Rozprawy doktorskie na temat „SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING”

The emergence of social media necessitates a fundamental rethink of marketing practises as brands are now co-created with social media users. Destination management organisations (DMOs) therefore need to develop new social media strategies. This thesis suggests that DMOs ought to strengthen their storytelling capabilities as it is an essential tool in increasing social media engagement. A conceptual framework is therefore developed drawing on four particular sociological concepts: storytelling, mobilities, performance and performativity. Based on Foucauldian thinking, they are conceptualised as ‘technologies of power’, which are techniques used in the practical operation of power. They demonstrate that a combination of individuals’ storytelling performances, performative acts and mobilities enable stories to spread and influence brand narratives. DMOs can employ the conceptual framework to understand and analyse the underlying mechanisms that shape social interaction in social media and they can operationalise the technologies of power to engage with social media users and spread their preferred brand narratives. The findings show that social media platforms have grown into a ‘virtual apparatus’ utilising institutional technologies to suppress certain kinds of user behaviour. However, some users resist the constraining structures and they use the technologies of power to mediate engaging stories. The findings also show that DMOs’ social media strategies and practices are largely dependent on alliances with various storytellers. DMOs employ a strategy of ‘free value utilisation’ by sourcing content from users, while also enticing users to contribute stories to their social media platforms by providing culturally driven raw material. It is recommended that DMOs should operationalise the conceptual framework in their social media strategies to mediate appealing narratives that connects with people. They should also employ a strategy of ‘experiential micro-branding’, where every shared user story can be utilised as it represents a micro-brand appealing to a specific target segment.

Problematisation: Credible information on social media affects potential tourists when chosing where they will travel. Thus, the competition for the attention of potential tourists makes the credibility aspect important to explore further. Perceived credibility in social media online could be more questioned than offline sources since user generated Websites usually do not go through a review. Additionally, the understanding of online credibility is still limited, when it comes to UGC. There has not been much research emphasising the perceived credibility on user generated content. Furthermore, there seems to be a disagreement about perceived credibility existing in social media, which makes it an interesting topic. Purpose: The aim of this paper is to investigate which dimensions are positively influencing perceived credibility online and if the information on TripAdvisor was seen as credible. The purpose is also to explore if there is a relationship between perceived credibility and the dimensions user generated content, authority, communication, updates and design. The purpose of this dissertation is also to add knowledge about how potential tourists perceive credibility when they view a Website designed for tourists. Methodology: This study used a paper-based questionnaire, answered by students at Kristianstad University. Limitations: This dissertation has two main limitations. Firstly, it only examines one social media, TripAdvisor. Secondly, participants in the sample were only chosen from Kristianstad University and under certain circumstances, which made the sample limited. Conclusion: The result showed that there was a positive relationship between user-generated content, authority, communication, updates and design and perceived credibility. However, the dimension advertisement was rejected. Thus, five of six hypotheses were not rejected and had a statistical significance (P= < 0.01). Only hypothesis four, advertisements, did not have statistical significance and was rejected. The total perceived credibility for TripAdvisor’s Website, in this dissertation, was that it was seen as fairly credible.

This paper starts by an explanation of the context of personal branding and online personal branding and the problem identified by the authors. Thus, the purpose of the study is to investigate on the perception of students towards online personal branding through their own personal brand and with the perspective of matching employer’s expectations. A section reviewing online personal branding and related literature is provided in order to describe among others, the several components of the elaboration of an online personal brand and the different employers’ expectations towards this brand. Next, a section describing the different methods used in the study is implemented. The data of this paper is gathered through 13 semistructured interviews based on an operationalization of the different concepts presented in the theoretical framework section. The results are then presented in the empirical investigation section following recurrent identified themes bring by the respondents: The need to fit the norm, to stand out and of control. Then the data is analyzed through the theories and is therefore following the different components of an elaboration of a personal brand including the different items related to employer’s consideration and practices. Then the conclusion is drawing in order to answering the research question as well as providing some acknowledgement and recommendations. This paper has permitted to describe the perception of student towards online personal branding with the perspective of matching employers’ expectations. This perception is a rather incomplete online personal brand, consisting of a normalized image of the self, a tool for a certain self-realization towards a limited audience and a have a certain perception of an overall control of this online personal brand.

Research show that social media are effective channels to use in branding, at the same time Swedish municipalities are increasingly starting to see the importance of branding and reports show that  they are using social media channels for branding purposes. Even though reports show that the municipalities are using social media channels in branding there is a lack of studies done on how they are using social media in branding. To examine this two research questions is developed; (1) What is branding for a municipality and (2) How are municipalities using social media in branding. To examine the research questions different theories are applied and a conceptual framework is developed based on theories from branding, social media and branding in social media. To collect data for the research a qualitative study with three case studies (three Swedish municipalities) is conducted. The primary data from the three cases is collected through face to face interviews with employees responsible for the social media channels. Secondary information is gathered through observations of the municipalities social media channels examined in this thesis, and documents found on internet concerning the municipalities’ use of social media. The analysis of the data is done based on the conceptual framework presented in the theoretical chapter and consists of both within case studies and cross case studies in order to identify similarities and differences among the cases. The findings from this study show that both corporate, employee, and place branding is applied in the municipalities overall branding goals and strategies. Even though the municipalities are examined as organizations in this study employee and place branding goals are identified in order for the municipalities to reach their overall wanted position and image. A further conclusion is that social media has been effective in branding. Social media has enabled the municipalities to reach their branding goals through being transparent, informing, engaging and creating dialogues with their inhabitants and other publics. Through social media the municipalities have managed to establish, influence and create perceptions that have positively influenced their position and image. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have shown to be efficient social media channels to use in branding and has enabled the studied municipalities to change their perceived image from being unknown organizations to becoming more personal, transparent and increasing the public`s knowledge about the municipalities.

The general purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate the implications in regard to power, structure and control connected to the project Curators of Sweden. The study looks at nation branding through the use of social media. The idea with the project Curators of Sweden is to invite citizens to participate at the official Twitter platform to project a multi-faceted image of Sweden. Through granting citizens access to an official channel some power and control is relinquished.The empirical data is collected through ten semi-structured interviews with curators and stakeholders. In addition a netnography is conducted based on historic secondary data in the form of tweets from the @sweden Twitter account. The data is analyzed through qualitative content analysis with coding inspired by grounded theory. The thematic codes from the analysis of the Stakeholders and Curators are then compared in regard to concepts that could be related.The themes that emerge from the analysis of data generated from the interviews of stakeholders and curators include: invisible hand, asymmetry in relations, national identity, tied hands and crisis as defining moment, self-censorship, bias, empowerment, social control and self-establishing format.The findings suggest that in the context of building national identity through social media incidents prove both challenging and rewarding. The incidents test the project, attract a lot of attention and confirm the Swedish core values of progressivity. When inviting citizens to participate in creating the content a blurring of accountability is evident since ownership over channel and content is separated. The account becomes self-establishing when locus of control is unclear and no one has full ownership.

The general purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate how individuals today, in a societywhere people spend more and more time on social media, create and alter their identity throughimages. The study is focused on Instagram, the most widespread social media only focused onphotos. The study is based on a postmodern perspective and focuses on symbolic interactionism,identity capital and psychological self. The empirical data was collected through semi-structuredinterviews with fifteen Instagram users, most of who are from the Stockholm, Sweden region. Thestudy was influenced by the Grounded Theory method where emergent themes describing howindividuals alter and create their identity through images were deduced from the interviews. Thesethemes were: showing a nuanced image of themselves, images as a means of conveying identity forrecognition, imagification as personal branding tool and reflexive social interaction.The findings suggest that individuals show only a selected, a nuanced, part of their identity onInstagram and Instagram gives a greater freedom to express what people want to express as theiridentity and their self. By using photos in social media individuals are not as limited as they wouldotherwise be in the real world in terms of how they want to market their identity. But there is also afrustration among many users of Instagram and other social media as many feel that the nuancedand perfected image that many people convey is fake and annoying to see and this could thus havea negative impact on that person’s personal brand. Images were seen to be more efficient than textfor the purpose of personal branding and it also appeared that identity creation through imagescould create a more expressive society.

The research examines and explores the differences and similarities between how the social media platform of Facebook is used in the context of the basketball industry. The research centers on the respective Finnish and Swedish basketball leagues. More precisely, the study scrutinizes nine basketball teams social media representatives – four Finnish and five Swedish – perceptions on how their respective sport clubs act on the medium of Facebook, through the use of relevant marketing theories. “How do Swedish and Finnish basketball clubs manage their brands and fan clubs on Facebook?” In the recent years sport marketing has been researched extensively, however the research on sport marketing has focused solely on more established sport leagues (e.g. National Basketball Association, Premier League among other bigger leagues). The major emphasis in sport marketing has been on bigger leagues; this research focuses on the smaller and less established leagues of Finland and Sweden. There is a limited or no literature to be found of sport marketing, which specifically focuses on smaller national leagues. Additionally, the study adds knowledge to a relatively new and evolved way of marketing. Social media marketing research is at its infantry stage, at least when considering research done in more traditional marketing, thus the research could add knowledge to this young marketing sphere. The study is based on a social constructivist approach, where the social actor creates reality. The teams’ social media representatives had their own unique interpretations of team’s actions on the social media platform of Facebook. Moreover, the primarily reason for the study was to create understanding of the perceptional Facebook practices used by two countries basketball teams. The main research question was divided into three research objectives to get more accurate results. Relevant theories of branding and customer relationship management, where emphasis is on relationship marketing, were used to answer the three more specific research objectives. More specifically the theory of relationship marketing is used to identify the teams’ relationship management practices on the social media platform of Facebook and the theory of brand equity was used to understand how the teams’ build their brand image on the medium. Additionally, appropriate organizational definitions are used to recognize the underlying reasons why the sample teams are motivated to use the platform of Facebook. The results indicated that there were both similarities inside the examined country’s teams’ perceptions of Facebook activities and differences between these perceptional practices. However, the differences were of a lessening degree than similarities. Similarly, the country comparison showed that there were only minor differences between Facebook practices used by two countries’ club practices. The study gives a sound general view of smaller and less established sport league teams, thus the study could give a good foundation for further studies on other smaller and less established countries sport league clubs. Furthermore, it could also be used as a building block for a more extensive study, where perceptions of multiple club key stakeholders could be compared with each other to find similarities and differences between their perceptions gaps.

Social media is an unexplored and new area, for both businesses and academia. Many institutions are not confident on how to improve their business through the use of social media, neither for internal or external purposes. Social media is nevertheless immense among private persons (Wikström & Wigmo 2010:1) and to ignore this would be a critical mistake by marketing communicators, regardless of the economic sector in which they operate. Therefore, this study intended to expand on the current limited knowledge and information available relating to the use of social media by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to improve their brand image. The primary objective of this research was to evaluate and empirically test the impact of selected Brand identity variables (Brand reputation, Brand relevance, Brand personality, Brand performance and Brand relationship) on the Brand image of a HEI, through the use of social media. The focus was on the impact of social media (Facebook) on the brand image of a Higher Education Institution (HEI), namely the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU), which was used as the sample for this study.

Mestrado em Ciências Empresariais
As redes sociais são um fenómeno presente nas nossas rotinas diárias. Após o surgimento destas plataformas as empresas identificaram as vantagens que estas apresentavam no contacto e interação com o cliente assim como divulgação de uma marca. No entanto essa postura foi mais aceite, estudada e adotada por negócios B2C. Em B2B já existe interesse por parte dos gestores em integrar redes sociais nos seus negócios, mas há ainda muito caminho por percorrer, seja no âmbito académico seja no empresarial. Assim decidimos realizar um caso de estudo da Compasso, uma Destination Management Company (DMC) de turismo incoming para saber qual a melhor forma de integrar redes sociais na comunicação desta marca. Para este caso de estudo procedeu-se à recolha de dados através de entrevistas a dois dos seus colaboradores, a um fornecedor e a um cliente. Após análise dos dados foi possível saber as preferências de clientes e fornecedores quanto à interação e partilha de informação pelas redes sociais e alinhar essas conclusões com a estratégia da empresa. Os resultados da investigação indicam que qualquer empresa beneficiará da presença nas redes sociais mesmo que seja apenas para marcar a presença da sua marca nessas plataformas e não para comunicar diretamente com utilizadores. No entanto ao comunicarem a sua marca nas redes sociais devem ter em atenção, por exemplo, o grau de formalidade ou informalidade com que o fazem, se devem associar-se a causas ambientais e sociais e partilha-las nas suas páginas ou para que stakeholders devem direcionar as suas publicações.
Social media are a phenomenon that is widespread and present in our routines. After the emergence of these platforms, companies identified the advantages of social media regarding the contact and interaction with the customer as well as the promotion of a brand. However, this attitude was more accepted, studied and adopted by B2C businesses. Although in the B2B scope, we can see growing interest from managers in integrating social media in their businesses, there is still a long way to go, academic and business wise. We decided to carry out a case study of Compasso, a Destination Management Company (DMC) of incoming tourism to find the best way to integrate social media in the communication of its' brand. For this case study, data was collected through interviews with two employees, a supplier and a customer. Analyzing all data, it was possible to conclude about the preferences of customers and suppliers regarding the interaction and sharing of information through social media and align these conclusions with the company's strategy. The results indicate that any company will benefit from its presence on social media, even if it is just to set a presence on these platforms and not to communicate directly with users. However, when communicating their brand on social media, companies should take into account, the degree of formality or informality with which they do it, whether they should associate themselves with environmental and social causes and share them on their pages or to which stakeholders they should target the posts.
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Numa época em que as mídias sociais desempenham um papel cada vez mais importante e relevante na vida das pessoas, as marcas tiveram que se adaptar a esta nova realidade e nova forma de comunicar, para conseguirem continuar a cultivar uma forte ligação com o consumidor. Para além das redes sociais que têm revolucionado a forma como nos comunicamos uns com os outros, outra grande ferramenta do mundo da web que tem ganho cada vez mais destaque é o blog, que é atualmente utilizado por várias marcas como ferramenta de comunicação. Partindo de uma diferenciação entre Branding e Branding Cultural e analisando conceitos fundamentais para as duas áreas, como brand equity e mercado de mitos, pretendemos analisar como é que uma marca utiliza o blog na sua estratégia de comunicação de identidade baseada na cultura indie, junto dos consumidores.
At a time when social media play an ever more crucial and meaningful role in people’s lives, brands had to adapt to this new reality and means of communication, in order to continue to harness a strong relationship with the consumer. Besides the revolution that social networks brought about in the way we communicate with each other, another great tool in the web world that has increasingly become more important is the blog, which is currently widely used by brands as a communication tool. Building upon a differentiation between Branding and Cultural Branding and analyzing fundamental concepts for the two areas, such as brand equity and the so called myth market, we intend to look into how a brand uses the blog in its identity communication strategy, based in the indie culture, to reach the consumer

The newest generation, raised and immersed in today's hyper-consumer culture, has learned to define the self within a neoliberal and capitalist framework in which self-branding and ascribing to hegemonic principles appears imperative to one’s personal success.

Marketing today is no longer mainly about using traditional medias to reach a desired public. As consumers are moving to the digital world for information search, social media has provided new possibilities for companies to market themselves online. Newly started branding agencies often have a limited budget for marketing, but the need to increase brand awareness is high. In this situation, social media will be a good solution, because it is easy to use, cost effective and has a great range of reach to the desired target group. Instagram is a photo-sharing based app where the communication is done visually, which can be a good choice for branding agencies. The purpose of this thesis is to suggest a strategy for Instagram using results from a study of Swedish branding agencies’ use of Instagram, during a period of one year. The empirical study was done using a quantitative content analysis, in combination with an image analysis. A selection of six agencies were used for the two analyses to gain understanding of the research topic. Findings showed that Instagram was mainly used to humanize the agencies’ identity, and at the same time filled a showcasing function. A digital strategy plan was created for a Swedish branding agency called LLC Design. The plan created a total of 62 posts for a period of six months, with four different themes called Vi Värmland, Vi i LLC, Showcase and Kunskap, to deliver diverse content.

Given the importance of a business being able to create a positive brand image in the minds of customers and influencing customer purchasing behaviour, there is a lack of attention given to the research of the role that social media tools can play in the success of retailers. Numerous research studies have focussed on determining the advantages of and impact that social media tools can have on the success of businesses, however, the impact of social media tools on the creation of a positive brand image, and influencing customer purchasing behaviour is less evident. Thus, the primary objective of this study is to investigate the influence of social media tools on the brand image of retailers and how it affects customer purchasing behaviour. A full literature review was conducted on the retail environment and its importance, as well as on social media as a marketing communication tool. Thereafter, independent variables (Official websites, Facebook and Twitter) were identified as possibly influencing the intervening variable (Brand image) and dependent variable (Customer purchasing behaviour). Three independent variables were selected and used to construct a hypothetical model and research hypothesis. The purpose of these independent variables was to determine whether the use of social media tools could lead to a positive brand image and ultimately improve customer purchasing behaviour. An empirical investigation was undertaken to be able to establish the influence of social media tools on the brand image and customer purchasing behaviour of retail customers. The measuring instrument used for this study, a questionnaire, was constructed from secondary literature sources. The convenience sampling technique was used to identify respondents. The usable questionnaires that were gathered from respondents were examined through statistical analyses. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and the calculation of Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were used to confirm the validity and reliability of the measuring instrument. Descriptive statistics, as part of the data analyses, were calculated to summarise and allow interpretation of the sample data. Furthermore, Pearson’s Product Moment Correlations were calculated to determine correlations among variables used in this study. Multiple regression analysis was the primary statistical procedure used for testing the significance of relationships hypothesised between the independent, intervening and dependent variables of this study. The empirical investigation was concluded by a the calculation of a t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), for the purpose of determining the influence of selected demographic variables on respondents’ perceptions with regard to the independent, intervening and dependent variables. In addition, post-hoc Tukey tests were conducted to determine significant differences among individual mean scores, and the degree of practical significance was determined by calculated Cohen’s d values. Based on the results of the empirical investigation, significant relationships were found among the independent variables (Official websites, Facebook and Twitter), the intervening variable (Brand image) and the dependent variable (Customer purchasing behaviour). The empirical investigation revealed that the age of respondents has a significant impact on how their image of a brand and purchasing behaviour are influenced by retailers’ use of social media tools. This study has made a contribution to the shortage of literature on the impact of social media tools on retailers. The hypothetical model developed for this study assisted in understanding the impact that retailers’ use of social media tools have on the brand image of retailers and customers’ purchasing behaviour. As a result, this study provides recommendations and suggestions for retailers to ensure a positive brand image in the minds of customers, and to ultimately use social media tools to positively influence the purchasing behaviour of customers.

Det blir allt mer värdefullt för företag att kommunicera ut sitt arbetsgivarvarumärke till sina medarbetare och till framtida potentiella medarbetare. Fenomenet benämns employer branding och diskuteras i de flesta branscher. Modeindustrin är, i detta sammanhang, definitivt inget undantag. Employer branding handlar om att göra ett företag till en attraktiv arbetsplats och erbjuda ett unikt värde till befintliga och framtida medarbetare. Utmaningen inom employer branding framhävs genom den omstridda konkurrensen över att finna de mest lämpade medarbetarna och behålla de rätta medarbetarna i kombination med att kommunicera sina unika förmåner för att tilltala den allt mer specialiserade kompetensen hos arbetssökande. Employer branding kan i många fall stå i relation till sociala medier, som på många och olika sätt kan tilltala den interna sfären och externa intressenter hos ett företag. Med detta som grund utvecklades studiens syfte att undersöka hur employer branding skapar en attraktiv arbetsplats genom att öka motivationen hos anställda och förmedla ett externt informationsvärde. Studien har utgått från en kvalitativ metod där fyra fallföretag har involverats för att få fram relevant information där semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförts med samtliga fallföretag. Fallföretagens intervjuer presenteras under resultat för att tillsammans kunna mynna ut i en analys. Det har visats att fallföretagen arbetar främst internt med sin employer branding med en levande dialog kring företagets vision och värderingar tillsammans med att erbjuda sina medarbetare utveckling, karriärmöjligheter, trivselaktiviteter och se till den enskilde individen. Detta samtidigt som de har blicken mot de externa intressenterna genom att använda sig av sina befintliga medarbetare och sociala medier för att kommunicera sina unika värden. Dock framförde samtliga fallföretag att de måste utveckla sin externa kommunikation så inte en lämpad medarbetare går vidare till ett annat företag. Sammantaget visar studien hur fyra olika svenska modeföretag resonerar kring och använder sig av det allt mer aktuella fenomenet employer branding.

This dissertation wishes to contribute to the sociological debate on protest movements by developing the notion of ‘contentious branding’ as a reflection emerging from the digital exploration of two empirical cases that challenge social movement theory: Occupy and Anonymous. The research was orientated by three interrelated questions operating at a methodological, empirical and theoretical level: How can digital research remediate the study of social movements? What sort of assemblages are articulated around the contentious brands Occupy and Anonymous? How does a branding perspective add to or amend traditional theories of social movements? The argument is built on a complexity-orientated epistemological background, interweaving insights derived from assemblage theory, actor-network theory, socio-semiotics and second-order cybernetics. The empirical research has been undertaken by means of digital techniques: Application Programming Interfaces of popular social media (mostly, Twitter and Facebook) have been pulled for data; the #Occupy and #Anonymous hashtags have been employed as research devices to set the limit of the analysis; and the datasets have been explored mostly by means of network analysis and computer-assisted content analysis techniques. The core contribution of the dissertation is to introduce and develop, within the field of social movement theory, the notion of ‘contentious branding’, to cope with the theoretical challenges highlighted by the empirical sections. A branding perspective on social movements not only fits these specific cases better: it intends to provide an epistemological and methodological device, to sustain a non-essentialist understanding of social movements, especially in the cases of digitalization of empirical phenomena and research methods.
This dissertation wishes to contribute to the sociological debate on protest movements by developing the notion of ‘contentious branding’ as a reflection emerging from the digital exploration of two empirical cases that challenge social movement theory: Occupy and Anonymous. The research was orientated by three interrelated questions operating at a methodological, empirical and theoretical level: How can digital research remediate the study of social movements? What sort of assemblages are articulated around the contentious brands Occupy and Anonymous? How does a branding perspective add to or amend traditional theories of social movements? The argument is built on a complexity-orientated epistemological background, interweaving insights derived from assemblage theory, actor-network theory, socio-semiotics and second-order cybernetics. The empirical research has been undertaken by means of digital techniques: Application Programming Interfaces of popular social media (mostly, Twitter and Facebook) have been pulled for data; the #Occupy and #Anonymous hashtags have been employed as research devices to set the limit of the analysis; and the datasets have been explored mostly by means of network analysis and computer-assisted content analysis techniques. The core contribution of the dissertation is to introduce and develop, within the field of social movement theory, the notion of ‘contentious branding’, to cope with the theoretical challenges highlighted by the empirical sections. A branding perspective on social movements not only fits these specific cases better: it intends to provide an epistemological and methodological device, to sustain a non-essentialist understanding of social movements, especially in the cases of digitalization of empirical phenomena and research methods. Chapter 2 (‘Social movements, signification and branding processes’) presents a literature review of theories of social movements, semiotics and branding. The first section is a brief historical review of the main families of theory that deal with social movements, highlighting their strengths and limitations, especially with respect to ‘digitally-mediated’ movements. This section starts by introducing earlier socio-psychological perspectives and rationalist models of collective action, then moves to ‘classical’ approaches that focus on resource mobilization and political opportunities, framing processes and collective identities in ‘new movements’. Subsequently, it presents the recent trends in the field, which emphasize emotions, geography and networks as key concepts. After this, a brief review of the relation between new movements and new media is provided. To conclude, the section develops the argument that the discourse on social movements is articulated around a divide between different approaches: in particular, what will be defined as the ‘means-oriented’ versus ‘meanings-oriented’ divide. The need to do away with dualist attitudes is justified by reference to both epistemological considerations and empirical observations. The aims of the second section are the following. First, it introduces the basic semiotic definitions and processes relevant for the rest of the work; in particular, the distinction between the signifier and the signified, the recursive character of signification and the idea of infinite semiotic chains, that together constitute sign systems as topologically recursive. Second, merging insights from semiotics with ecological communication theory, the section will introduce the idea of a ‘bending effect’ that media produce on sign systems. Finally, the relation between semiotics and politics will be discussed, highlighting both the inherent political character of signification processes and the symbolic dimension of power/counter-power dynamics. The third section seeks to legitimize the translation of the process known as ‘branding’ to the field of social movements and contentious politics. Brands originated in the rise of mass production and have become crucial institutions in the context of global informational capitalism. While they can be denotatively defined as semiotic elements that allow for the recognition of something, their connotative definition is more controversial, because they are both the outcome of ‘top-down’ strategic devices of management and ‘bottom-up’ emergent cultural expressions of publics. Whereas branding is classically associated with products and companies, nowadays ‘place branding’, ‘political branding’ and ‘personal branding’ have become established fields of research: everything can be an object of recognition, thus everything can be branded. Given their peculiar ontological heterogeneity, openness and modularity, brands can be paradigmatically depicted as assemblages that capture and articulate diverse meanings. While the proposal to juxtapose branding and social movements may sound provocative, so-called ‘movement marketing’ already conceptualizes social mobilizations as driving forces for market innovations and brands' success, while, more relevantly, theories of social movements have already started to transgress this semantic boundary. The chapter ends by proposing a heuristic distinction between ‘orders of contention’, which will serve as a prism for the analysis of the empirical cases: the syntax, the semantic and the ethic of contention. A key proposition for the overall argument states that contentious branding highlights the role that the syntax of contention plays in shaping a blurred ethic of contention, thus articulating a potentially diverse semantic. Chapter 3 (‘Occupy What?’) tries to analytically isolate the Occupy ‘contentious brand’ from the Occupy ‘social movement’, through the means of empirical data and examples. It argues that the peculiar relation between the means and the meanings characterizing this empirical case suggests this epistemological move, useful in order to have a better grip on the challenging fluidity of the movement’s semantic, spatial and temporal boundaries. The research questions leading the analysis can be formulated as: Occupy what? The first section presents a phenomenological assessment of the associations of the Occupy brand, following three dimensions: semantic (Occupy what?), spatial (Occupy where?) and temporal (Occupy when?). First, it reconstructs the overall variations of the #Occupy meta-hashtag, showing that a marker related to a specific target and event undergoes countless processes of re-semantization, following a number of dimensions. Then, it looks in-depth at the spatial properties of the movement/s, proposing various analyses of the complex geography behind and between the digital and the physical presence of Occupy. Finally, the section enlarges the temporal span in order to show the persistence of the contentious brand beyond the momentum of the specific movement, presenting some of the initiatives that have reiterated a reference to Occupy in recent years. The overall aim is to provide empirical evidence for the need to conceive of an abstract entity, ‘contentious brands’, that are analytically autonomous from what is commonly referred to as ‘social movements’. The next section presents and analyses the distinctive features of the Occupy movement/s, both in organizational and identitary terms. The expression ‘Occupy’ here refers to the protest wave that, in late 2011, originated in Zuccotti Park, New York, and spread all over the world, bringing together a number of local networks sharing the following elements: the practice of the occupation of public spaces; the intensive adoption of social media; the project of identity (‘we are the 99%’); loose claims of economic justice developing into much more heterogeneous goals. After a presentation of the origins of the Occupy epidemic, each of these elements is covered in a specific paragraph; the argument, though, specifically pertains to the need to understand their inter-relatedness and the resulting subversion of the relation between the ‘form’ and the ‘substance’ of this entity, which is explicitly sought by Occupy activists. This chapter aims at contributing to the debate on contemporary social movements, by suggesting the relevance of the dimension of branding for understanding the peculiarities of the ‘Occupy entity’ as a whole, as well as for tackling the challenges related to the analytical delimitation of the boundaries of the movement/s. The conclusion contends that Occupy manifests a rearticulation of the relation between the means and the meanings of protest. Local movements from all over the world have seized the opportunity to hook up flows of solidarity and visibility, replicating the same protest tactic directly denoted by the label ‘Occupy’, purposefully developed as an open container for yet-to-specify grievances. The case that is the object of Chapter 4 (‘Unfolding Anonymous’) approximates to a greater extent the ideal-type of contentious branding. Scholars and commentators have adopted a plethora of expressions to refer to Anonymous, ranging from the more demanding terms to more cautious formulations: a ‘social movement’, a ‘hacktivist collective’, a ‘loosely associated protest network’, an ‘internet phenomenon’, and a ‘collective label’. Consequently, a straightforward question arises: what is Anonymous? The proposal of this work is to characterize Anonymous as a ‘contentious brand’, which means focusing on the connective potential related to its standardized semiotic repertoire. Methodologically, the chapter adopts a structural-relational perspective, involving exploiting Twitter data. The general goal is to show empirically the limits and contradictions related to conceiving of Anonymous as an individual social movement; the alternative proposal is to interpret Anonymous as a ‘contentious brand’ appropriated by and interacting with various mobilizations. The first section of the chapter focuses on the structural properties of the network of interactions between users whose activity is branded as being related to Anonymous. The goal is to understand to what extent Anonymous can be analyzed as a single network, either maintaining a certain structure over time or involved in an overall process of evolution. This section focuses on the structural evolution of the network of interactions between users. It concentrates on patterns of stability, compactness and centralization, showing how the network surrounding the hashtag #Anonymous on Twitter demonstrates oscillating behavior. The second section moves to the ‘semantic’ level of social movement goals and issues of concern, it elaborates on the hashtags included in the Twitter corpus already presented. In particular, the focus will be on the hashtags related to Anonymous operations. The aim is to understand whether a core mission of Anonymous can be isolated – e.g. the fight for internet freedom. The hashtags related to operations are mapped and aggregated in order to propose a heuristic categorization of the many, distinct ‘souls’ behind Anonymous activism, each characterized by quite divergent goals, targets and concerns. The observation of the dynamics of operations leads to the conclusion that there is no dominant issue, or set of issues, which is stable across time; conversely, Anonymous targets are always shifting, and users’ flows sometimes converge on specific issues, while at other times they diverge toward heterogeneous targets. The various operations are structurally connected due to a minority of users flowing from operation to operation, though each operation presents a largely independent constituency. Anonymous has often intertwined its destiny with other organizations, mobilizations and causes, promoting campaigns that were found worthy of its endorsement. Interestingly, a number of more or less related offshoots have arisen. This section intends to shed a light on the peculiar process of ‘brand variation’, by assessing the structural relation between Anonymous as a whole and its many offshoots; this is meant to highlight the role of Anonymous as an ‘umbrella brand’ for largely autonomous mobilizations. Matching the dataset of users and hashtags for recurring matching sub-terms results in a list of ‘sub-brands’, some of which are minor variations of the word ‘Anonymous’ with a more connoted meaning, while some are external groups with which Anonymous has collaborated, and others are more ambiguous entities, partially distinct and partially overlapping with Anonymous. These offshoots re-brand themselves to mark their specificity, though they maintain a more or less direct symbolic reference to the Anonymous brand. The analysis of the users’ overlap reveals that whereas few broker users connect most of the offshoots together, these offshoots are largely independent in terms of the long tail of users. The focus on the Million Mask March offshoot shows that, despite its strong symbolic association with Anonymous, consistent modules of the Anonymous network have been almost untouched by the march of 5 November 2013, which took place worldwide. Altogether, these observations suggest the distinctive role of Anonymous as an ‘umbrella brand’ involved in a process of ‘brand differentiation’. This chapter argues that it is problematic to try to observe Anonymous through the lens of categories that are classically associated with social movements, for many reasons – related to the complex and counterintuitive articulation of this entity. This work wants instead to put into focus the dimension of contentious branding: unfolding the assemblage traced by the ‘Anonymous signifier’, instead of uncovering the essence of Anonymous, allows us to have a better grasp of the ontological status of the entity named Anonymous. The aim of Chapter 5 (‘Dividing by zero’) is to unveil the distinctive Anonymous identity by asking the following question: who is Anonymous? This question is answered by analyzing a vast corpus of Facebook pages, mainly by digging into the massive textual data they provide. The first section answers the question ‘who is Anonymous?’, focusing on the orientations that can be identified from the network of pages liked by Anonymous pages. It shows how Anonymous orientations are not only extremely heterogeneous, but also that they are often incoherent or even openly contradictory, manifesting a clear schizophrenic identity. To make this claim apparent, the involvement of Anonymous in the Ukrainian and Venezuelan political crises is briefly presented, showing how its brand is recalled from ‘both sides of a barricade’. To sustain this argument further, another part compares radical left-wing and radical right-wing manifestations of the Anonymous brand –RedHack and Anonymous Patriot– as well as the position allegedly expressed by Anonymous in support of, and against, the conservative and progressive US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. The section concludes by presenting a radically counterintuitive aspect: not only are directly opposing utilizations of the brand documentable, but also the page-to-page network testifies that contradicting pages are indirectly connected through relationships of ‘likes’. The resulting ‘schizophrenic’ character of Anonymous orientations may be related to a ‘masking effect’ that the standard visual identity of the brand produces on the actual semantic content of its adoptions. The second section focuses on the recurrent controversies present in the textual corpus, connected with the question of who – individual or collective actor – is ‘really Anonymous’ and can thus legitimately claim its identity, according to Anons’ own words. This means observing cases of discursive production of the boundaries of Anonymous and the recurrent inauthenticity claims. The first, oldest divide is between ‘oldfags’, loyal to a purely recreational adoption of the brand, and ‘newfags’, which redefined Anonymous’ mission as a fight for the good. Second, in order to be part of Anonymous, many Anons would say, you have to give up your personal identity; but many Anonymous activists do not conceal their names and faces anymore, and temporary leaders have always emerged in Anonymous’ history. One of the recurrent (non-)rules defining authentic Anonymous actions is to never attack the media, despite the media being a primal enemy and, indeed, often a target. Anonymous, for its own definition, does not have a fixed character; rather, it takes the emergent form that those who join wants it to take. Analogously, there are no standard procedures for joining: anybody can be Anonymous, without the need for approval or specific knowledge or skills. In a sense, thus, everybody is Anonymous and, at the same time, nobody is really Anonymous. The continuous allegations show, however, that sometimes someone is not Anonymous. For these reasons, nothing can be an ‘official’ manifestation of Anonymous, but the need to mark the authenticity of a group surrounded by dozens of ‘imitations’ leads many to adopt this label, with the paradoxical effect of attracting accusations of inauthenticity. The third and final part of this section, alongside presenting exemplificative cases, pulls the threads of the argument: it is the distinction between the authentic and the fake, the original and the copy, which fails when applied to an object like Anonymous. The last empirical section intends to ‘ask’ the corpus of Anonymous’ posts and comments for spontaneous declarations concerning its own ontological nature: who is Anonymous, in the sense of what are the constitutive elements of Anonymous’ identity? Anonymous, first, is a legion: it is not properly one unified entity, nor simply the juxtaposition of many groups; rather, it manifests as the co-presence of different souls that refuse to be captured. Anonymous, however, is also a family: the many diverging opinions and the recurrent infights do not compromise a strong sense of ‘we’-ness and unity, which is actively pursued and deemed as vital. Anonymous, in Anons’ own words, has a peculiar ontological character, since it is not a group in the conventional sense, nor even something that really exists: it is an abstract idea that can be incarnated in different forms. Anonymous is, moreover, an incoherent machine: the heterogeneity and contradictions between its manifestations, as well as the systematic mismatch between its declarations and its behavior, are anticipated in its own definition. These dimensions altogether make evident how the essence of Anonymous lies in its inessential character. This chapter’s main contribution is to suggest that, from a cybernetic perspective, Anonymous counterbalances schismogenesis by explicitly defining itself in terms of tautologies and paradoxes, thus embracing a radical pattern of recursion. Anonymous’ contentious brand, from this point of view, acts as a meta-level capable of integrating contradictory orientations by anticipating its own schizophrenic character, turning the conditions of its dismantling into the conditions of its reproduction. The conclusions pull together the arguments advanced in the previous chapters in three lines of reasoning: the analytical autonomy of branding from other social movements processes and its role in supporting a non-essentialist, material-semiotic understanding of social movements; the role of contentious branding in older, pre-digital movements and the specificity of digitally-mediated contentious branding; the relation between the connective and collective levels of organization and identity, and the recursive relation between the means and meanings of contention. The concluding chapter’s first section tries to bring conceptual clarity. It first assesses the relation between branding and various social movement processes studied in the literature and then ventures a definition of branding based on the idea of movements-as-multiplicities and on a material-semiotic understanding of social movements. The chapter’s second section asks whether branding is distinctive to the digitally-mediated contentious entities studied in this dissertation or more generally a part of social movements as such. I argue that Occupy and Anonymous foreground properties that, with a reflexive epistemology, can be seen in classical, pre-digital mobilizations as well. The role of digital media in foregrounding the branding process should not only be sought in the remediation of social movement dynamics but also, following a principle of epistemological symmetry, in the research affordances that digital tools provide to social movement research. The focus on branding generates two hypotheses that bear on the media-movement debate, to be developed and assessed in future work: the role of branding as catalyst and as refractor of contentious processes. The chapter concludes with a reflection on how social movements are reassembled in the network society: moving from reflexivity towards recursion. Enabled by the affordances of digital media to bring their complexities to the surface, Occupy and Anonymous abstract a meta-level of contention to compensate for their ideological fragmentation and the non-intelligibility of contemporary forms of domination.

Today we live in an extremely dynamic world. Some of us were born in countries with developed economy, well functioning civil society and established country brand. Some of us live in developing countries, which are trying to do their best on international arena. Unfortunately, very often the latter do not have a clear coordinated vision of moving forward. This makes it hard for international society to grasp the concept they assemble. One thing is clear – developing, and often developed, countries need to build their country brands in order to get the attention and interest from the outside world. At the same time, there is a very clear trend of the world’s population migration towards social media, which is capable of bringing additional benefits. There are two important Research questions in this master thesis. The first one is: "What are the Essential Conditions for Creation of Unified Country Branding Strategy?". The second research question is: "What are the Necessary Components for Country Branding Strategy Implementation Applying Omnifarious Social Media Technology Resources and Potential?". As the incentive of this master thesis is to understand, describe, structure and build certain practical guideline for country brand strategy in a social media environment, different research methods and data are used for this purpose. The main ones are the synthesis and analysis, aimed at the procession and extraction of valuable information, as well as its’ conversion into part of the universal country brand strategy approach. Observation technique was also used to proceed with the research, since the country branding is an on-going process, which needs constant follow-up to gather the facts. Intended target audience for this master thesis are national governments interested in country branding and struggling to find a starting point for it, country branding agencies, as well as all individuals, working or interested in the field of country branding.

The purpose of this research was to understand the creation of a brand composed of four individual elite athletes and how stakeholders involved used social media to co-create the brand. The study examined the unique context of the FAB_IV; four individuals divers branded as a team. Semi-structured interviews were performed with participants from Diving Canada, its athletes, member of the COC and sponsors. The sample was built through a purposeful and snowball sampling method that added to stakeholders identified from the literature. Archival data of organizational documents, FAB_IV microsite, social media accounts, news outlet content and online content were also gathered in order to complement the data from the interviews. The deductive and inductive data analysis highlighted four main themes: brand strategies and implementation - sponsorship and sponsorship activation - media and fan interest - stakeholder’s relationship. Specifically regarding social media, the research showed that in order to use social media as a brand co-creation tool, organizations and athletes need to have a strategy in place, use them with consistency and be creative in what they publish. Additionally, fostering relationships with followers was identified as a key contributor of building a brand on social media. Researchers and future researches should focus on organizations who, along with their stakeholders, are using social media as the main tool to co-create their brand. Moreover, having the fan or follower perspective, when doing a research pertaining to brand and value co-creation on social media, would also be a possible avenue for future researches.

This research investigates the ways in which Unilever's LUX soap has repositioned their brand away from their historical association with beauty pageants. This research aims to unpack the ways in which Instagram is utilised by LUX soap to effectively communicate a distinct brand personality. This research identifies that the repositioning of the brand on Instagram was achieved through a strategy that integrated social media influencers and brand events, whilst incorporating social marketing. Not only does this research focus on LUX's branding on Instagram, it critically engages with the content from a postfeminist perspective. This is the secondary theoretical engagement of this work. The paper highlights the ways in which the content is postfeminist in nature and how this was incorporated into the branding messages. The main focus of this dissertation is the #MoreThanYouCanSee and #EvenMore LUX soap campaigns. Through a mixed methodology of interviews, content analysis, and survey the paper focuses on the ways in which LUX created a relationship with their customers on Instagram and effectively repositioned the brand. The research suggests that three key techniques were repeated on Instagram to effectively create new associations with the LUX brand during the #MoreThanYouCanSee and #EvenMore extension campaign. The paper, furthermore, suggests that the LUX soap campaign employs postfeminist rhetoric in their Instagram strategy. This dissertation argues that the development of a strategy consisting of branded events, social media influencers, and social marketing content allowed LUX soap to reposition their brand.

This thesis explores themes of authenticity in the Aerie REAL branding campaign. In it, I explore how Aerie links notions of authenticity, expressed as a vocal denunciation of photo-editing techniques, with the ideal female body. To do this, I analyze Aerie’s branding materials (including social media posts on two different websites, as well as Aerie product photography) in context of its lack of photo-editing and other branding choices, including its choice of brand spokesperson. I consider these materials within a semiotic framework developed from the French school of semiotics, and analyze them both through this framework and a content analysis. I also consider concepts of Aerie’s brand personality. In this study I illuminate many of the tensions between Aerie’s explicit goals in its REAL campaign and what it has presented within the campaign. This has implications for future representations of women in advertising, as well as the use of authenticity as a brand position.

Brands are an important feature in today’s society. A brand can consist of anything; a product, an organisation, a university, a person or even a city. They are not constricted to products or companies, but are important constituents of culture. Having a cup of coffee at Starbucks is not only about the coffee, it’s also about the brand; its values and motivations, and what it represents for the customers and fans. Brands are interweaving themselves further into society than ever before. Social media is growing and taking up a large part of people’s time. We discuss everything, including brands, on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Thus it is imperative for brands to actively partake in the discussion to not submerge and lose control over their brand image. They shape their brand identity, but the image is what is perceived by the people. If they let others shape the perception of the brand then there is a great risk that the image construct will not correspond to their intended identity. Social media provides a gateway for fans and brands to interact. This thesis investigates the primary uses of Facebook and Twitter for product and people brands respectively. Also, it looks at what components of the brand identity are displayed on the aforementioned platforms for both product and people brands and whether there are any differences between the brand types. The investigation takes the shape of a content analysis of twenty brands’ Facebook and Twitter pages – 10 each for product and people brands. Variables pertaining to the four identity perspectives proposed by David Aaker – (1) brand as product, (2) brand as organisation, (3) brand as person, and (4) brand as symbol – were used to see whether there is a dominant perspective that brands adopt when interacting with fans in social media. Also, the uses of social media were investigated and matched with authors’ suggestions for ideal uses of social media for brands. It was found that, in line with several authors’ recommendations of ideal usage of social media; brands adopt an identity approach consistent with Aaker’s Brand as Person perspective – regardless of brand type. The Brand as Person perspective was dominant for people brands on both Facebook and Twitter, however, slightly more enhanced on the latter. While still being the main perspective for product brands, the other identity perspective are given more attention so the prevalence of the Brand as Person perspective is not quite as distinguished. Also, the main uses of Twitter and Facebook were found to differ; Facebook is to a further extent used to engage fans whereas Twitter is predominately used to inform. The results provide a basis for which future research on brand identity and uses for brands in social media can build upon, starting with these general findings to dig deeper into more specialised areas of brands in social media.

Magister Artium - MA
The theory of multimodality (Kress 2010; Kress and van Leeuwen 2006) has impacted major research fields like Linguistics and Education by significantly extending our understanding of what is meant by communication through different modalities and media. More recently, scholars have been paying attention to multimodality in the world of advertising (Lick, 2015; Enli, 2014). Drawing on the work from multimodality scholars like Machin and Mayr (2012), Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) and others, this study explores the multimodal choices that were strategically made by a major multinational beverage company, Coca Cola. Specifically, these choices relate to its health-related television advertisements that were created in response to health-related criticisms of its products by consumers and health institutions over the years. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the beverage company is ‘spinning the truth’ in response to health-related criticisms by using certain multimodal strategies in its healthrelated television advertisements posted on the YouTube website. The study also critically reviews the reactions of consumers to these specific television advertisements on YouTube and the issues they raised in their on-line comments. The findings of this research study illustrate that Coca-Cola did not admit to its contribution to obesity in its health-related television advertisements and it did not address health-related criticisms in the comment sections on YouTube. Instead the brand’s common message and stance in all of the health-related television advertisements was that consumers need to lose the calories that they gain from consuming Coke by eating well, being active and exercising in order to avoid obesity and other health issues.

Title: Users motivational drives to engage with athletes on social media Authors: Victor Videgren, Alexander Jost Auf Der Stroth, Jean-Paul Mathieu Supervisor: Viktor Magnusson Examiner: Åsa Devine Background: With social media becoming a more and more prominent tool of communication within sports marketing, athletes stand to gain much by implementing it in their branding and marketing efforts. However, existing literature on the matter inclined that further research in which the perspective of the user was taken, thus advancing the understanding of user engagement motivation toward these athletes on social media networks. This study adapted the Uses and Gratifications theory in which six motivational categories had been summarized, these being: Informational, Entertainment, Remunerative, Social, Communicative and Convenience. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe what motivates users to engage with athletes on social media. Methodology: This work has incorporated a qualitative approach sided with a descriptive purpose. The empirical findings were collected through semi- structured interviews. Furthermore, these findings are coded and analysed by taking inspiration from grounded theory. Analysis: The empirical data was discussed within six motivational categories and was used to describe existing theory. Through the process of analysis, patterns of motivational theories interrelating with each other emerged. These being, a common interest which led users to engage with athletes, honesty and transparency which is what users saw and appreciated in the athlete and finally, the building of relationship which was what created from the engagement with athletes on social media. Conclusion: Through the analysis of the motivational drives patterns were discovered regarding users’ motivations to engage with athletes. The three patterns discovered interrelate with each other and are interpreted to be the typical motivation of a user to engage with an athlete on social media. The motivational patterns are “common interests with athlete”, second being the “transparency of athletes” and third “building a relationship” Keywords: Athlete branding, Social media, Uses and Gratification theory, Motivation, Engagement, Marketing, Grounded theory

Denna uppsats behandlar frilansare i mediebranschen. Studien syftar till att bidra till den redan existerande förståelsen för hur mediebranschen ser ut idag, men också för att öka förståelsen för hur frilansare marknadsför sig via sociala medier. Genom kvalitativa intervjuer med frilansare har sociala medier som marknadsföringsverktyg undersökts. Resultatet beskriver vilka sociala medier som används av de frilansande intervjupersonerna men också hur mediebranschen i dess kontext ser ut idag, vilken betydelse kontakter har samt betydelse av ett personligt varumärke. Med en abduktiv ansats har det insamlade materialet analyserats genom ett växelspel mellan empiri och teori. Slutsatsen att dra är att sociala medier är ett nödvändigt marknadsföringsverktyg för att nå ut med det personliga varumärket, för att visa att du som frilansare finns bland dina kontakter men också för potentiella uppdragsgivare. Kontakter har också en viktig betydelse för frilansare i mediebranschen men kan kompletteras med marknadsföring på sociala medier då sociala medier kan hjälpa till med att få ut det egna personliga varumärket i branschen, vilket är viktigt för en frilansares professionella framgång.
How freelancers in the media business use social media as a marketing toolThis paper is about freelancers in the media industry. The study aims to contribute with information to the already existing understanding of how the media industry looks today, but also to increase the understanding of how freelancers use social media within their marketing. The use of the social media as a marketing tool has been studied through qualitative interviews with freelancers. The result describes which social medias are used by the freelancing respondents, but also how the context of the media industry looks today. It also enlightens the importance of social contacts for the freelancers and the meaning of self-branding. The collected material has been analyzed through an abductive approach, which means that an interaction between empirical data and theory-based information has been done. The conclusion of this study shows that social media is a necessary tool for the freelancers to succeed with their self-branding, not only to be noticed by your own contacts, but for the potential clients as well. The importance of contacts also has a big role for freelancers in the media industry, but in the lack of it, it can be supplemented with social media marketing since social media can help you with your self-branding, which is important for the professional success of a freelancer.

This master thesis aims to contribute to the available literature on how place branding can be used for enhancing local identity and how this affects audience participation, in particular: engagement on social media. The case of two campaigns of the Swedish cooperative bank Länsförsäkringar are used to demonstrate the initial hypothesis: local identity and place branding use in campaigns as part of a corporate branding strategy increases followers’ engagement and participation on social media. To that end, essential theoretical concepts in order to understand the research approach and methods are explained in the following sections. For this thesis, the encoding/decoding theory by Stuart Hall is used as theoretical framework, along with some other key theoretical aspects such as identity theory, globalization and place branding.Two different campaigns of Länsförsäkringar are analysed following a mixed approach by carrying out a visual semiotic analysis of the materials (mainly photographies, posters or videos) with an autoethnographic and constructivist perspective, and a social media analysis by looking at the engagement that those campaigns generated on Länsförsäkringar’s social media. The findings show that the use of local identities and local place branding as a corporate branding strategy impacts positively on some types of social media engagement by appealing to the online community’s common origin, heritage and geography.

This thesis investigated how sport organisations use social media to communicate at international sporting events. Combining participant observation, interviews and Twitter data analysis, it examines two cases – the AFC Asian Cup and Netball World Cup – to document, analyse and compare the creation and implementation of social media strategy. This research uncovered that the development of social media strategy comprises six key pillars: volunteer selection and training, setting objectives, audience segmentation and targeting, platform-based approaches, content creation strategy and moderation of fan conversation. However, within these foundational categories, the specific strategy enacted varies, depending on the event's position in the market.

AbstractAuthors​: Johan Byström and Jonathan Ekstrand. Advisor​: Jesper Enbom. Examinator​: Eric Carlsson. The purpose of this thesis is to increase our understanding about how some of the most popular tech business’ use the phenomenon employer branding to make their own company look more attractive towards future workers through their social media channels. But also, expand our knowledge when it comes down to what makes a company attractive among students who study information technology and data programs. This thesis consisted of two methods which were a semiotic image analysis and two qualitative interviews. The data from the semiotic analysis consists of nine different images from the selected companies and the qualitative interviews consists of two separate group interviews which concluded a total of nine students from Umeå university. The results showed us new insights on how successful companies operate on their social media channels Instagram and Facebook. We could also identify that each company had their own idea of strategic communication on their channels. But something mutual between all channels were that they published content which purpose was to please a wider audience rather than a small selected group of people. Through this study we landed in the conclusion that the three companies do not aim their communication directly towards the group of students we interviewed. However, you can see patterns of the phenomenon employer branding in the published content, which contributes to make the companies look attractive. The interviewed students meant that the work environment had to be inviting. They also explained that some of the most important things that they look for in a future workplace are; fellowship, common interests and personal development. If companies use social media their chance of attractiveness and good reputation increases, rather than being lost in the crowd if they are never seen. Keywords: ​Employer branding, identity, social identity, social media, consumption, attractiveness, IT, personal development, corporate culture, students, communication, semiotics

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.
Social media has become one of the marketing tools corporate organisations cannot ignore anymore. Organisations are forced to adjust, and in certain cases replace, traditional marketing methods. The reason why this study was undertaken was to determine the type of content successful corporate brands use on social media platforms to attract new customers and retain their existing brand communities. The South African top ten most valuable brands of 2013, identified by Brand Finance, was the focus of the study and their social media activity was monitored over a pre-determined period on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. The analysis results indicated that the majority of brands use promotional content to strengthen their brand, followed by competitions and informative and educational content. Interesting findings included that each brand, within a specific industry, followed a specific online strategy. Among other brands, four banks were analysed namely Standard Bank, Absa, Nedbank and FNB. It was clear that Standard Bank and FNB focused on promoting their products and services. The focus of Absa’s strategy was helping customers to save money effectively. Nedbank placed major emphasis on the community and corporate social responsibility.

Technological developments such as social media have created challenges for DMOs (destination marketing organisations or destination management organisations). DMOs are trying to keep up with development of new social media platforms including Instagram. Academic literature shows that there is very little known about the usage of Instagram by DMOs. Research on this topic is still in its infancy. This thesis aims to find out how Leeuwarden and Amsterdam, two cities in the Netherlands, are utilising Instagram by using affordances approaches of Kietzmann et al. and Spector. A qualitative case study, as well as a content analysis and interviews provide insight in DMOs usage of Instagram affordances, which is the purpose of this thesis. Findings show that both Leeuwarden and Amsterdam mostly use similar ways in utilising the affordances by Kietzmann et al. and Spector. The honeycomb model by Kietzmann et al. shows that the affordances of Instagram mainly focus on sharing, identity and relationships. Instagram does in a very limited way focus on groups. Spector’s affordances show that collaboration, interaction and creativity are most important. Reflection, dialogue, organisation and inquiry are not important.

Problem: A changing economy bears many implications; precarity within employment, the restructuring of concepts, management of activities and the employment of tools reinforcing security. As a measure to procure and preserve employment in the modern market self- branding has been proposed. The value a brand has today is multifaceted and has proven to aid not only businesses and corporations but individuals as well. However, as self-branding is contingent on the precariousness of the changing economy, previous literature has focused on strategies and implications for the self-employed and failed to mention ramifications for the ‘traditionally employed.’ Furthermore, previous literature is lacking with regard to the Swedish employment market and the incorporation of potential cultural influences. Purpose: The scope of this research is two-fold, of both an explanatory and exploratory nature. This research seeks to explain, understand and investigate the Swedish employment market with regard to self-branding and identify possible influences. As well as, uncover new insights and explore the significance of self-branding for Sweden's ‘traditionally employed.’ Method: This research adopted a qualitative approach, conducted 10 semi-structured interviews and implemented a thematic analysis to interpret the empirical findings and answer the research questions. The findings were later analysed in accordance with previous literature. Results: The results identify to major concepts of significance with regards to the strategy of self-branding. Swedes must consider their purpose and authenticity as two major determinants of the value of their brand. Moreover, the results indicate offline branding activities, the Law of Jante and self-branding for the ‘traditionally employed’ of high relevance for the Swedish employment market.

Social media have become a widely used tool to communicate with the orgnisations stakeholders. Institutions of higher learning are also venturing into this new way of marketing and communication. This study intended to determine how South African institutions of higher learning are using social media for marketing and communication purposes. Firstly, a literature study was conducted to gain an understanding on how social media are used. Further an empirical study was conducted, which consisted of two phases. The first phase was a case study on NMMU and Stellenbosch University. Structured-interviews, focus groups and observation were used to collect data from the cases. The collected data were then used to construct a questionnaire that was used for a survey. The survey was distributed to all 23 universities, 50 public FET colleges and the 200 private FET college. 92 institutions responded to the survey. The findings prove that there are various opportuntities and challenges in using social media although it should be stressed that the opportunities outweigh the threats. There is no visible difference between colleges social media implementation in relation to institutions of higher learning. Most institutions use more than one social media tool. Facebook is the most widely used social media followed by Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. Flickr, MXit, Google+ and Blog are the least used social media. The observations of the NMMU and Stellenbosch University show that these two institutions are striving to engage with their target audiences. Although the institutions are using social media, some of the concerns are that institutions are not measuring their social media use. For those who are measuring, most depend on the free measurement tools which focus only on the quantitative measure. The governance of the social media use is none existent. Most respondents stated that they do not have a policy or guidelines informing social media management. Most of the respondents felt that they want to use more social media tools in future although some of the challenges alluded to were lack of capacity, human resources and budget.

Industribranschen har idag vissa problem med att attrahera kompetent arbetskraft. Arbetet med att bygga ett starkt Employer Brand har därför blivit allt viktigare. Användandet av sociala medier har ökat och detta skapar nya möjligheter för företag att marknadsföra sig. Frågan är dock om företagen använder denna möjlighet i sitt arbete med Employer Branding. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur industriföretag arbetar med Employer Branding genom sociala medier. Metoden som används för att besvara syftet var kvalitativa intervjuer, med HR-verksamma inom industribranschenen, och en fenomenografisk ansats. Det som eftersöktes var därmed informanternas uppfattning av dessa två fenomen, Employer Branding och sociala medier. Det huvudsakliga resultatet var att de intervjuade företagen visserligen arbetade med Employer Branding, men att endast ett fåtal använde sig av sociala medier. Resursfrågan var den största anledningen till att sociala medier inte användes i den utsträckning informanterna önskade. Nästan samtliga informanter ville och såg ett behov i att användandet av sociala medier skulle öka då det var ett enkelt sätt att nå ut till många på kort tid. Informanterna resonerade även kring risker med sociala medier och vilken information de ville publicera på dessa sidor, något som presenteras närmre i rapporten.

Social media – over the last decade with the development of technology, this new worldwide phenomenon occurred on the horizon and changed the traditional marketing ways forever. Many companies therefore seek these new platforms in order to come closer to potential customers. One of the most important social media platforms for this is Instagram, where companies can approach their target groups by visual storytelling. Start-up companies have often limited marketing budgets, which makes Instagram a perfect marketing channel because it is cost effective. This thesis is a case study of how pictures on Instagram can be used to spread the brand and how different activities affect traffic to the website/webshop. This case study is based on a marketing model that has been created and tested on an interior company’s, Tegelbruketdesign, Instagram account. The marketing model is analysed and compared to collected data from semi-structured interviews with two popular private Instagram accounts and a semi-structured interview with a Digital PR & Social Media strategist. The findings suggest that some picture types and styles are better then others regarding the spreading of the brand. The findings also suggest that Instagram activities have a positive affect on the traffic to the company’s website/webshop.

Building a corporate brand is as a crucial resource for the survival of companies. Social media as a tool for branding practices has been emphasized in research about startups. In such research, less focus is on certain groups of startups, such as Knowledge-intensive startups (KI Startups). This is peculiar as such startups differ in societal contributions and how they are constituted. Thus, as social media branding practices might enhance the survival rate, it is important to extend this research about KI startups.    The purpose of this thesis is to understand how and why KI startups in Sweden use social media to build their corporate brands in regards of four different branding elements.   The thesis has an exploratory and interpretivist philosophy with an abductive approach. A qualitative method was chosen to collect the empirical data. Firstly, a pilot study which contained a questionnaire was sent to a sample of KI startups to attain an initial understanding of the field. Secondly, semi-structured interviews with six KI startups were conducted for a main study.   The findings indicate that the interviewed KI startups use social media to build brand awareness, influence and engage customers, attract new employees, and to build reputation. The findings also indicate that some KI startups use social media to attain a credible and knowledgeable brand perception.    Our findings may help other KI startups when choosing a social media channel, and what content to post in the brand building process. Suggestions for further research are a similar, but more extensive study in Sweden, or a study in a country that is different to Sweden.

This thesis investigated how information on a firm’s website presented with richmedia employee testimonials differs compared to a poor media descriptioncommunicating the same content in its ability to positively influence potential jobseekersperceptions about a firms employer brand values, in particular social valuedue to its potential in differentiation. A problem was identified being that firms areexperiencing difficulties with communicating social value of the firm to potential jobseekers. The authors used a mixed-method research design containing explorativeexpert interviews, an explanatory experiment where potential job-seekers wereexposed to two different versions of a firms’ website (one containing rich mediaemployee testimonial, and one containing a written text description of the samecontent), and a number of focus groups with the aim to further explain the findingsfrom the experiment. The findings indicate that rich media employee testimonials embedded in afirm's website increase potential job-seekers perceptions about a firm in terms of bothsocial value and identification with the firm. These findings suggest that firms shouldconsider using rich media employee testimonials on their career websites as analternative to the more commonly used poor media written descriptions.

Studiens syfte var att beskriva och analysera i vilken utsträckning och hur de 50 största svenska företagen använder sociala medier i arbetet med deras arbetsgivarvarumärke gentemot studenter och andra potentiella arbetstagare. Det är en beskrivande studie som använt en flerfaldig forskningsstrategi där kvantitativ innehållsanalys, kvalitativ innehållsanalys och semi-strukturerade intervjuer använts för att uppnå studiens syfte. Resultatet visade att användandet av sociala medier i arbetet med deras arbetsgivarvarumärke gentemot potentiella arbetstagare är lågt bland Sveriges 50 största företag. Endast 18 av dessa använder någon form av social media i detta syfte, och när det kommer till de företag som endast vänder sig till studenter är det endast 4 företag av 50. Men det står under ständig utveckling, både till antalet företag som använder det och sett till hur det används. Olika typer av sociala medier bidrar med olika möjligheter för att stärka arbetsgivarvarumärket, vilket stödjer forskning som menar på att en kombination av flera rekryteringsaktiviteter ger bäst effekt. Förslag till fortsatt forskning är att utföra en liknande studie om något år för att kunna följa utvecklingen i detta ämne. Även en förklarande studie för att förklara vilka effekter sociala medier har för arbetsgivarvarumärket vore av vetenskapligt intresse. Detta är den första beskrivande studien som undersöker i vilken utsträckning och hur sociala medier används i arbetet arbetsgivarvarumärket gentemot potentiella arbetstagare bland ett större antal svenska företag.
The aim of the study was to describe and analyze how many of Sweden’s 50 largest companies that use social media as a tool for employer branding towards potential applicants, and how these types of social media are being used. It is a descriptive research that uses multiple research methods, including both quantitative and qualitative methods, to reach the aim of the study. The result shows that employer branding through social media is so far quite uncommon amongst the 50 largest companies in Sweden. Only 18 of these companies are using some kind of social media in this purpose, and when it comes to those companies that only target students it is only 4 out of 50 companies. But it is continuously developing, both consider the number of companies using social media and how they are using it. The different types of social media gives different opportunities, which are supporting previous research who claims that the best result in attracting talent is to use multiple recruitment activities. A suggestion for future research is to do a similar study next year to see the development. Also a causal research should be done to explain if and how social media can contribute to a stronger employer brand. This is the first descriptive research in this subject that studies a large number of Swedish’ companies.

Communicating archaeological findings to the public has become increasingly important in contract archeology in recent years and is now a legal requirement. Public contacts earlier meant that it was the experts, the archaeologists, who would communicate the knowledge to the public. Today, social media offers new opportunities to reach new groups and to communicate. Simultaneously the archaeologists, employed by different firms, find themselves in a new competitive situation. It may therefore be important to present the own activities in a way that strengthens the brand and to legitimize the business for the County Administration that shares the commissions, as well as for those providing the funding, the taxpayers. This paper is based on a case study on how archaeologists produce narratives on themselves, their profession and archaeology as a science on a Facebook page and on blog posts, connected to an archaeological project in the county of Östergötland in Sweden. The Facebook posts and snapshots from the blog have been reviewed and classified in an analysis of the narrative the archaeologists mediates. The study shows how building a brand is as prominent a reason for using social media as presenting the scientific findings. It is also evident that as an information source with great potential, social media could be utilized much more structured and focused.

The concept of social media has grown rapidly in the last years. This can be attributed to the rate of adoption and the penetration of social media around the world. Currently, there is an estimate of over two billion people that are actively using social media. The increased usage of social media has changed the way people interact and communicate. Literature suggests that Internet-enabled social networks (relationship between or among individuals and groups) are developing faster than offline relationships. Previous studies have linked social media to the social network theories that define social relationships based on the actors, the ties that exist and the flow of resources among them. This is made possible by social networking sites and other Internet enabled services that allow friends to meet, connect and interact. Social media allow for individuals, groups or organisations to build their social network of friends and followers. It also facilitates the formation of communities with common interest. Social media facilitate the creation and exchange of content such as text messages, images, audio and video formats among individuals or communities that share a common interest or belong to the same social network. Social capital theorists suggest that the ties that exist in social interaction like on social media have the ability to create benefit for the actors in the networks. This provides the foundation to study the benefits that individuals and organisations can obtain from social media. The opportunity to target and communicate directly with the target market and potential customer qualifies social media as a valuable marketing tool and an important component of the integrated marketing communication. As a marketing communication tool, social media introduces a completely new paradigm into marketing communications. Therefore marketing professionals and academics are continuously seeking how to take advantage of social media for different industries. In the field of politics, the use of marketing concepts to engage voters and drive collective participation in political processes has become critical due to stiff competition. The use of social media for political campaigning and engagement could be beneficial, but politicians and political organisations are not taking full advantage of the concept. Previous studies show that organisations are aware of the opportunities that social media could provide for their organisations. However, they are reluctant because they are faced with the problems of lack of information on how to implement social media for business purposes. This treatise investigates the approach and critical success factors for the use of social media for political campaigning and engagement. To evaluate the conceptual framework that was suggested by this study based on the literature review and case studies, an empirical study was conducted among the members of the Democratic Alliance in the Eastern Cape. A survey was conducted among the members of the Democratic Alliance in the Eastern Cape using a questionnaire and 92 responses were received. The questionnaire measured the respondents’ social media usage, level of political engagement, perception on the use of social media for political engagement and the level of political activities on social media. Also, hypotheses were tested to examine the assumption that there might be an association between the respondents’ gender, population group and level of political activities on social media. The findings of this study indicate that a structured approach, a strong emphasis of engaging followers socially and micro-targeting are critical to effective implementation of social media for political campaigning and engagement. Other factors include the direct involvement of leadership, listening and encouragement of user generated contents. This study concludes that political organisations can use social media to establish multi-levelled social networks that provide access to their target audience and also reach potential audience through their friends. This social connectedness can then be translated into political social capital for campaign and engagement purposes.

Employer Branding activities in the competitive labour market are becoming increasingly interactive rather than being a top-down exercise. Limited resources together with new technology is playing a role in this development. Little, but some research exists on Employee Advocacy or the voluntary promotion and defence of a brand by its employees. While some researchers suggest that strong Employer Brands fosters Employee Advocacy, there seem to be little empirical support or comprehensive models incorporating the supportive factors. Earlier studies have been primarily quantitative in nature, focusing on the corporate perspective. This research adds a qualitative angle with focus on the Employee Perspective. The purpose with this thesis is to explore how employees in companies with strong Employer Brands practice Employee Advocacy in a Social Media context, Because of the subjectivist and abductive approach, the method was qualitative in form of interviews with employees of different companies in the service sector as primary data together with secondary data. The findings indicate that Employee Advocacy, although largely driven by employee commitment, in practice seem to be a rather temporary phenomenon. The dominating intrinsic motives for Employee Advocacy does not seem to translate in a Social Media Context, where nature of expression ultimately seem to depend more on external or situational factors. The limitations of this study are the small number of respondents made up of a convenience sample. The narrow theoretical base also limits the study to explore and broaden a phenomenon rather than developing an entirely new concept. The conceptual model could act as a basis for other studies with a combined qualitative/quantitative approach or as a basis for discussion in companies formulating their Employer Branding or Social Media strategies. The original value of the conducted study is a comprehensive model of shapers and some new empirical insights regarding complexities of the Employee Advocacy phenomenon.

This DCI thesis investigated the professional practices of micro-influencers in the Creative Industries: influential social media users emerging in engaged smaller online communities. Presented in two projects, the first project develops a theoretical model to define five dimensions of micro-influence identifying the skills, knowledge, and capabilities that shape communication practices in contemporary culture. Project two is a micro-course ‘The Introduction to Micro-Influence for Creative Professionals’ which translates the model into a teachable creative artefact that enables individuals to become effective micro-influencers in their chosen profession.

Integrationen av sociala medier i dagens samhälle har bidragit till framväxten av en mersammankopplad och global värld. En värld som erbjuder fler tekniska möjligheter än tidigare, men som även bidrar med nya utmaningar. En av dessa utmaningar är hur man ska agera för att bli positivt utmärkt på den alltmer konkurrensutsatta arbetsmarknaden. Denna studie syftar till att angripa denna utmaning genom att undersöka hur den sociala applikationen Instagram kan användas som en kanal för personlig marknadsföring. Studiens slutsatser, vilka är baserade på en kombination av resultat från litteraturstudier samt kvalitativt inriktade intervjuer och innehållsanalyser, tyder på att Instagram kan användas som ett personligt marknadsföringsverktyg. Resultatet av studien indikerar att man bör börja med att klargöra sina unika och attraktiva egenskaper, mål och färdigheter för att skapa sig ett personligt varumärke.Detta varumärke kan sedan kommuniceras på Instagram genom skapandet och applicerande av en intresseveckande markandsföringsstrategi. För att höja chanserna att strategin ska lyckas bör den vara autentisk, tydlig, konsekvent och tilltalande för potentiella arbetsgivare. Resultaten tyder även på att det är viktigt att t.ex. använda hashtags och kommentarer för att skapa positiva interaktioner och uppmärksamhet kring ens varumärke/Instagramkonto. Slutligen bör man även utvärdera resultatet av ens ansträngningar för att se om ens mål blivit uppfyllda.
The integration of social media in today's society has largely contributed to the development of a more accessible and global world. Even if this evolution raises countless possibilities it also creates challenges, one of those is how to become positively distinguished in the increasingly competitive employment market. This study addresses this challenge by investigating how the new and popular social application Instagram can be used as a tool for personal branding. The findings, which are based on a combination of literature reviews, qualitatively oriented interviews and content analysis, concludes that Instagram can be used a personal branding tool. The recommended way to do this is by first clarify one's unique brandable attributes, values and goals by constructing a personal brand. This brand can then be communicated through Instagram by the use of a captivating strategy, which are evaluated and reviewed after some time. This in order to gradually develop the value offered so that the brand remains contemporary and competitive. To increase the chances of succeeding with the strategy, it should be authentic, clear, consistent and appealing for prospective employers. Findings also show that it is important to use e.g. hashtags and comments to create positive interactions and buzz around one's brand/Instagram account.

Authors: Adrian Dilaver and Mario Oreski Tutor: Urban Ljungquist Examiner: Anders Pehrsson Purpose: The purpose of this study the relationship between brand experience, brand trust  and brand loyalty. Research questions: What type of relationship does brand experience have with brand loyalty? How does brand trust affect the relationship between brand experience and brand loyalty? Methodology: A descriptive research design with a quantitative approach was conducted, utilizing an online questionnaire with a total of 113 respondents. Conclusion: The findings of this research partially supports that sensory-, intellectual- and behavioral experience have a positive- and direct relationship with brand loyalty. Affective experience did not have a positive relationship with brand loyalty, not even when tested separately. The mediating variable in this study (brand trust), also partially mediated the relationship between sensory-, intellectual- and behavioral experience and brand loyalty. However, brand trust did not mediate the relationship between affective experience and brand loyalty.

Acnkowledgments

This study could not have been conducted without the help of several people. Firstly, we would like to thank Urban Ljungquist for his guidance and assistance throughout this process. We would also like to thank Anders Pehrsson for giving us valuable feedback and input during the seminars. Further, we want to thank all of the respondents who participated in our survey and made it possible for us to conduct our research. Lastly, the researchers would like to thank each other for supporting and encouraging one another during this process.

Linnaeus University  

Växjö 26th of May 2017

Social media, even though a new phenomenon, has gained much interest in the last decade and has been a frequent topic of researchers. Sport marketing has also been a popular topic in academia, especially in North America. This thesis will address the use of social media in Nordic ice hockey clubs, including the exploration of their social media strategies and effectiveness. Previous research has not concentrated on ice hockey in Europe, nor has it examined their social media strategies. The study is seen to be necessary, especially given the large differences in the European and North American sport cultures and business models. The research was conducted through a qualitative multiple-case study by gathering data from both secondary sources as well as through semi-structured face-to-face interviews carried out with ten ice hockey clubs from both Sweden and Finland. The questions of the interviews were formed by the concepts derived from previous literature and the authors’ own experience. The results indicate that Nordic ice hockey clubs are still partly struggling with their social media strategies and that with the implementation of a clear strategy, including segmentation, the clubs would be able to take advantage of the relationship marketing and branding possibilities offered by social media. In line with this, the authors argue that the social media strategies of ice hockey clubs are not as effective as they could be and suggest further actions for managers to achieve higher social media effectiveness.

Negli ultimi anni, l’industria cosmetica cinese ha avuto una crescita incredibile, registrando un aumento nella vendita di prodotti di bellezza e di uso personale da 230,231.7 milioni di RMB nel 2011 a 333,726.3 milioni nel 2016. Lo scopo di questa tesi è quello di analizzare le strategie adottate dalle aziende cosmetiche internazionali che operano in Cina per avere successo in questo contesto. La tesi è composta così come segue: nel primo capitolo si descrivono la storia dell’industria cosmetica cinese e le principali differenze relative al concetto di “bellezza” in oriente e occidente. Nel secondo capitolo, vengono analizzati il comportamento del consumatore cinese e i trend principali del mercato cosmetico cinese relativi al 2017. Il terzo capitolo riguarda le strategie di comunicazione adottate da alcune delle principali aziende di cosmetica internazionali, come L’Oreal e Shiseido e come lo sviluppo dei sistemi di comunicazione ha cambiato il marketing in Cina. Infatti, a seguito dell’incredibile crescita del settore dell’e-commerce e della profonda diffusione dei social media tra più del 51% della popolazione urbana nel 2016, l’utilizzo di nuove forme di social media marketing è diventato il focus di molti brand. Questa analisi è basata su dati secondari come report del settore, pubblicazioni accademiche e articoli di giornale. Nell’ultimo capitolo, il comportamento d’acquisto del consumatore cinese viene analizzato grazie a un’indagine empirica condotta a Pechino, il cui scopo è quello di capire i comportamenti d’acquisto e l’influenza che i social hanno sull’acquisto dei prodotti cosmetici, con un conseguente paragone tra mercato cinese e italiano.

Title Instagram marketing- When brands want to reach Generation Y with their communication  Authors Frida Eklöf Wallsbeck and Ulrika Johansson Supervisor Thomas Helgesson Level Bachelor thesis in marketing (15 ECTS). Spring 2014 Keywords Branding, Marketing communication, Social media, Instagram and Generation Y. Purpose The purpose of this study is to find out how marketing on Instagram works in order to reach Generation Y. Further the purpose is to contribute with theoretical knowledge about what communication Generation Y prefers from brands on Instagram, why they prefer it and what it can lead to. Frame of Reference In this chapter we divided the theories under branding, marketing communication, social media, Instagram and Generation Y. Under every chapter the chosen subject will be discussed further and deeper.  Method This study is written with a descriptive and an explanatory method with a deductive approach. We have used the triangulation method combining qualitative and quantitative data. Empirical Data The outcome from the qualitative interviews and the quantitative survey will be presented under this chapter together with the SPSS analysis. Conclusion Generation Y on Instagram is a generation who is used to a high amount of marketing noise and because of that and their desire to be unique they demand extraordinary branding on Instagram. When marketing towards Generation Y brands must first form the content after the Instagram value. The content should also be creative and selective as well as it should contribute with knowledge. Further brands should communicate personal content with focus on one-way communication. By doing this, brands could expect a chance of lower barriers, increased solidarity and becoming a part of the Generation Y’s everyday life.

My final thesis project analyzes self-branding, online influencers, and microcelebrity culture that contribute to shaping self-identity on social media. The project focuses on online identity through the lens of digitally created or cyborg accounts made for the purpose of promoting consumer culture lifestyle. Cultural notions around celebrity culture as a means of profit are expanding and are more inclusive due to social media formats that nurture self-branding and self-promotion. Companies take advantage of personalized media creation and distribution by using online influencers to promote products because of the minimal payouts and labor required. Therefore, ideologies of buying and selling become deeply rooted online and have come to change its users’ conceptions of themselves and shape an identity linked almost exclusively with the internet across platforms. Self-branding, online influencers, and microcelebrity culture are distinct forms of labor on social media that generate value through branding and shaping a profit driven self-identity that leads to the erosion of a meaningful distinction between notions of the self and the production and consumption imperatives that benefit digital entrepreneurialism.