Politik på Facebook - spelar likes roll?

Sammanfattning: Marketing has become an increasingly important part of politics and today marketing strategies are used to communicate with voters. Communication has become a success factor for the political parties. In theory, marketing for political parties is similar to traditional marketing and political parties can be marketed in the same way as other commercial products and services. However, it has been questioned whether it is ethical for political parties to market in the same way as companies do. The purpose of this quantitative study on political marketing in social media is to investigate, analyze and discuss how political parties should act on current political advertising for social media in Sweden. The study examines how "likes" on ads affect consumers' attitudes and credibility to the ad, the political party and Facebook, as well as how "likes" affect the intention to vote for the party. The aim of the thesis is to increase the understanding of political marketing in social media, linked to social proof. This study finds that social proof plays an important role concerning the attitude towards the political party, the ad and Facebook. Social proof has a positive affect regarding the attitude towards the political party and Facebook, as well as increases credibility. Also, when being exposed to an ad from a political party that you do not sympathize with, the effect of social proof increases. Therefore, the study concludes that social proof has a positive impact on the evaluation of the political ad, party and platform.