviewees’ insights on its use and the results. The data was categorized with the help of qualitative content analysis. Previous research and journals were additionally used to discuss the potential and consequences of AI, GPT in general, and GPT-3. Information about the different tools that use GPT-3 was collected through websites, articles, and blogs. The study’s data shows that tools using GPT-3 can streamline repetitive or time-consuming processes within ideation, content production, data analysis, personalized customer interactions, and increase productivity within digital marketing agencies. The tools’ tendencies to produce discriminating, faulty, generic, or uncreative information nevertheless create the need for constant human monitoring, source criticism, post-processing, and complementing with creative inputs. Researchers recommend the method of post-processing generative AI results. Digital marketing agencies have already begun implementing this method. Agencies’ attitudes toward the technology’s future within the industry are generally positive. The technology might, according to the interviewed agencies, become a threat to digital marketing professions in the future. This threat may occur if AI develops the creative ability to produce material that evokes emotions in the same way humans currently can. The agencies also believe that the technological change within the industry will come with new copyright laws, regulations, and pricing structures emphasizing creativity and competence.

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