Social Media Marketing in Start-up Companies : Reaching New Consumers and Retaining Current Customers through Blogs and Facebook

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