Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Social media marketing - An evaluation study in the wellness industry
University West, School of Business, Economics and IT. (LINA)ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3914-3212
Linnéuniversitetet.
2013 (English)In: Proceedings of 7th European Conference on Information Management and Evaluation (ECIME 2013) / [ed] Lech, P. (ed.), Reading; UK, 2013, p. 51-57Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

An evaluation study focusing the use of social media in six Swedish wellness companies is described and analysed. The study is a part of the research project “Efficient learning for quality in the wellness industry”. Social media have become increasingly popular the last few years, and are rapidly changing the ground for marketing activities. The field is however,  still immature, and there are hitherto very few studies focusing the actual use by service organizations and the efficiency and quality effects of the use of social media for marketing. The research method in this evaluation study is qualitative in-depth interviews carried out with employees responsible for the social media activities in the studied companies. The interviews are analysed according to contents analysis method. The main results are that the initiation of the use of social media in the organizations generally was started by an “enthusiast” in the organizations. The enthusiast could be very good at initiating the use, but it could be dangerous to rely on only one employee in the long run. However, most often the use is spread to more employees in the organizations after some time. The use of social media and the shift towards relationship marketing has affected the marketing profession substantially. According to the interviews the work of the respondents had been more hectic and difficult to plan due to fast technological changes and rapid feed-back from the customers. New skills and competencies are needed due to this change of the profession. There is also a need to develop clear policies regarding the use of social media by the employees. Unclear policies tend to contribute to misunderstandings and misbehaviour by some employees, such as confounding the private and professional use of social media, which could lead to negative consequences for the organization. According to the results most of the studied organizations express uncertainty concerning planning and evaluation of their use of social media for marketing. They also experience lack of time for this work. They argue that using social media for marketing is important; but the benefits are often unclear. Formulating and monitoring the goals, management could develop social media into powerful marketing tools which also contribute to the organization’s efficiency and quality. Developing skills and practices for this is a challenge as well as a potential.

 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Reading; UK, 2013. p. 51-57
Keywords [en]
social media marketing, wellness industry, evaluation study, social media policies, WIL, Work-integrated Learning
Keywords [sv]
AIL
National Category
Business Administration
Research subject
SOCIAL SCIENCE, Informatics; SOCIAL SCIENCE, Business administration; Work Integrated Learning
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hv:diva-5832ISI: 000343432100007Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-84893601431ISBN: 978-1-909507-57-9 (print)ISBN: 978-1-909507-58-6 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hv-5832DiVA, id: diva2:682315
Conference
7th European Conference on Information Management and Evaluation (ECIME 2013), Faculty of Management and Evaluation, University of Gdansk, Sopot, Polen, 12-13 Sept.
Funder
Knowledge FoundationAvailable from: 2013-12-27 Created: 2013-12-27 Last updated: 2020-02-25Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

ScopusAbstrakt

Authority records

Grundén, Kerstin

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Grundén, Kerstin
By organisation
School of Business, Economics and IT
Business Administration

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

isbn
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

isbn
urn-nbn
Total: 290 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf