Sociala mediers betydelse på dagens marknader : Företags vilja att förstå sina kunder

Sammanfattning: Title: The role of social media on today‘s markets – Companies‘ desire to understand theircustomers Authors: Kristoffer Avci-Nåmark & Patrik Widlund Background: The markets of today are characterized by dynamic conditions because of thecontinuous change in consumer preference. Due to this, the interaction between the company and its consumers is gaining importance as companies find the need to increase their knowledge about the market. Out of this need social media has emerged as a tool forcompanies to improve their communication with customers. The popularity of social media isincreasing at a rapid rate and sites such as Facebook now has around 500 million usersworldwide. Despite this popularity companies are still reluctant to invest money in their use of social media because they lack the knowledge necessary to use it with effectiveness. Even those who are using it claim that there is a need for improvement in terms of how to evaluate the performance of social media and the results that it generates. Purpose: In this thesis we intend to explain the possibilities of organizational learning that may arise from the use of social media and increase the usefulness of social media by explaining how companies can evaluate their own use of it. Methodology: We have in this thesis, through a qualitative approach, collected data oncompanies who are considered relevant for the purpose of the thesis. By using these examplesand theories on both organizational learning and measurements of effectiveness we have completed an analysis on how companies can use social media and evaluate their own use. Conclusion: Despite the development of social media there are still some problems that mustbe solved. The correlation between social media and organizational learning is displayed in the companies we have analyzed where these companies have managed to improve their understanding of how their customers think. There are still no complete models or measurements on how to evaluate social media as a tool for organizational learning. Future research should therefore focus on developing this part of the process in order to enable the continued growth of social media. Key words: Social media, organizational learning, evaluation, effectiveness.