Att bygga kundengagemang och relationer i sociala medier : En kvalitativ studie av organisationers strategiska kommunikation

Sammanfattning: Today’s organizations can not avoid social media. Previous research focuses on how organizations should communicate in general, and not how communication between organizations and customers is expressed to build customer engagemant and relationships. Social media provides an unique oppurtunity to create customer engagement through the interactivety possibilities of the medium. This study aims to expand the research field with the pourpose of studying how Swedish companies perceive social media as a communication tool to engage and build relationships with their customers. This research takes on the organization’s perspective and intends to answer how organizations communicate to build customer engagement and customer relationships. In order to answer the main question, nine qualitative interviews were conducted with nationwide Swedish companies that work with social media. In addition to the interviews, a feasibility study was implemented in the form of a netnographic observation of participating organizations’ social media accounts. According to the theoretical framework, the excellence theory is not supported in this study, since the participating companies prefer to exercise two-way assymmetrical communication in social media. The stakeholder approach is used by the organizations since they strive to keep the customers satisfied with the communication. The research did not reveal that they communicated according to the interactive communications model, however, their communication did show similarities with Shannon & Weavers model of communication. The study also showed that, according to Evans model for engagement, the organizations focus lies on the second level of engagement, curation. Thus, the organization’s investigated in this study communicate through creating content correlated with customers demands in order to create customer engagement and relationships, and to set the agenda for the dialogue.