Generation Z and Organizational Listening on Social Media

Young people are avid users of social media and have appeared as a powerful force for social change, as shown by the ranks of those who have joined Greta Thunberg in the global climate movement. In addition to challenging political institutions and governments, young people today are also holding the corporate world accountable. To respond to young people’s expectations, brands, and organizations have turned to social media to interact and build relationships with them. However, critics have lamented that these attempts often fail and that young people’s trust in institutions, brands, and organizations continues to decline. This article asks how young people perceive organizational listenin…

Ten facts about content marketing

Content marketing is facing what most trendy topics face: it is more publicly discussed than it is truly understood. Thus far content production has relied on case-specific, individual reports, and the final outcomes of content have provided surprises, both positive or negative. In hindsight it is easy to explain content success and failure, but academic studies on the logic of content creation and content life cycle have been missing. The ambitious goal of this research, Opening the Black Box of Content Marketing, funded by Business Finland, has been to systematically open up the logic of content marketing. In our project, we asked what constitutes content related expectations, how are con…

When Social Media Influencers Go Political: An Exploratory Analysis on the Emergence of Political Topics Among Finnish Influencers

Social media influencers are often understood as non-political actors who, due to the impact they exert on their followers’ purchase decisions and brand attitudes, play an important role in marketing and branding. In recent years, various influencers have addressed political issues during important political events such as elections. This political aspect of social media influencing has not received much scholarly interest thus far. In one of the first exploratory studies on the topic, we surveyed over one hundred Finnish influencers and investigated the degree to which they engaged with political topics. Our results show that political topics are commonly brought up among Finnish influence…

Parasosiaaliset suhteet sosiaalisessa mediassa

Sosiaalinen media tarjoaa brändeille ja organisaatioille parhaimmillaan runsaasti mahdollisuuksia vuorovaikutukseen ja jopa pitkäaikaisten suhteiden rakentamiseen kuluttajien ja sidosryhmien kanssa. Reaaliaikainen ja avoin keskustelu esimerkiksi brändin edustajan kanssa voi viedä kuluttajan käsitystä brändistä myönteisempään suuntaan, myös mahdollisessa kriisitilanteessa. Haasteena on kuitenkin usein sidosryhmien ja kuluttajien aito osallistaminen ja sitouttaminen. Brändi- tai organisaatiotilin takaa voi olla vaikeaa kohdata kuluttajia ja sidosryhmiä luontevasti, etenkin kun luottamus sosiaalisessa mediassa kohdistuu usein yksittäisiin asiantuntijoihin sekä vertaisiksi koettuihin henkilöihi…

Kuin virtuaalinen ystävä : YouTube-tähtien fanittamisen ytimessä on kokemus läheisestä yhteydestä tubettajan kanssa

Tubettajat ovat nousseet 2010-luvulla monien suomalaisten lasten ja nuorten ihailun kohteeksi. Tubettajat ovat usein nuoria itsekin, mutta kykenevät vetämään sosiaalisen median kanaviensa ääreen yleisömääriä, joiden edessä moni perinteinen media kalpenee. Seuraajat saattavat kokea voimakkaita yhteyden kokemuksia suosikkitubettajiensa kanssa, minkä vuoksi tubettajat kiinnostavat myös kaupallisia toimijoita. nonPeerReviewed

Hybridi mediatila löi korville sekä pääministeriä että somevaikuttajia

Pääministeri Sanna Marinin vapaa-ajan vietosta ja tanssivideoista noussut kohu on vyörynyt eteenpäin sekä perinteisessä että sosiaalisessa mediassa. Kohun etenemistä selittää teoria hybridistä mediatilasta, jossa erilaiset toimijat, sisällöt, alustat ja vaikuttimet kietoutuvat toisiinsa ja ruokkivat toisiaan — välillä myös varsin epämiellyttävin seurauksin. nonPeerReviewed

‘You really are a great big sister’ – parasocial relationships, credibility, and the moderating role of audience comments in influencer marketing

This study examines the moderating role of audience comments in influencer marketing. A YouTube vlog entry by a social media influencer featuring the endorsement of a brand was studied, and an experimental design featuring two conditions related to audience comments was created. The results indicate that a parasocial relationship with the influencer builds the perceived credibility of the influencer, while comments by other audience members moderate the effect. Influencer credibility positively affects brand trust and purchase intention. The findings enhance the understanding of the role of an active audience in influencer marketing. peerReviewed

Tubettaja hurmaa yleisönsä aitoudella

The Role of Social Media Influencers in Public Health Communication: Case COVID-19 Pandemic

During public health crises, public organizations face a variety of strategic communication challenges, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is an extreme example. In Finland, the Prime Minister’s Office initiated a communication campaign that utilized social media influencers to communicate timely instructions regarding the pandemic. However, it is uncertain how social media influencers adapt to briefings of public organizations given that they typically work with brands that align with their own interests and expertise, which rarely is epidemiology. We use the two-step flow of communication model and social influence theory to analyze research data that consisted of 96 Instag…

“Thanks for Watching.” The Effectiveness of YouTube vlogendorsements

This study examines the effectiveness of brand endorsements in vlogs (video blogs) by assessing the role of audience participation, parasocial relationship, and valence toward vlog endorsements on the perceived credibility of the vlogger and brand attitudes. Four experimental conditions were created on Qualtrics based on a YouTube vlog where the endorser reviewed a few products. The data were collected using Mturk and analyzed with 203 usable responses. The findings indicate that audience participation in the vlog enhances para-social relationship with the vlogger, thus further fostering the vlogger's perceived credibility as an endorser. Additionally, the valence of the audience's attitude…

Asiakaslehti organisaation profiloijana

Maailman nuorimmasta pääministeristä Bile-Sannaksi

Pääministeri Sanna Marinin ympärillä elokuussa vellonutta mediakohua tulee arvioida osana laajempaa kertomusta poikkeuksellista mediahuomiota nauttineesta pääministeristä. Kertomus Marinista on rakentunut sekä perinteisessä että sosiaalisessa mediassa, ja siinä vuorottelevat niin poliittiset kuin intiimitkin kuvastot. nonPeerReviewed

Strategies of Eliciting Young People’s Affective and Quick Participation in a Youth Magazine’s Instagram Community

Traditional media have merged with social media and pursue to produce engaging content and form relationships with online audiences. At the same time, social media has allowed young people a venue to practice their basic needs of interaction, identity, and self-expression, and provides communities of shared issues and social/political aspirations. By analysing the Instagram post caption data of the largest Finnish (girls’) youth magazine, this case study investigated what posting strategies used by the magazine elicited youth participation, and how do the strategies and participation align with young people’s media and online communication preferences. The study found the magazine to use va…

Primed Authenticity: How Priming Impacts Authenticity Perception of Social Media Influencers

Though organizations increasingly collaborate with social media influencers, such as bloggers and videobloggers, little is known as to how the contextual cues related to sponsored content affect the authenticity perception of the social media influencers among audience members. This study explores how positive and negative priming of sponsored content shapes the authenticity perception of the vlogger among its audience members. Four different manipulation conditions were constructed to study a U.S. based travel vlog on Qualtrics, with data collected via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. A theory-guided content analysis of 211 open viewer responses was conducted to compare perceptions of authenticit…

Conquering the liminal space : Strategic social media influencer communication in the Finnish public sector during the COVID-19 pandemic

Public sector organisations have traditionally used mass media and their own communication channels to communicate urgent matters to citizens. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced these organisations to look for new communication approaches. In Finland, several public-sector organisations collaborated with social media influencers (SMIs) to maximise their efforts in communicating about the measures needed to constrain the spread of the virus. Using a multiple-case study design, this chapter scrutinises four public-sector organisations and their collaboration with SMIs during the pandemic in 2020. We found that public organisations turned to SMIs through influencer marketing and influen…

Making and breaking relationships on social media: the impacts of brand and influencer betrayals

This study considers how the relationships between social media influencers, brands and individuals are intertwined on social media and analyses the spill-over effects of feelings of betrayal. An experimental design with two transgression scenarios (influencer vs. brand) was created, and 250 individuals were recruited to participate in the study. The results show that a perceived betrayal by a brand can negatively affect the perceived coolness of the social media influencer that has endorsed the brand, as well as the parasocial relationships that followers have with the influencer. Accordingly, a perceived betrayal by a social media influencer can negatively affect attitudes, trust and purc…

The brighter side of materialism : Managing impressions on social media for higher social capital

Individuals adjust their behavior on social media to varying extent, and commonly in their idealized way. Most studies have focused on the problems associated with materialism and social media use, yet their potential positive contributions remain less clear. In fact, impression management holds potential for both negative and positive: it has been linked with materialistic attitudes, but also increased amounts of self-reported social capital. This study examines how young people's materialistic values connect with status-seeking impression management on social media, and subsequently to social capital, within the same model. Eight hundred Finnish participants aged 15–19 participated in our…

Enemmän kuin ystäviä? Sanna Marinin bileremmi ja politiikan markkinointi

Suomen pääministerin ystävät ovat herättäneet poikkeuksellisen paljon huomiota mediassa. Elokuussa 2022 kohistiin mediaan vuotaneista Sanna Marinin bilevideoista ja -kuvista, joissa esiintyi joukko julkisuudesta tuttuja kasvoja. Sanna Marinin posse ei koostunut demariaktiiveista ja ay-pomoista, vaan muun muassa somevaikuttajista, laulajista ja mediapersoonista. Kohua käsiteltiin pitkään ja hartaasti monesta eri näkökulmasta, ja useissa kannanotoissa Marinin ystäväporukka tuomittiin “b-luokan julkkisten bileremmiksi”, joka on Marinille mainehaitta tai jopa turvallisuusuhka, ja joka haluaa hyötyä Marinista henkilökohtaisesti. Marinin ja kohuun liittyneiden henkilöiden ystävyyden todellisesta …

Somevaikuttajat koronaviestinnässä : Faktaa koronasta -kampanjan analyysia

Somevaikuttajat kutsuttiin mukaan valtioneuvoston koronaviestintään keväällä 2020. Vaikuttajien somepostausten ja seuraajien kommenttien analysointi kielii siitä, että Suomessa elettiin vielä pandemian alkutaipaleella yhtenäisyyden aikaa. nonPeerReviewed