Livsmedelsdistributörer och Sociala Medier : Hur livsmedelsdistributörer i Sverige använder, utvärderar och legitimerar sitt användande av sociala medier som marknadsföringskanal

Sammanfattning: Background: The usage of social media in Sweden have increased steadily in recent years. These communication channels have transformed the communication between customers and companies from a passive monologue to a dialogue in which the customers gets involved in order to create new, and maintain already existing relationships which ultimately creates long-term profitability. Although, this phenomenon is not exclusive for B2C but seems to in-clude B2B as well. Purpose: This study aim to gain a deeper understanding around social media as a marketing channel for food distributors in Sweden. For this reason, the study also want to sort out how the companies use, evaluate and legitimize these marketing activities. Method: This study is based on five interviews with three B2C-companies and two B2B-companies within food distribution in Sweden. Result and analysis: The result of this study show that the companies aim to be represented in the social mediums where they can find their customers. The most used social mediums was revealed to be Facebook and Instagram and that the sought values of marketing through social media was to distribute digital material, brand-building, create new and maintain present relations as well as directing customers towards the company’s homepage. In this study the similarities was found to exceed the differences between the B2C-companies and the B2B-companies. However, the differences that was highlighted in this study was that B2B-companis seems to be favored by a more earnest tonality and that the receiving parties of the communication in B2B are not as likely to further distribute the company’s message, nor do they move between communication-channels as “sprawling” as regular consumers.