E-commerce distribution channel experiences a dramatic development nowadays. France witnessed a rapid growth rate of online sales in recent years and now ranks as the second largest market in Europe in terms of turnover. On E-commerce websites, customer review system is considered as an efficient tool of E-Word of Mouth, enabling users to write recommendations which will influence potential purchasers. This paper discusses the crucial factors of customer review system. Also, a tool to evaluate review system is elaborated with five criteria such as accessibility, quality, design, interaction and control. Ten case studies of French E-commerce firms are presented according to those criteria in qualitative study. Opinions from French customers are collected through online questionnaires in quantitative study. Researches made from supply (firms) and demand (customers) sides show that accessibility and quality are the main concerns for users and often weaknesses in current review systems. Also, the credibility of reviews is questioned by customers. Focusing on these aspects, the paper aims to give suggestions for designing an ideal customer review system to firms in French e-commerce industry.

Given that companies such as Proctor & Gamble are saying that they expect to get more than half of their ideas from outside the organization, there is a surprising lack of published research on how to encourage more of those ideas to reach organizations. Within the service climate, a focus on customer orientation and customer engagement has been linked to helping organizations remain competitive. Encompassing all of the non-transactional customer behaviours that can affect an organization, discussions of customer engagement often include things such as word of mouth, advocacy, and co-creation, yet they often do not mention customer feedback. Word of mouth can only extend an organization’s promotional budget, whereas customer feedback, another piece of the customer engagement puzzle, has the power to impact innovation and improvements within an organization. As such, this study contributes to the understanding of the antecedents of customer feedback. A model is put forth combining the technology acceptance model, knowledge management, customer complaint behaviour, and the theory of planned behaviour, showing that the intention to provide feedback is affected by customer characteristics (attitude towards feedback, subjective norms), perceptions of the feedback process (perceived ease of feedback process, perceived usefulness of feedback), and organization perceptions (customer orientation and affective commitment). Altruism, gender, and perceived rewards associated with the feedback process did not affect the intention to provide feedback. / 2013-07

The aim of this study was to investigate in what way content marketing can be understood through podcasts as an alternative marketing tool. The material which the study was based on is Ölpodden, a podcast initiated by Carlsberg Sweden. The study intended to shed light on the interdiscursivity that emerges when brands are communicated through podcasts. Another aim was to understand how relationships and identities are constructed through the podcast by examining its intended audience. In order to achieve this a critical discourse analysis was used as both underlining theory and comprehensive method. The critical discourse analysis was also supplemented with two theorists witch highlights the audience’s construction of identity. The consumer's thoughts on Ölpodden was of importance to illustrate the convergence culture and the consumption of the podcast. Qualitative interviews were therefore used as a supplement to the critical discourse analysis. The purpose for the study was to contribute to an increased understanding of content marketing and a deeper knowledge of the communicative strategies it is based on. This purpose led to two main research questions containing two subquestions each. The first main question and subqueries were to answer on: How the discourse in Ölpodden could be understood and problematized in relation to convergence, commercialization and consumption culture, which the intended audience are and how groups and identities are created through the discourse. The other main question and subqueries were to answer on: How the discourse could be understood and problematized from a user perspective, in what way the discourse has impact on the listeners subjectivity and objectivity and how the recipients statements answers to a convergence culture. The result of the study indicates that the interdiscursivity in Ölpodden contains an entertainment discourse, a information discourse and a promotional discourse. Through these discourses the podcast aims to give beer a higher status in society. The podcast also creates an identity which the listener is expected to want to fit into. In the quest to fit into this identity individual's consumption patterns can change. Which ultimately would lead to increased gain for large concerns such as Carlsberg.

Applying Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation (ABMS) methodology, this paper analyzes the impact of alternative production-sales policies on the diffusion of a new product and the generated NPV of profit. The key features of the ABMS model, that captures the marketplace as a complex adaptive system, are: (i) supply chain capacity is constrained; (ii) consumers' new product adoption decisions are influenced by marketing activities as well as positive and negative word of mouth (WOM) between consumers; (iii) interactions among consumers taking place in the context of their social network are captured at the individual level; and (iv) the new product adoption process is adaptive. Conducting over 1 million simulation experiments, we determined the "best" productionsales policies under various parameter combinations based on the NPV of profit generated over the diffusion process. The key findings are as follows: (1) on average, the build-up policy with delayed marketing is the preferred policy in the case of only positive WOM as well as the case of positive and negative WOM. This policy provides the highest expected NPV of profit on average and it also performs very smoothly with respect to changes in build-up periods. (2) It is critical to consider the significant impact of negative word-of-mouth on the outcomes of alternative production-sales policies. Neglecting the effect of negative word-of-mouth can lead to poor policy recommendations, incorrect conclusions concerning the impact of operational parameters on the policy choice, and suboptimal choice of build-up periods. (authors' abstract)

The purpose of this research is to examine how a ogranization can create Word-of-Mouth and how they can use this type of marketing to make their brand stronger. / Med denna studie har vi till syfte att undersöka hur ett företag skapar, främjar och använder Word-of-Mouth i sin marknadsföring och om detta kan bidra till att stärka ett varumärke. Undersökningen kommer även att ha till syfte att besvara hur denna typ av marknadsföring uppfattas ur både ett företags- och medlemsperspektiv.

Musikmarknaden har genomgått stora förändringar där fysiska inköp av CD-skivor fasas ut till förmån för molnbaserade tjänster med strömmande media. Konsumenternas vanor förändras i takt med denna utveckling där sociala medier och andra Internetbaserade tjänster får en allt större roll. Syftet med denna uppsats är att identifiera Uppsalastudenters konsumentbeteende med avseende på musik. Mer precist undersöks vilka sociala faktorer som påverkar studenterna för att de ska upptäcka ny musik. De teorier som används härstammar från den övergripande teorin Konsumentbeteende, med inriktningarna Word-of-mouth (WOM) och referensgrupper. Fyra attribut som tillsammans utgör en lyckad WOM-process identifierades, där samtliga attribut har inverkan på hur musik upptäcks. Varje attribut tilldelades därefter ett påstående som med hjälp av statistiska resultat antingen stärktes eller förkastades genom analys. En kvantitativ metod användes där en enkätundersökning utgjorde det empiriska materialet. Resultatet av studien visar att de två främsta sociala faktorerna som påverkar upptäckten av musik är styrkan hos de sociala banden samt referensgruppers acceptans. Mer konkret visar resultatet att nära vänner/familj är den vanligaste källan för musiktips samtidigt som Spotify är den i särklass vanligaste kanalen att motta dessa tips igenom. När studenter ger musiktips sker det främst till nära vänner med intentionen att mottagaren ska uppskatta tipset.

The main aim of the study was to determine which measurement tool, existing or adapted, would be able to determine the levels of customer centricity within the sales channels of a specific organisation, operating in the South African financial industry. A literary study showed that in order to determine the levels of customer centricity, customer experience should be measured. Six questionnaires were administered, namely, EXQ, NPS, CES, Customer satisfaction, Word-of-Mouth and Behavioural loyalty intention. The data showed a statistical significance and a positive relationship between all the constructs within all the questionnaires except with that of CES. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Social commerce is a growing field due to the popularity of social media. Research on social commerce stresses the benefits of utilizing social media or Web 2.0 technologies for business because user contribution, participation and collaboration, which are characteristics of Web 2.0, fuel business vitalization. Nevertheless, there is a lack of academic research on social commerce, and in what little research there is, the coverage is circumscribed. One of the challenges is conceptualization of social commerce due to various definitions made from researchers’ different perspectives and different positions on social commerce. This also led to the limitation of scope of research. In addition, there is still a need for identifying technological features and business goals for social commerce. Therefore, this research primarily encompasses establishing the concept of social commerce and identifying its implementation methods. To amount to those two primary goals, the research objectives are to understand the factors that affect social commerce implementation; to identify and investigate applicable Web 2.0 technologies that enable social commerce activities; and to investigate the business goals that can be achieved by social commerce implementation. Ultimately, the research aims to address methods of implementation. Consequently, the achievement of this research is that first, the concept of social commerce has been established by refining several definitions from the literature. Second, social commerce activities and business goals were identified and categorized based on the marketing funnel concept and the new customer life cycle model. Third, applicable Web 2.0 technologies were identified from the literature and other functionalities were also seized from real cases. Finally, the concept of social commerce has been demonstrated by implementing selected various commerce applications

Teknikutvecklingen har möjliggjort stor spridning av budskap och med kommunikation över Internet skapas nya möjligheter för interaktion mellan företag och konsumenter. Framväxten av smartphones har också gjort att många idag alltid har tillgång till både kamera,internetuppkoppling och bildskärm. Detta är också de förutsättningar som gjort Instagram till ett av de största och snabbast växande sociala medierna. På Instagram kan företag dela bilder med innehåll som de vill förknippas med och dra nytta av den virala spridning som kan uppstå.Möjligheten till spridning kan även utgöra en risk då företagen är rädda för negativ publicitet.Denna uppsats har därför som huvudsyfte att undersöka vad företag har att tillföra i värde respektive riskerar i sitt varumärkesbyggande genom att vara aktiva på Instagram. Teoribildningen som används för att analysera och utvärdera varumärkens närvaro på Instagram är kopplade till Brand Equity, Word-of-mouth, Integrerad och Viral marknadsföring. Metoden som använts i studien är en innehållsanalys av det material som publiceras på Instagram av både företag och privata användare. Inlägg från fyra svenska företag har studerats närmare och tillsammans med de privata användarnas inlägg har totalt 480 bilder och 1742 bildkommentarer utvärderats och innehållet kvantifierats. Resultatet av studien visar att de aktuella företagen inte utstår någon större risk med att vara aktiva på Instagram samt att möjligheterna med detta sociala medie är stora. Den stora möjligheten är framförallt den mängd individer som ett budskap kan uppnå genom viral spridning.

Abstract Title: If it doesn’t spread it’s dead - a qualitative study on how young entrepreneurs are positioning themselves in the marketplace and with the help of social media spreading their brand. (If it doesn’t spread it’s dead ­- en kvalitativ studie om hur unga entreprenörer positionerar sig på marknaden, med hjälp av sociala medier sprider sitt varumärke).   Number of pages: 48   Author: Sandra Ahlinder, Anna Hoffman   Tutor: Peder Hård af Segerstad Course: Media and Communications Studies C   Period: Fall 2013 University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information   Purpose/Aim: The aim with this study is to investigate how companies use social media as a marketing tool. The study will investigate possible differences between two groups of newly started companies. The first group is companies that has recieved a relatively large amount of media attention and the second group is companies that has received less attention in media. The study will examine the usage of social media in the two groups.   Material/Method: A qualitative method has been used in this study in the the collection of data and in the analysis of the collected material. The collection of data is based on semi-structed interwievs as a qualitative method.  In the analysis of the data a content analysis was applied.   Main results: The study's main results shows that there is a difference between the two groups of companies use of social media as a marketing tool. The difference is evident in the respective phases the companies are subject to. The group of companies that receives a significant larger amount of media attention has a developed structure in their marketing strategies. In contrast, the group with less media attention are still in a startup-phase and do not have the same means to reach that level of awareness and development in their marketing.               Keywords: Sociala medier, Entreprenör, Traditionell marknadsföring, Icke-traditionell markandsföring, Word-of mouth (WOM), Relationship Marketing (RM), Storytelling, Relationsmarknadsföring.