Carlsberg's Question

Reciprocity, sociality, and personified organizations on social network sites.

vilhelm.edgren@g

mai l.co m

Vilhelm Edgren

Carlsberg's Question:

Reciprocity, Sociality, and Personied Organizations on Social Network Sites

August 28, 2012

Vilhelm Edgren
810101-1453

Supervisor/Handledare:

Jonas Andersson

Sdertrns Hgskola VT-12 Medie- och Kommunikationsvetenskap Kandidatuppsats

Sdertrn University College Media and Communications Studies Bachelor Thesis

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis paper is to show that something is changing regarding how organizations present themselves as entities, specically on, or due to, social media. The theories used for analysis are divided into two sections: social network sites, and sociality in general. In the social network section a working denition of social media is determined. From the sociality in general section the theories lean toward symbolic interactinism. Thoughts on back-stage behavioral regions and representations of self led to thoughts of demystied organizations which further led to ideas of internalized normative pressures from the generalized other. Cognitive dissonance theories were contemplated and can account for possibly irrational behavior. To gain an understanding of whether this change in presentation of organizations' identities exists, qualitative research interviews were conducted with ve social media professionals. Theories of communicative reciprocity were used analytically while the roles of surveillance and sousveillance clarify some of the normative pressure within social media. The inuence of the technology's structure is kept as a backdrop throughout the analysis. Media convergence, and convergence culture are also discussed. Conclusively, this thesis paper shows that something has changed regarding how organizations present themselves. It further attempts to show the most basic reasons as to why and how this is happening. Finally, it critically examines and evaluates these processes. The most basic conclusion is that the technical and cultural structure of SNS is constructed for sociality, and the easiest way for the professional user to adapt to this sociality is to draw on their experience as personal users by using the same interpersonal communication style that they use in everyday private life. Dissonances can occur between the personal well of experience and the professional pressure to embody an organization's characteristics. Therefore, the dierence in behavior between personal and professional user, between person and organization, has become increasingly dicult to discern, consequently engendering problematic expectations of similarly indiscernible ethics of social reciprocity for all types of user proles.

Contents

I II III
1

Background Research Questions and Objectives Theory

Reciprocal Listening . . . . What is social media? . . . Technical Scripting . . . . Convergence . . . . . . . . Surveillance - Sousveillance Recent research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

6 9 15
15

Social Network Sites: the Technology of Sociality

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6

2

16 18 20 22 23 24
24

Sociality in General

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5

The Demystied Organization . . . . . . . . . . . Symbolic Interactionism & The Generalized Other Mead's Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cognitive Dissonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Responsorium  the reciprocity of response . . . .

25 26 27 28 29

IV
3

Methods
Stage 1: Theme . . . . . . . . . . Stage 2: Planning . . . . . . . . . Informant Selection . . . . . . . . 3.3.1 Informant Jon . . . . . . . 3.3.2 Informant Maria . . . . . . 3.3.3 Informant Paul . . . . . . . 3.3.4 Informant Four . . . . . . . 3.3.5 Informant Julia . . . . . . Ethical Planning . . . . . . . . . . Stage 3: Conducting the interviews Stage 4: Transcription . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

30
30

Kvale's seven stages

3.1 3.2 3.3

3.4 3.5 3.6

4

30 31 31 32 33 33 34 34 34 35 35
36

Abstraction vs Experience

V
5 6

Results and Analysis

User or Professional? Change in communicated identity

38
39 43

6.1 6.2
7 8 9

The Consequence of Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The responsibility to exhibit response ability . . . . .

45 46
48 53 55

Content reciprocity as a measure of accessibility To be More Person-Like Popularization or Convergence?

VI

Conclusion

57
61

10 Future Research Directions

VII VIII

Works Cited Appendices

62 65
65 68 79 91 104 113

A Appendix 1: Interview script extracted from research questions. B C Appendix 2: Interview Jon Appendix 3: Interview Maria

D Appendix 4: Interview Paul E F Appendix 5: Interview Informant Four Appendix 6: Interview Julia

Part I

Background
The popularity of social media has led many organizations to become agents in the social media sphere. My interest in this was piqued when, like any other friend, Carlsberg, the brewery, shows up on my Facebook feed and asks whether I prefer skiing or snowboarding; an obvious invitation to respond in a friendly fashion. My reaction was to dismiss them, it, him, or her; I have no trust in that they would care about my response. Why should I care? I don't trust them to follow the basic norms of socialization. Their question could easily invoke a response from me, but if I respond, I feel that I need to have my response validated on some level. If not, I would feel cheated or wronged somehow. This experience got me thinking, and my initial reaction was to formulate my subjective observation as a postulate that organizations such as Carlsberg are increasingly emulating individuals in social media. If it can be shown

that organizations are behaving as individuals, then I further stipulate that something is not quite right about how they are doing it. The content they are producing is at rst glance very similar to that of an individual, yet from experience I would like to assert that there is something about the way organizations behave on social media that makes me respond dierently to them than I would to a  real individual. After formulating these thoughts I spoke to a friend who works mainly with SEO (search engine optimization), but also increasingly with social media marketing, which, according to my friend, are two industries that are quickly converging. My friend informed me that one of the trends in

social media marketing and general corporate online presence is to create a ctional  personality that acts as their persona on social media and online in general. This personality does not necessarily have a name, it is just a list

of personality traits that all representatives of an organization need to act congruently with when producing social media content. Agreeing that there are reasons to claim that some organizations are consciously emulating individuals on social media, then we are left wondering why they would be doing this. Do some organizations emulate individuals on social media simply as a result of normative pressure without consciously having decided to? My aim is to analyze this from the theory that it is a result of the way social media is structured technically, socially, and culturally. Social media is by denition  social . Furthermore, the term  social media is not academically coined. This statement holds true if we take articles such as the article in Forbes seriously (Bercovici, 2010). This is an important distinction to make because it is likely to be an everyday term rather than an academic term. Therefore, we need to agree that the term  social in social media should be taken as dened by its everyday use. A good indicator of this term's everyday use might be the rst denition of  social on dictionary.com: anything  pertaining to, devoted to, or characterized by friendly companionship or relations ('social', 2012). If accepted in this everyday

form, agents of  social media have to characterize their communications as friendly relations. In contrast, the more commonly used academic term for social media is  social network sites. In short, social network sites (SNS) are web-based services in which users can create proles, make lists of other users to which they are connected, browse the proles of users both on and o this list, and nally also browse these other users' lists of connections (Boyd and Ellison, 2008:211). I will return to the concept of social network sites in the theory section of this thesis paper. Consequently, given that the  social in social media pertains to friendly relations, and that relations involve an exchange symbolic or otherwise, then to successfully use social media there has to be reciprocity of content. So, given that a friend is a person, the reason for an organization to behave like an

individual is that it is the only way to have access to  social media. In other words, without being person-like, organizations will never be perceived as being  social, and without being  social organizations will be rejected from the behavioral region of social media. I believe that this is what pressures the organization as a social media agent to behave as an individual. In short, I have a hypothesis that there is a basic social media ethic, an ethos or norm which demands reciprocity of content; a denition of the  social in social media presenting as an ethic of content reciprocity. Content reciprocity in this case means that the participant/user/agent is ethically bound to speak, listen, and respond equally. This norm, this social media ethic of content reciprocity pushes all participants/users/agents to increasingly behave as individuals rather than senders and receivers, producers and consumers, or actors and audience. In a way, individuals and organizations alike are increasingly trying to enact their (idealized) selves on the social media scene.

Part II

Research Questions and Objectives

In this section I have extracted the main questions that need answering in one form or another. I have included my preconceived theoretical notions and hypotheses. In being aware of my preconceived answers I should at the very least be able to avoid much of their inuence during the process of planning, writing, and collecting empirical data. Before I go ahead and discuss questions and objectives, I would like to point out that I do not have access to the post as it was published, verbatim, by one of Carlsberg's many Facebook proles. So, because I cannot be sure what Carlsberg's exact post was, I want to be clear that I am not in any way attempting to shame them for making a horrible Facebook post. I am merely recalling Carlsberg's question as an example of how my interest in this was sparked. Now, the rst goal of this bachelor's thesis is to show that something is changing regarding how organizations present themselves as entities, specically on, or due to, social media. Accordin to my initial observation it would seem that this change pushes organizations to present themselves as social individuals. Professional communication workers would likely use the terms  brand personality or  brand identity to describe how they operationalize these processes. In the article  Dimensions of Brand Personality, Jennifer L. Aaker denes brand personality as  the set of human characteristics associated with a brand (1997:347) . She goes into detail by discussing the dierence between human and brand personality traits by claiming that it is the way that they are formed that makes them dierent (1997:348). Aaker claims that  person-

ality traits come to be associated with a brand in an indirect way through product-related attributes, product category associations, brand name, symbol or logo, advertising style, price and distribution channel (1997:348). Although I very much agree with Aaker, my observation diers concerning this aspect of how brand personality is seen to take form. I would like to

add that my observation shows that personality traits can also be associated with a brand through the social behavior which its authors display in social media. Concerning the social behavior of brands, the ideals of brand transparency and authenticity are increasingly advocated. For example, the book Beyond Branding: How the New Values of Transparency and Integrity Are Changing
the World of Brands has this to say about the social interactions of brands:

A brand is something that is owned by buyers and other stakeholders. This is an idea that is sometimes dicult to grasp, but it indicates that the power in a relationship between an individual and an organization is not necessarily where we think it is. [. . . ] Thus a brand only exists in a buyer's mind and it is the buyer who has the power to begin, sustain or terminate a relationship with it. (Ind, 2006:3) As I understand it, the general idea is that by being transparent and authentic in its relationships, a sustainable brand identity can take shape. The main goal, however, is still to build brand value, so these ideals consisting of value-laden words with positive connotations must be seen with a reasonable amount of skepticism. The quoted concept of how brand identities form has many parallels to more general theories of sociality that deal with inter-subjective identity formation and normative processes like Mead's  generalized other and Habermas' discourse ethics which I bring up in the theory section. The general idea of transparency and authenticity is relevant for this thesis paper and is worth exploring further in the analysis. Thus, there are already existing expressions and concepts used within

10

the communication professions to describe something similar to what I have observed. Nevertheless, the mere existence of concepts such as brand identity and personality is not enough to show that there is a demonstrable and ongoing process that is changing how organizations present themselves as individuals or otherwise. Something more than my personal observations

and concepts of brand identities is necessary to show that such a change exists. To show that this change does indeed exist, we must gain an understanding of this change as a process. The rst step of understanding this process is to gure out its cause. If we can nd the cause, we can show the eect. Finding the origin of this process is important in order to oer a satisfactory understanding of it. One determining or causal factor could be the tech-

nologies that comprise social media, another could be the human nature of being social and the normative processes contained therein. In establishing the origin of this process it becomes possible to elucidate this change further. This process could conceivably originate from several places. I have identied two possible origins; rstly, it could be rooted in the discourse universe that exists within the organization for the social media professional. Sec-

ondly, it could be rooted in the discourse universe of general sociality as it exists on SNS. When it comes to this change in how organizations present themselves on social media, content reciprocity or not, from where and from whom do the rules of the  game originate? Important to mention is that Facebook as an organization do have rules as to how organizations may use their service. At the time of writing, Facebook allows three distinct kinds of  brand presence for organizations: Apps, Pages, and Groups. These rules are often changed, so I am not going to get specic as to how these dierent user proles work, but it is important to note that for an average user the dierent types of user proles are easily distinguishable from the user prole of a private individual. Regardless, I

believe that the social interaction between private users and organizations is

11

not excessively inuenced by these types of technical dierences. Furthermore, simply because there are ocial rules of this kind does not mean that these rules are always adhered to by organizations, companies or corporations. In the example from Gizmodo to the right (Chan, 2012)

In this example someone is publically berating Chick-Fil-A in their Facebook status. A girl responds defending the restaurant. A third person notices that the girl has an 8 hour old Facebook prole and that her prole picture is from a stock photo.

, the fast food restaurant ChickFil-A was suspected of having created a fake private user account in order to help maintain their social prestige during a time of publicity crisis. I am not really interested Figure 1:

in analyzing this kind of behavior in this thesis paper. Nevertheless, it seems pertinent in the context to note that such explicit embodiments of organizations' personas do occur. Other social network sites

have dierent rules, dierent infrastructure, and consequently

dierent norms of sociality. How sociality transpires on Twitter

may be radically dierent to how it transpires on Facebook. In order to limit the scope of this thesis paper I will be using Facebook as the general reference point based on the accounts of my informants. Moreover, I am not attempting to formulate any kind of handbook or manual for how to use Face-

12

book in any capacity, nor do I aspire to make a comprehensive outline of the kinds of engagement that can be found on Facebook. So, given the need to demonstrate that this change or process does indeed exist, and that we can aim to understand this process only once we can understand its origin, the research questions ask: are organizations changing how they present themselves as entities within, or due to, social media, particularly to seem more person-like, and if so, how? Additionally, how can we understand this change as a process? What is the vessel of this change, private individuals, social media professionals, the organizations with their faux-personas, or the technology itself ? I am aware that I likely will not be able to answer this last question fully. However, by describing the problems and obstacles for individuals who act as online  gureheads on behalf of brands, my informants give hints as to some of the underlying social structures within social media. If I cannot answer the question, my goal is at the very least to enhance my understanding of the changes incurred by electronically mediated sociality. On some level, I believe that the origin of this process will be a social construction masked as a normative process demanding this change. My own preconception of this social construct is that it presents itself as an ethic or norm of content reciprocity. Since I propose that this ethic or norm means that agents acting within social media are guided by ethics to reciprocally produce and consume content in a never ending chain of engagement, then exclusively either producing or consuming content is not enough to gain favor in the social media sphere. Accordingly, my hypothesis is that there is an ethic or norm particular to social media that can be described as demanding reciprocity of content. The research questions proposed within this section are condensed and lead to further questions when operationalized for empirical data collection. The operational set of questions extracted from the main research questions is further discussed in the methods section. The research questions are listed

13

below as well as in the appendix in outline form (appendix 1).

1. Are organizations changing how they present themselves as entities within, and perhaps because of, social media?

(a) particularly to seem more person-like? (b) How can we understand this change as a process, does it originate within the technologies, the individuals, or within the organization?

2. Is there a behavioral ethic particular to social media?

(a) An ethic that in dierence to other contexts, can be described as demanding reciprocity of content? (b) Which types of agents are the vessels of my proposed ethic or norm, private individuals, social media professionals, the organizations with their faux-personas, or the technology itself ?

14

Part III

Theory
Organizations do not have literal physical bodies which can be distinguished as separate from their  souls, but an argument can be made that there is more to an organization than the sum of all its individual members or employees. In social media, the organization is condensed into a single user prole. This user prole is an entity which arguably did not previously exist. The dierent social media users play a game with each other, a game of sociality. The goal of the game may not be completely clear, and everyone may not be playing, but the goal likely has something to do with maximizing social prestige. This section will attempt to introduce some of the theories which are directly or indirectly used in my analyses. Depending on the nature of my ndings, some theories will likely be used more than others when analyzing my data. Nonetheless, the theories and previous research introduced in this section have all been part of shaping my thoughts on the matter.

Social Network Sites: the Technology of Sociality

Before I establish a usable denition of social media, I would like to address the observation that gave rise to this paper, namely what I from here on will call  Carlberg's question. Carlsberg's appearance on my feed was an act

of communication, an attempt to engage. Initially this communication was in the form of a simple broadcast. As an individual and potential customer I  no longer want to be talked at; instead, customers want rms to listen, appropriately engage, and respond (Kietzmann et.al, 2011:250). In fact,

whether this act of communication would transform into a true two-way

15

conversation was initially up to me, the receiver.

I listened to Carlsberg's

question, but, were I to respond, would Carlsberg reciprocate by also listening to me?

1.1

Reciprocal Listening

Kate Crawford's article  Following you: Disciplines of listening in social media addresses this issue of listening and reciprocity. Her article begins by claiming that  listening is not a common metaphor for online activity (Crawford, 2009:526). According to her, the more common metaphors for online activity emphasize the ubiquity of broadcasting opportunities. More specifically, Crawford uses the term  voice as the opposing metaphor to  listen (2009:526). Yet any broadcast is meaningless without anyone on the receiving end. This is almost exactly what my initial observation was about; I

suspected that any response I made to Carlsberg's question would not be heard. Therefore, modes of listening are a subject matter worth elaborating. The feeling of not being heard or being ignored is something that may be indirectly addressed through more transparent relationship building, similar to the previously mentioned branding ideal of transparency (Ind, 2006). There is much management literature concerned with how employees should embody the organization's values, but listing guidelines on how to do this is not the goal here. However, Arlie Hochschild has written much of in-

terest in her book The managed heart: commercialization of human feeling. Hochschild seems to have many ideas related to this topic. For example, she states that  the value of a personal smile is groomed to reect the company's disposition (Hochschild, 2003:4) which is relevant to my observations of the personication of organizations on SNS. The smile on an employee is not necessarily the smile of an employee. Hochschild speaks of the dissonance that occurs between the identity of the employee, and the expectation that they embody the identity of their employer. Similar kinds of dissonances

most certainly arise in the behavioral region of SNS. Dissonance can arise

16

when individuals are expected to facilitate brands' integration into human sociality by enacting these brands' personas in the form of user proles by taking on strategically designed traits and values. These dissonances should consequently be taken into account in my analysis. Crawford further states that there are three types of online listeners, namely individuals, politicians, and corporations (2009:526). She has organized her agents into three dierent distinct entities where I have chosen to use only two. For the sake of simplicity, I have decided that corporations, politicians, and any other entities that cannot be considered personal users are to be incorporated into the category of organizations. In her article, Crawford points out that social media agents are increasingly becoming better at monitoring online communications. As a result,

individual users are becoming accustomed to the fact that other agents are attentive to their actions. In Crawford's own words this means that  a greater sense of responsibility to listen emerges (2009:526). This creates a social

paradigm where social media agents are seen as responsible for being aware of what is being said by others. The idea that there is  a greater sense of responsibility to listen (Crawford, 2009:526) has implications as to the existence of a norm of content reciprocity. Given that such a responsibility exists, the need arises for a social method of control to gauge whether the individual user is being listened to. How else can this responsibility be normatively veried? The only way a listener can demonstrate that they are listening while online is to respond. On Facebook the simplest and most undemanding form of social stimulus must be the like button. A reciprocal conrmation that a piece of content has been viewed, or a that a user has been heard. So, a responsibility to listen can only be fullled and validated by response. Response ability fullls the responsibility. Response is the ultimate proof of attentiveness. Crawford calls this  reciprocal listening which she denes as  hearing and responding to comments and direct messages (2009:530). The main

17

dierence between what I am aiming for and what Crawford is speaking of is that Crawford only uses this term as relevant for politicians whereas I feel that this terminology could be useful for other types of organizations as well. I completely agree that this kind of reciprocity is more easily applied to individuals such as politicians, and the more complex nature of an organization possibly acting this way is exactly what intrigued me about my initial observation.  Reciprocal listening gives the impression of an actual person or individual at the other end no-matter their actual status. I will incorporate the relevant parts of this concept as part of my concept of  content reciprocity. The concept of  content reciprocity diers from  reciprocal listening in the sense that it includes a wider range of social network site agents. I would like to focus more on whether the distinction between organization and personlike entity is being obscured through social norms and practices such as that of content reciprocity, which I claim is inherent to social network sites.

1.2

What is social media?

As discussed in the background section, I believe that the issue of dening  social media needs to be brought up. Although it is not within the scope of this thesis to oer a complete denition of  social media, something should be said about it; therefore, I will limit myself to saying that I will use the everyday denition of social media to the largest extent possible. Yet dening this everyday term might not be so simple; in my everyday life I have no problem intuitively knowing what mediums or forums belong to  social media, but as far as academic theory goes I have issues dening it. Where is the line drawn between what is and what is not  social media ? The more commonly used term within academics to describe phenomena such as this is probably  Social Network Sites (Boyd, and Ellison, 2008:210). At the very least, it is theoretically important to establish how I will be using the terms which refer to what we in our everyday lives call  social media.

18

Danah Boyd and Nicole Ellison dene the term  social network sites in their article  Social Network Sites: Denition, History and Scholarship (2008:210). They dene social network sites as web-based services in which users can create proles, make lists of other users to which they are connected, browse the proles of users both on and o this list, and nally also browse these other users' lists of connections (Boyd, Ellison, 2008:211). They conclude their initial denition by focusing on the distinction between using the term  network as opposed to the term  networking (Boyd, Ellison 2008:211). Their preference of the term  network is based on the reasoning that  networking would imply the creation of relationships between users on the service that did not previously exist. They prefer the term  network because they dene social media as a medium of sociality in already existing social relationships. In this thesis paper however, I may interchangeably use the the terms  social media,  social network sites, and  social networking sites simply due to the fact that for my purposes the possible distinctions between these terms are not important.

My paper indirectly deals with most or all of these blocks to varying degrees. My own reasoning and analyses consistently bring me back to thoughts of identity. This model reinforces the ideas developed from my initial observation by placing identity at the center of social media. Kietzmann et.al also go into the dierences between dierent social network sites and how these honeycomb elements are dierently weighted on each; e.g. Youtube is more focused on sharing, while LinkedIn is focused on identity, and Facebook is focused on relationships. The main dierence between what I wish to discuss and the thoughts of Kietzmann et.al is that the center of their honeycomb model represents the identity of private individuals. In general, I agree that each fundamental aspect of social network sites are important, but since all converge on the central block of identity this is where my focus lies.My paper indirectly deals with most or all of these blocks to varying degrees. My own reasoning and analyses consistently bring me back to thoughts of identity.

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A more elaborate dissection of social network sites can be found in Kietzmann et.al's article on social media (2011:241-251). This article proposes a model with the purpose of characterizing the dierent aspects of social media. They propose a honeycomb model with seven distinct blocks, blocks that consist of identity, presence, relationships, reputation, groups, conversations, and sharing. They put the identity block in the center of their model like this:

Figure 2: (Kietzmann et.al, 2011:243)

This model reinforces the ideas developed from my initial observation by placing identity at the center of social media.

1.3

Technical Scripting

Now that I have oered a reasonable denition of the technology of SNS, I would like to focus more on nding tools with which to understand its social implications. Bruno Latour is a French sociologist and anthropologist interested in technology, who in his article "Where Are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts" elucidates part of what could be shaping social practices inherent to social media by giving an example. In this example, Latour describes being bothered by his car's no-seatbelt alarm,

20

and goes on to envision a seatbelt design which disengages the car's ignition when not worn (1992:226-227). Latour's point is that objects can be designed with an inherent morality that forces its users to act according to a predened ethical script. Due to the possibility of objects and technologies harboring an inherent morality, it is important to consider the technical design of social media as a part of what shapes the behaviors contained therein. Building on this concept of technical scripting, Peter-Paul Verbeek underscores the importance of the  social impact that the technology in design will have as soon as it enters society (2006:361). By this he means that

communication technologies have social implications that are important to contemplate. He further states that technologies  should solve a problem or ll a need (2006:362). To me, this means that every piece of technology

needs a reason for being. Additionally, Verbeek states that  there is no linear connection between the activities of designers and the mediating role of the artifacts they are designing (2006:363). These kinds of reections are relevant to the dichotomy between social constructionism and technological determinism within media and communications studies. In my own opin-

ion, both of these positions have merits and are not mutually exclusive. No matter how many fenced in paths you build, there will always be someone blazing their own trail. So, the ways in which social network sites facilitate or debilitate dierent aspects of social interaction are not completely controlled by their designers or owners; the designers or owners have inuence rather than control. Social network sites' primary reason for being is to turn a prot for their respective owners so their intentions are clear. Yet the connection between the  social impacts of SNS and the intentions of its designers or owners is not established as clearly. The social impacts of SNS simply cannot be

controlled by its designers. For these reasons, I will not concern myself too much with the roles of the designers or owners but rather focus on their social implications.

21

Verbeek explains that technologies can steer their users into certain kinds of actions through their infrastructural design (2006:362). To use Facebook as an example, users are only able to  like comments, statuses, pictures, and so on; a Facebook user does not have access to a  dislike function. Verbeek discusses these infrastructural limitations in communication technology in terms of  scripts (2006:362). There are most certainly social implications of these kinds of scripts or design elements which I believe are part of forming the users behaviors and perceived ethics within social media and social network sites.

1.4

Convergence

The concept of media convergence is generally accepted as a tendency of dierent mediums in the information age to converge their content and distribution methods mainly due to the possibilities of computer processing. So, if we look at convergence as a technological script, as something completely technical and partially out of the control of the technologies' creators, it gives the image of a completely technologically determined shift in behavior. As an example, just because the technology of digital text is much easier and cheaper to produce, distribute, and consume, it does not automatically mean that all reading will eventually converge to being done on a screen. Henry Jenkins oers a broader view on convergence as being  more than simply a technological shift (2004:34). In Jenkins's view, there are technological, industrial, cultural, and social aspects of media convergence (2008:15). Jenkins is not denying that there is a technologically scripted convergence, but he is saying that there is more to it. He points out that other than

technological convergence, there is also a convergence in media ownership (Jenkins, 2004: 34). Fewer and fewer organizations own more and more

media outlets. Furthermore, he states that convergence is mostly a cultural phenomenon of change, a skill through which the media consumer or user is able to process and converge many media streams within their selves. This

22

kind of personal convergence is very relevant to social network sites because this is often where personally converged media information is shared between its users. So, while technology enables this process of convergence, it is a

change in our culture which promotes and reproduces this skill of internally converging multiple information streams. In short, convergence  occurs when people take media in their own hands (Jenkins, 2008:27). This broader view of media convergence means that the concept of convergence can also be used to analyze normative shifts in social behavior on social network sites.

1.5

Surveillance - Sousveillance

This technological and cultural convergence of media and sociality on social network sites makes information gathering, surveillance, much easier for any interested party. There is research being done on this by people like Fuchs claims that corporate elec-

Mark Andrejevic and Christian Fuchs.

tronic surveillance  [...] aims at controlling the behavior of individuals and groups, i.e. they should be forced to behave or not behave in certain ways [...] (2009:24). So while  corporate electronic surveillance (ibid) is more prevalent due to its relative ease on SNS, what I am aiming for in this paper is rather the other way around; are corporations forced to behave in a specic way when constantly under the public's eye? The concept of  sousveillance covers this idea of reverse, or equal, monitoring. The article  The generalized sousveillance society introduces the concept of the  Catopticon as an evolution of Bentham's Panopticon (Ganascia, 2010:489-507). The basic premise is that anyone may be monitoring anyone else at any time. Given that SNS is all about interacting and keeping track of each other's goings on, sousveillance is possibly one of the governing factors of SNS. In relation to SNS, this idea becomes a sort of technologically determined mutual transparency. In  the transparent society the question is always  who is watching whom (Brin, 1996). Sousveillance, with its potential for general-

23

ized transparency, may therefore bestow the  generalized other with greater inuence (see the section on Symbolic Interactionism and The Generalized Other).

1.6

Recent research

There are many recent research papers concerned with social media in general; however, I have not found many that deal with the exact subject matters within social media that I am interested in. For example, a study from the University of Gothenburg was recently published which deals with things like  Being Social on Facebook (Denti et.al, 2012:9). Their thoughts on being social on Facebook conclude that  Facebook oers a platform that most eectively serves peoples' fundamental social needs, albeit in a slightly dierent way compared to oine life aligning with the views of this thesis paper (Denti,et.al, 2012:9). The main dierence is that they reach these conclu-

sions primarily from a quantitative standpoint whereas I would like to get a more qualitative understanding.

Sociality in General

The technologies of sociality can, and do, have normative functions and processes, but these functions and processes have deeper underlying origins, namely that of human behavior. When entering the stage of social me-

dia, not only are there technological aspects that aect behavior, there are also the more human elements of behavior like the front stage  back stage dichotomy elaborated by Goman (see Meyrowitz, 1985:36). Figuratively

speaking, I have brought up the question of how the stage is actually built, how many seats are in the theater, what backdrop is being used, and how those technological aspects can aect behavior. In the end, it is the behavior of individuals which determines the function of these technologies. Goman's theories are often quoted and used as a theoretical basis for

24

bachelor theses concerning sociality and identity. For example, Louise Ekman's bachelor thesis titled  Skapandet av ett bttre jag is a qualitative study of Facebook's eect on personal branding which uses Goman's theories quite heavily. The title of Goman's work The presentation of self in
everyday life gives a good indication of the types of things he discusses. In

general, he borrows terminology from theater to use as metaphors for social interaction and behavior. He shows how people attempt to control others' perception of their identity and this is exactly the kind of insight I am trying to gain. Although, instead of people controlling others' perceptions of their identities, it is organizations attempting to control their identities. Therefore, Goman's theories are a natural reference point for my thesis too.

2.1

The Demystied Organization

Joshua Meyrowitz's accretion of Goman's behavioral regions in his book No

Sense of Place could also be theoretically useful in answering my research

questions. Moreover, his theory of demystied leaders claims that prior to television (political) leaders were perceived as a mystical presence hierarchically above that of the everyday person (Meyrowitz, 1985:270). He states

that leaders were viewed this way primarily because the information concerning them was also controlled by them. Therefore, before the advent of television, it was easier for these leaders to control information ows concerning their person. With the advent of television they began  losing control of their images and performances (Meyrowitz, 1985:270). He goes on to describe how television provides  sidestages or  middle regions (Meyrowitz, 1985:271) for these leaders, thereby demystifying their previous  frontstage personas (ibid). I am inclined to expand this to a theory of  Demystied

organizations whereby I could investigate whether social media is causing a similar process that changes how organizations deal with mediation.

25

2.2

Symbolic Interactionism & The Generalized Other

Both Goman's and Meyrowitz's theories are inuenced by social psychologist George Herbert Mead. Meyrowitz states that  to use George Herbert Mead's term, electronic media alter one's generalized other (1985:131). The concept of the  generalized other is signicant in the eld of symbolic interactionism. In short, the  generalized other (Mead 1967:154-155) is the composite normative attitude of the entire society and/or dierent social groups to which an individual belongs; in a sense, it is our internalized peer in our internal sense of peer pressure. I would like to claim that through social media, organizations are getting a renewed feel for the  generalized other. In my opinion, organizations have previously tended to construct  generalized others through market and audience research, but with the speedy and improvisational nature of social media this kind of construct is becoming increasingly dynamic. Symbolic interactionism explores the concept of the  generalized other as well as other concepts in terms of how communication between individuals is a chain of responses and re-responses designed to strategically evoke specic reactions in the actual other, your counterpart. Many of these thoughts may elucidate some of my proposed norm of content reciprocity. Meyrowitz brings up Mead and Goman concerning symbolic interactionism again (1985:173) and goes on to claim that  new media may undermine the viability of old behavior forms, but new roles must take shape in human interaction and response (1985:174). I wish to use their theories from this perspective and claim that the  generalized other, as perceived through the social  new media , is forcing new roles to take shape in human interaction in the form of the personied organization. So, Mead, Goman, and Meyrowitz tie in to my own theory by oering possible explanations for the personication of organizations; since new roles must take shape when old behavior forms are torn down by new media (Meyrowitz, 1985:174), the generalized other can be seen as one of the tools through which entities are able to assume

26

these new roles.

2.3

Mead's Game
Mead begins his discussion of the game by showing the

In connection with the generalized other, Mead also speaks of sociality as a sort of game.

need to dierentiate between  the self and the organism (1967:149). Mead basically means that there is an inherent need in humans to distinguish the soul as separate from our bodies. The reason we perceive this need is for

communication or sociality's sake. We have something within us which can leave our bodies and aect and be aected by other people without our organisms physically interacting. That thing, according to Mead, is our soul (1967:150); a sort of generalized self to the generalized other. Mead shows that it is through this concept that children are able to produce imaginary friends to play with. Just like the  soul can become an imaginary friend

it is likely that the  generalized other can also be played with. Somewhere in the game that distinguishes the self from the body and the generalized other there is a parallel to be drawn to the dierentiation and games played between the organization, its identity, and its sense of the generalized other. The concept of games can also be seen as a form of  compatibilism or  soft determinism ( Compatibilism, 2012). In other words, there are rules, or frames for interaction. However, these rules are not laws of nature and therefore allow for interpretation, experimentation, and revision. Jrgen Habermas expands on Mead`s thoughts of inter-subjectivity as part of the identity process in his theory of the discourse ethic (Reese-Schfer, 1995:50). Habermas believes that identities can only form through communication with others. Therefore, self-identities will always be inter-subjective at their cores (Reese-Schfer, 1995:49). To tie this in with Mead's theories, "the generalized other" can be seen as the tool used to reach an inter-subjectively presentable self. Habermas' discourse ethics explain a kind of inter-subjective process that

27

can be seen as revealing the root of morality and ethics; it is through discourse with others (both generalized and specic) that Habermas' discourse ethics exist. Through the subjects' ability to take the role of the other, they are not only dening their selves, but are also able to see from the others' perspective. This ability makes morals and ethics a possibility, most importantly for this thesis paper, as a normative stimulus; it makes it possible to predict how others feel we should behave.

2.4

Cognitive Dissonance

In order to avoid losing social prestige, an SNS user might play a hypothetical or imaginary game between one's soul or generalized self and the generalized other. A game that functions as an internal test of whether a social action is a good idea. If this game plays out well with the generalized other, it likely plays out well with the actual other. When dissonance occurs between the desired or hypothetical/imaginary outcome and the actual outcome of this game, the theory of cognitive dissonance claims that the individual will do everything in its power to rectify this dissonance (Cooper and Carlsmith, 2012:21122114). Cognitive dissonance theory, founded by Leon Festinger, shows that this is how seemingly irrational behavior can occur. A classic example is that of the smoker; most smokers know that smoking is extremely bad for your your health, yet they still smoke. smoking. Most smokers want to live healthy lives while simultaneously

Those two desires are dissonant cognitions leading to mental or

emotional discomfort. To rectify this situation, smokers need to either change these cognitions, or add new cognitions. Smokers can do this in many ways; they could downplay their desire to be healthy, or they could add a new cognition by convincing themselves that they are immune to the ill eects of smoking. Whatever they do, the struggle for consonance is never-ending. Cognitive dissonance theory could subsequently be useful to explain the actions of organizations or their social media professionals. There are many

28

levels in which dissonance may occur. There may be dissonance between the expected outcome and actual outcome and there may be dissonance between the organizations' values and the individual social media professionals' values. Although it might be dicult to show conclusively how or if cognitions get changed due to dissonance in this case, each individual professional's motivation and reasoning may give some clues. Cognitive dissonance theory could at the very least clarify exactly how an organizations behavior on social media is rationalized by the social media professional.

2.5

Responsorium  the reciprocity of response

Another relevant theory originates from Johan Asplund's book Det sociala
livets elementra former, roughly translated to  the elementary forms of so-

cial life . Professor Emeritus Asplund, a social psychologist, has broached a subject similar to my thoughts on reciprocity of content thought that I have brought up. Asplund speaks of social responsivity and asocial responselessness (Om hlsningcermonier, 1987:10-11). Social responsivity in its basic

form means that the human being is hard-wired to respond to social stimuli; it is nearly impossible for us not to. When engaging in the exchange The oppo-

of social response, Asplund speaks of having a responsorium.

site of social responsivity is asocial responselessness which is not exactly as straightforward as one might think. Simply put, asocial responselessness is our non-attentiveness towards anything falling outside the bounds of an ongoing responsorium (ibid). For example, when engaging in a responsorium with a friend on the phone, an individual is generally speaking asocially responseless to his or her immediate vicinity. My thought on this matter is

that if Asplund's ideas really point to a universal socio-psychological trait of social responsivity, then it makes sense if organizations acting in the region of social media are pressured to engage in responsoriums which are only available to entities acting as individuals.

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Part IV

Methods
I would like to gather more data concerning my initial observation, from Verbeek's perspective of technological scripting as a normative process (2006:361380) while keeping Kietzmann et.al's honeycomb model (see gure 2; 2011:241251) in mind. As it stands, I have concluded that the most productive way of arriving at any kind of meaningful result requires a qualitative discourse analysis since my goal is not really to measure anything, but rather understand the type of reasoning and/or normative processes responsible for my initial observation. Accordingly, the material for this analysis is best col-

lected through the method of qualitative interviews as described by Steinar Kvale.

Kvale's seven stages

Steinar Kvale is known for advocating the use of seven stages to conduct and prepare for qualitative research interviews. I have followed all seven of Kvale's stages, and will accounted for the rst four of his stages in this section. The last three stages are to analyze, to verify the results, and to report the ndings respectively. Methodologically speaking, there is not much to be said about these last three stages; I made sure my results in the form of transcripts were as correct as possible, the ndings are in the process of being reported, and my analysis is contained within this paper. So without further ado, I present Kvale's rst four stages.

3.1

Stage 1: Theme

According to Kvale's seven stages of the research interview the rst stage consists of creating a general theme for the interview project (Kvale, 2009:118).

30

As discussed, the general theme of this project concerns the connection between content reciprocity and perceptions of corporate identity on social media or social networking sites. To be more specic, it concerns whether it is ethical or technological structures which determine how the corporate identity is formed on social networking sites or social media.

3.2

Stage 2: Planning

The second stage of the qualitative research interview is planning (Kvale, 2009:118). The interviews were semi-structured. I attempted to formulate my interview questions so as not to lead my informants towards specic answers. However, when my informants did not discuss the topics that I

believed to be central, I may eventually have had to lead them towards these subjects in order to gauge their reactions and opinions. When I felt that a question was misunderstood or unnecessary I may have skipped or altered the question during the course of the interview in order to best obtain the material I needed to answer my research questions. My goal was to keep the interviews as close to natural conversation as possible. For detailed interview scripts and transcriptions, see the appendices.

3.3

Informant Selection
The informants needed

I concluded at the rst stage of my planning that my interview subjects should consist of a minimum of ve informants.

to be individuals that regularly represent corporations or organizations of any kind on social media or social networking sites. Individuals that rely

completely or partially on their agency in social media for their livelihood must be good sources of the type of rationale behind my initial observation. I selected my informants in one of two ways. Firstly, I asked my friends and aquaintances if they knew of people that were social media professionals or would in any way be good candidates for this type of interview. I was

31

put in touch directly with a few people. Additionally, a friend directed me to Medieakademin's Twitterbarometer. This document further provided me with a list of people considered to be the most inuential social media experts active on Twitter in Sweden that I could contact. I sent all of my prospective informants a standardized letter via e-mail outlining briey what I was asking of them. I was clear about the fact that they could be anonymous if they so chose. I decided that I needed to conduct a minimum of 5 interviews in order to obtain a reasonable amount of data. So, after ve informants were booked for interview sessions I ceased looking for more informants. I had one nal caveat concerning my informant selection. Since all my informants were actively working in only Sweden I cannot say anything at all about the rest of the world when it comes to the source of reasoning behind behavior such as witnessed in my initial observation. I feel the need to emphasize that my informants were all oered anonymity both before and after the interviews. I have given Maria and Julia pseudonyms despite not being specically asked to do so by them. Each and every informant has consented to being part of this thesis paper on individual terms of anonymity.

3.3.1

Informant Jon

Dr.

Jon Buscall is a small business owner in his early 40's who describes

his business as a  digital marketing agency specializing in marketing strategy/implementation, content creation, social media strategy/implementation, and web design/development. He is a British national living in Sweden with a previous career in academics and creative writing. He regularly records

podcasts, writes blogs, tweets, and uses Facebook as part of his professional career. I met him in a caf at a shopping center.

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3.3.2

Informant Maria

My second informant, Maria, is in her late twenties and works as the communications director for a North American design company. She has previously dealt with social media in the communications department of several other companies. She is the only person at her present company working out of Stockholm, Sweden. We were completely alone in her attic oce apart from the sounds of xylophone playing young professionals working at the start-uptype internet consultancy renting the oce space on the oor beneath. Her oce was completely empty save for two chairs and a white desk covered in business cards.

3.3.3

Informant Paul

My third informant, Paul Ronge, is a known media personality in Sweden who works with crisis management, public relations, and media training. According to Paul, his job as a media trainer consists of teaching politicians, celebrities, companies and other organizations in the art of handling the media. Since many of his clients come to him in times of crisis his job often entails formulating strategies and training his client for a specic media appearance. This type of media training naturally leads in to the crisis management part of his job. Paul's job in a crisis consists of aiding his clients in mitigating the potential damages incurred to his client's brand and reputation during an ongoing crisis. Crisis management also consists of taking preventive measures by getting media training and making media policies, plans, strategies, and by identifying potential threats. His competence stems from a background in political journalism. I chose him as an informant

largely due to the fact that he has been dubbed the fth most inuential social media expert active on Twitter by Medieakademin's Twitterbarometer (Wladis, and Johansson, 2012). While his billable hours do not deal directly with social media, he works on his own personal branding on social media daily. I sensed that there is a person Paul Ronge, but also a commercial en-

33

terprise Paul Ronge. He may claim to represent only the person Paul Ronge on SNS, but it is unlikely that he does not take the commercial enterprise Paul Ronge into account since it cannot be denied the commercial enterprise benets from his media presence and availability. He chose to meet me in an old fashioned caf an hour before he was to have another meeting in that same caf.

3.3.4

Informant Four

My fourth informant wished to remain anonymous so I will do my best to describe him as best possible. I have changed a few things in who he is to make it less likely that he is identied. He works at a PR rm with social media as his main area of expertise. He has previous experience working

with communications in an insurance company. We conducted our interview in the courtyard of his oce bulding as per his request. He is in the latter half of his twenties.

3.3.5

Informant Julia

My fth informant, Julia, has the title Partner and Creative Director of Public Aairs at a large PR rm. She is in her early 30's and the prole page on her company's website lets the reader know that she is not a morning person, prefers coee over tea and rounds o with a list of awards and placements in media listings of inuential people. We met at her oces where I was treated to a latte by the receptionist while I waited in the lounge for her to become available. I conducted the interview in the large free-to-use caf-pantry of

her company.

3.4

Ethical Planning

The ethical planning of my interviews had two main concerns. The rst concern was in obtaining the informants informed consent to being interviewed.

34

The second issue was concerning condentiality and anonymity of the informants. The rst concern did not pose too much of a problem. I sent an e-mail to my proposed informants that informed them that I was to conduct a qualitative research interview for my bachelors thesis and asked them if they would be interested in helping me with this. The second concern was equally easy to deal with; in the same e-mail, I informed the informants that they could choose to be as anonymous as they liked. Despite not being dicult to deal with, these concerns are important as my informants rely completely or partially on their social media competence to make a living. Condentiality and anonymity can be important because any analysis, transcription, or translation of their utterances that could shed doubt on their competence or person could be detrimental to their livelihood.

3.5

Stage 3: Conducting the interviews

As part of the interview process, I actively refrained

The third stage of Kvale's qualitative interview process is to physically conduct the interviews.

from suggesting interview locations. Instead, I waited for my informants to suggest interview locations so as to avoid locations that would make them uncomfortable in any way. The result was that some of my interviews were conducted in public locations and some in private ones. The locations for

each interview are listed in each informants short description above.

3.6

Stage 4: Transcription

The fourth stage of Kvale's qualitative research interview process is transcription (Kvale, 2009:118). I had initially decided to transcribe each interview because I have found that contained within the process of listening and transcribing lies a deeper process of simultaneous analysis (Kvale, 2009:193). Due to time constraints however, I decided that transcribing each interview completely will be done only if there is time left after I have taken notes and

35

extracted the parts of the interview I nd useful for my analysis. In the end, I transcribed the interviews in their entirety. My informants were all Swedish speakers. were conducted in Swedish. Therefore all my interviews

None of my informants requested otherwise. The

As a consequence, the transcripts are also in the Swedish language.

interview excerpts that are used within the thesis paper have been translated into English. Any excerpt translated into English is provided in their original language in the appendices. I cannot justify the time needed to translate the entire body of the transcriptions as provided in the appendices. All of the transcriptions were done by me personally. The transcriptions should therefore be quite consistent in both procedure and the resulting text. I decided to omit most of the repetitions and nonsensical utterances. Furthermore, I attempted to put misplaced subclauses, modiers and participles in more appropriate places. If at any time I was not completely sure of the intended meanings of an utterance I reproduced it in text as verbatim as possible. My translation process was conducted in the same way. The goal of these processes were to make the interviews as legible as possible without omitting anything important while simultaneously preserving the original feel of the spoken language.

Abstraction vs Experience

One aspect of conducting my interviews that strikes me as belonging to the methodology is that all my informants became quite abstract in their descriptions. After my rst interview with Jon, I thought this was perhaps due to his background in academia, but I had similar results in the interviews that followed. It proved very dicult to get the informants to focus solely on their own personal experiences as opposed to the more distanced, theoretical approach to the subject that resulted. This might be seen as a methodological failure in terms of strictly following Kvale's guidelines. I set out to get at my

36

informant's life-world but was slightly disappointed in my inability to draw out raw emotion or personal experience from them. As an example, for my rst interview I met Jon at a caf in the foyer of a shopping center in Stockholm. Jon had suggested this meeting location himself, which as previously stated, saved me the trouble of thinking of a comfortable venue for each informant. As with several of my informants,

he is used to holding lectures and making sales pitches thereby making my job as an interviewer easier at rst glance; it was not dicult to get him to respond to my questions. Interviewing him was more dicult in that it was more dicult to keep the interview on target concerning the focus of my thesis. I feel that this problem isn't so much a problem as it is proof of my personal interest in the broader subject. There are reasons for why the interviews tended towards abstractions, not the least of which is my own inexperience in conducting research interviews. A reason for my informants' abstract tones could be that all of them use social media more or less professionally on a daily basis. This likely

makes them very curious of the nature of social media because they actively analyze and formulate theoretical and philosophical thoughts about social media as a part of their professions, as a part of forming their professional strategies. So perhaps I was able to get something of my informant's life-

world in the sense that they analyze these concepts theoretically as a part of their jobs which they conduct in their everyday lives. This tendency towards abstraction among the informants could also result from a form of psychological distancing strategy in order to shield them from possible emotional or cognitive dissonances in their work environment. On a whole, while this has made for interviews with more abstract tendencies than I had at rst set out acquire, I feel that there is much to be learned from my informants ruminations.

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Part V

Results and Analysis

In this section I will both analyze and present my results with my stated research questions and goals in mind. Mainly, the interviews I have conducted have resulted in an increased understanding of how organizations are struggling to dene themselves through SNS, as well as an understanding of the diculties involved in being personal and accessible as an organization on SNS. More specically, my attempts at answering my research questions has enhanced my understanding of these changes in relation to how organizations present themselves on social media. Furthermore, through my analysis of the interviews I have also gained an enhanced comprehension of the changes in how organizations interact with individuals on social media. I will present these ndings in the following sections, starting with the conicted relation between personal and professional behaviors that is a result of SNS being technically and culturally structured for sociality. The interviews went generally well, and kept the kind of informal conversational tone that I was hoping would help me get unadultered information. Paul was particularly lively in his expressions which made analyses of his responses very interesting. Consequently, despite overall successful interviews, my selections of excerpts may have some bias towards Paul's responses. All of my informants except Maria worked with consulting, i.e. help-

ing other organizations with their communication which may also have contributed to certain selection biases. As consultants with clients, they all have experience in convincing clients how to work with communication. Exactly how their persuasive skills aected me and my analysis of their interviews is dicul to say. There might be a certain selection bias towards the most convincing arguments in my choice of examples and quotes from my interviews. The most convincing informant is not necessarily the informant with

38

the most interesting information; but, my selection may not be free of that type of bias either. One nal note before I begin; from a technical scripting viewpoint there are many things to consider (Verbeek, 2006; Latour, 1992). I would like

to claim that the changes described in my analysis would not have been possible without the technical aid aorded by SNS. Despite being a very basic claim, it is important to consider the role of technical scripting in every single observation and excerpt in this analysis in order to gain a balanced view.

User or Professional?

In order to show that something is changing in how organizations present themselves on SNS I had to speak with professionals in charge of these tasks. One of the rst problems I encountered was to understand the distinction between an average individual user and a professional. I concluded that the most important distinction must be that the professional user has dierent intentions, and a more clearly formulated strategy most often with monetary gain at its core. Social network professionals represent organizations on social media, but the strategies they use to do so are often taken from their own experiences as individual users, from vernacular use. So, while my informants were not interviewed as being representative of individual social media users, they are individual users nonetheless. Informant Julia put it like this:  You can't be an [social media] advisor if you're not a user . Therefore, as both social media professionals and personal users, my informants experience social media as converged with the everyday lives of people (Jenkins, 2004; 2008). Their

experiences as individual users likely help them dene a  generalized other (Mead, 1967) for their professional use. They translate those experiences

into a game-plan, a strategy. A strategy that attempts to get organizations

39

to exist within people's everyday life-world by engaging their attention. In my initial post-interview analysis, I questioned the function of this strategy, for example described by Jon as trying to  be a part of using the same methods of communications that people use in real life (Appendix 2). I wondered if organizations really need to exist in people's everyday life-world in order to function? With a few presuppositions and simple reasoning a satisfactory answer was obtained. Firstly, we must agree on the presupposition that organizations need a purpose in order to exist. Secondly, it is not a

stretch to claim that the most common goal of an organization is to accrue wealth. Thirdly, if we agree that wealth is ultimately dispersed by individuals, and nally that all individuals exist within their everyday life-worlds, we can conclude that this is where organizations need to exist in order to achieve their goal. So, the strategy does seem to have merit. From the perspective of the communications professional, then, it seems that the changes occurring are a result of attempting to interact with individuals on their own terms, on their playing eld so to say (Mead, 1967). According to my informant Julia:

In a sense the users have learned that they have access to corporations now. They want to get to know people on social media, they want to get to know corporations too, and that's where the connection lies: if you hide something from someone, it's not considered okay; if you oversell yourself, it's not okay; if you ask a question and then just leave, that's not okay either. So, the rules of the game are the same [for both organization and individual].

The rules of the game that Julia speaks of strikes a chord with Mead's ideas. Julia also seems to see sociality on SNS as a sort of game. Important to

note, however, is that in being converged with people's lives this  game we are talking of is not pretend, it is real. In being part of reality there comes responsibility, especially if you are not playing the game with the same goals in mind. The personal user of SNS is playing to win social status or at the very least in order not to lose it, while the professional user is playing to

40

make economic gains. As Henry Jenkins puts it:

Media companies are learning how to accelerate the ow of media content across delivery channels to expand revenue [...] Consumers are learning how to use these dierent media technologies to bring the ow of media more fully under their control and to interact with other users. They are ghting for the right to participate more fully in their culture, to control the ow of media in their lives and to talk back to mass market content. Sometimes, these two forces reinforce each other, creating closer, more rewarding, relations between media producers and consumers. Sometimes, these two forces are at war [...] (Jenkins, 2004:37)

The dierence between the two dierent kinds of users' intentions is not really a problem in and of itself. The dierence lies in the visibility of these intentions. When I asked Paul about Carlsberg's question, he responded:

Paul: [. . . ]

Maybe there's a boom going on up in re [Swedish ski

resort]. So, they want to know which of the people that have  liked them do snowboarding, and which ones ski. But I don't think that's what they were doing, I think they want to be your buddy. It's kind of like becoming buddies with the Michelin man. It's insulting.
Me: Yes, thats where I began, but I'm trying to gure out where this

behavior comes from.

Paul: That kind of behavior is bullshit to me. I'm half person and half

professional when I say that.

I mean, that is basically working with

ads, and ads emanate from our lowest instincts. They originate from our most egotistical and tasteless instincts. That's my basic attitude. I hate ads and that's what this sounds like. The PR professional doesn't think that way. (appendix 4) First of all, Paul seems to have very strong opinions concerning this kind of behavior, but he readily admits being able to be half a person and half

41

a professional which connects back to what Julia rst said about having to be a user to be an advisor. As I understand it, representing organizations in social media successfully presupposes this ability to be half a person or user and half a professional. Clarifying exactly how this works is dicult because there could be dissonance between these two halves making it less apparent which half 's morality, ethics, and norms are being implemented. Secondly, Paul questions the authenticity or honesty of this kind of behavior: They shouldn't have some friggin fan-site that you should  like . To hell with  likes, instead they should tell me what issues to think about if I buy their product, what problems arise in their organization, what new products came out, or what they've succeded in doing. You should feel, as an owner of their products, that you get additional value [from their SNS presence and accessibility]. (Appendix 4) As I understand this, Paul is saying that we can take corporations intentions for granted, they want to earn money, but that does not mean that they have to be disingenuous about how they present themselves on SNS. There are opportunities for them to be transparent about their intentions and create SNS content that has actual value for those they interact with. Informant four claries:

Me: Do you feel that the organizations you represent have changed

the way they present themselves since social media have become so popular?
Inf.4: I think they've become much more self conscious, and they've re-

alized that they can't get away with anything anymore. Transparency increases with social media, you become accountable for what your company is doing, you have to explain your policies. [. . . ] It's important that they [company executives] understand how fast the communication is, what you can say, and what works in which channel. [. . . ]

42

(Appendix 5) So, this idea of transparency and constant availability necessitates that the professional user has an understanding of the private users perspective .

Change in communicated identity

The primary goal of this thesis paper was to show that something has changed how organizations present themselves as entities specically within, and perhaps because of, social media. As shown both through my own observations and the observations of my informants, it is possible to discern a change in how organizations present themselves in accordance with my stated goal. This change is probably best understood in terms of how their communications strategies are moving towards a more social and allegedly personal way of communicating. This way of communicating is not new, it is simply more similar to interpersonal communication. I would like to propose that it is not predominately human behavior that has changed, but rather the behavior of non-human actors, specically on social network sites. The change is more of a retrogression from the broadcast model back towards a more informal interpersonal style of communication. This style of communication, however, is new for the contemporary organization. For example, Paul states that:

I for one feel very condent that people today behave pretty much the same way they did in the 60's and 70's. Human behavior isn't especially dierent, I'd like to say that it's the consequences that have gotten much worse. (Appendix 4)

So, at least in Paul's experience, the general behavior is the same, but something has changed in recent years. Part of this change must be attributed to the technical scripting through which inherent moralities arise (Latour,

43

1992) (Verbeek, 2006), traditional convergence models, Jenkins cultural convergence model, and the increased prevalence of sousveillance. Perhaps because of this increased focus on personalities, the organization is coerced into obtaining a more distinct personality. These personied organizations proceed to play the game of sociality (Mead, 1967). Consequently, these organizations enter a the behavioral region of sociality. This can be

described as joining the sidestage (Meyrowitz, 1985) regions, the occupants of these regions do not hold lectures, but rather engage in responsoriums on more equal terms (Asplund, 1987). Informant four exemplied this:

There's a lot of inviting in [customers] to conversations, and asking them to give feedback. You let customer ambassadors betatest products, or vote which of their three new products to keep in production. You let the consumer play a larger role. You invite to dialogue, instead of just holding a monologue. It can be fake, and it can be honest [. . . ]

(Appendix 5)

By no longer presenting as an abstract mythical entity of many individuals simply transmitting information under the same name and towards the same goal, the organization is demystied (Meyrowitz, 1985). When engaged in conversation on equal terms, the organization is simply a social individual and no longer an abstract mystical entity. Through socialization, the personied and subsequently demystied organizations become part of a specic universe of discourse which inter-subjectively further develops and solidies the identities of their personalities (Habermas in Reese-Schfer, 1995). Because the technology of SNS has the potential of making all its users more visible, this potential for great visibility or public exposure converges with the users life-world. This convergence has implications as to the consequences of acting in the behavioral region of social network sites.

44

6.1

The Consequence of Change

The consequences Paul speaks of are consequences tied to the person and their personality. Paul claims that since the advent of reality television media has evolved into  becoming more focused on personalities in a way that wasn't previously done (appendix 4). Paul means that even before the advent of SNS, the media was becoming more person-centric. Now that SNS and the internet in general have made it increasingly easy for users to monitor everything we say and do, the consequences of  bad behavior have much farther reaching consequences. These consequences are then consequences of public opinion because with SNS every user, even the individual, is subject to public opinion. So, how can these consequences be evaluated when the distinction between the personalities of the individual user and the organization are becoming increasingly blurred? By having a more palpable personality and identity, the consequences of medial agency for the personied organization also become personied. In being more personal, the consequences appear increasingly harsh. A personal consequence will always appear more severe than an impersonal consequence. Is this not why we use the expression  don't take it personally ? Finally, a personality will almost always be judged on a social and personal level rather than on the quality of their products or services. In what I take as being typical of a crisis manager, Paul Ronge underscores the kind of consequences caused by personication by explaining what could go wrong:

[...]this is what happens when you use the argument that  we have failed in our procedures. That is the worst argument possible when you've done something wrong because it says nothing about what was wrong, how you identied it, and what you're going to do about it. responsibility. (Appendix 4) Furthermore you depersonalize your own

45

What stands out in that statement is that Paul inadvertently exposes an implicit norm. I interpret this norm as stating that it is wrong to depersonalize responsibility. In obfuscating what happened you risk provoking the

sousveillance rich SNS community. Responsibility is personal, if you do not personalize your responsibilities the consequences are dire. When the other is always watching, it will inevitably aect your behavior. When your intentions and the intentions of the other do not align, it could be seen as a form of dissonance. There are many ways to deal with this

dissonance: you could simply align your behavior to not seem dissonant with the other, you could be transparent about your intentions gaining you credit for sincerity, or you could attempt to realign your intentions with those of the other. Either way, the other will know, they are watching, they are listening, and they expect you to do the same.

6.2

The responsibility to exhibit response ability

Accepting that responsibility must be personalized as a norm, the question arises: what kind of responsibilities are there on SNS? The concept of accessibility may clarify these perceived responsibilities. This concept was brought up in one form or another by each and every one of my informants. For

the sake of this paper, accessibility is the ability and willingness to honestly respond to social stimulus, which is a similar concept to the concept of transparency. I propose that the implicit responsibility of SNS users is to exhibit and aunt their response abilities, i.e. accessibility. Paul, ever concerned with the consequence and risk of crises has his own opinions on accessibility:

You have to be more careful with your brand. the public today. (Appendix 4)

You know that

everything will come out, much more is considered of interest to

46

The extended consequence of being accessible is that everything about you becomes accessible:  everything will come out (Paul, Appendix 4). On the other hand Jon seemed to speak of accessibility as something that can generate goodwill. Paul's more dystopian attitude towards accessibility focused more on the fact that having any kind of social media presence makes it near impossible to hide anything. Paul seemed to mean that being accessible makes you vulnerable. Their dierent viewpoints are not too strange considering Paul works with crisis management and media training while Jon is more occupied with the marketing side of things.. Additionally, the generalized other (Mead, 1967) may take a stronger role in order to minimize the risk of these seemingly harsher personal consequences. If the generalized other indeed does take a stronger role, it is likely that norms and values of this generalized other are also transferred to the self of the personied organization. Supporting this idea of responsibility Jon claims that:

Social media has made everyone present themselves as much more accessible. If you look at a modern web-page you'll see that they often present people. Often, they will be slightly more informal, they might show pictures of [these] people with their dogs and so forth. (Appendix 2)

I interpret this as showing that there is normative pressure on social media to present yourself both as being accessible and that you take your responsibilities personally by granting access to your private person. Maria's statement that  in the company I work at now you have to use social media as a presentation, to present yourself, so that you are always accessible further supports my interpretation (Appendix 3). As I see it, this shows that in being accessible as a public persona on SNS, the behavioral norms of sociality are indeed transferred to the personied organization. Paul explained how he embodies these norms in the following excerpt:

47

Paul: In my system, if you are en expert, or are considered to be one,

you should be extremely accessible concerning those topics. this.

I never

need to double check or approve any quotes. I feel that I should know If I miss something or make a mistake I will learn something that I can pass on to my customers. I take everything on the volley, everything.
Me: Yes... Paul: But I never take my own initiatives.

I have never taken the

initiative to be part of anything or do anything [in the media]. They can do that themselves. (Appendix 4) Paul really seems to take all the norms described seriously. He claims

to be extremely accessible concerning his topics of expertise by practicing response ability and he takes personal responsibility for what he says. Furthermore, he seems to say that he never initiates a public responsorium (Asplund, 1987), he simply responds to requests. I would like to completely trust Paul's claims, but it seems likely to be more of a goal than a fact. Is every single tweet that he posts simply a response to some request or similar stimulus? Either way, Paul seems to take these norms seriously. Paul is an individual and not an organization. On the other hand, Paul represents himself on social media not necessarily as a person, but as the persona of the commercial enterprise which is the namesake of Paul the person. Therefore, I feel that Paul is a prime candidate for information of the kind relevant to this paper.

Content reciprocity as a measure of accessibility

So, it seems that the concept of accessibility answers parts of my research questions. The goal of the SNS professional is to engage the users' attention for their own purposes. I will attempt to show that to engage users they

48

are forced to at least pretend to reciprocate the users' attention (Crawford, 2009), and not only to avoid crisis; sousveillance can monitor the positive as well as the negative. To exemplify:

Me: Do you feel that the organizations you represent are changing the way

they present themselves since the popularization of social media?

Julia: Yes, I do. I think that some of them do it very well, but some are

not as skilled. Those who do it well have understood that they need a more informal tone and approach in social media. They can really gain a lot by understanding this. Those who do it less well are the ones who continue like nothing has happened, or pretend to understand and do have an informal tone, but they're not doing it for real, it doesn't work.
Me: What is doing it for real? Julia: Doing it for real means not hiding anything, you can't hide anything.

Also, you can't ignore anything either [...]If someone [...] sends out an inside video from your factory or the like, it's not a good idea to deny it. All you can do is answer in the same forum where it was released.
Me: Can you see a connection between that kind of change, to be more
All you can or in do is

answer,

other

informal that is, and the concept brand personality?

Julia: What do you mean? Me: Well, the kind of guiding value-words [or principles] of a company. Julia: So, you mean that they are being forced to change the overall value-

words reciprocate.

words of their companies?

Me: Yes... Julia: Yes..

I do too! I think what's happened is that previously they've

had one social media policy, one communications policy, and guidelines. I think those who are doing this the best way, who have come the farthest, are those who have integreted this. Social media is not one [communications] channel anymore, it's simply a part of all communication. It aects brand identity too, how to communicate in all channels. So I do think that there is pressure there.
Integration seen as can be

convergence,

see 1.4.

49

(Appendix 6) This shows that the organizations are normatively coerced to engage in responsoriums with the users (Asplund, 1987). They need to themselves become engaged and present themselves as accessible. There is always someone on SNS watching what they do, monitoring their behavior, someone will notice if you are faking it. So, there is pressure to give these sousveillant users something that is of value to them, at the very least by reciprocating their attention (Crawford, 2009). In my view, this is often a problem for the organization because most contemporary organizations are structured for economic reciprocity which requires more careful deliberation rather than social reciprocity which is more improvisational in nature. Informant four exemplied this:

Me: What do you think is the bigged dierence [of SNS] to traditional

media?
Inf.4: I think that speed is the biggest dierence. When it comes to

social media, those of us who work with crisis management experience that in traditional media we get much much more time to think [about our response]. You know when a specic newspaper is printed for the next day, that's when the consequences come. In social media on the other hand, it's enough that someone tweets something you said and in two seconds it'll spread across the globe. So, from a crisis management viewpoint you don't have as much time to think before something develops into a crisis, you have to deal with it much faster. This concept of accessibility seems to aect both the way organizations behave and the change in how they present themselves on SNS. Being accessible has two sides. On the one hand it requires you to present yourself as accessible. On the other hand it simultaneously requires you to follow through on actually being accessible; the ability and willingness to respond or reciprocate social stimulus. Social reciprocity is what is expected of a person. Therefore, organizations that try to become engaged, accessible and reciprocal on SNS seem to become more person-like. This concept of accessibility is what

50

Kietzmann et.al. called presence in their honeycomb model (2011:243). On SNS, social stimulus comes in the form of content. So accessibility is at once a way to present your commitment as a personal responsibility to reciprocate content, and a way to present and dene your identity. Julia also mentioned the topic of accessibility several times. In our interview she dove into the concept almost immediately by stating:  You have to be prepared for the fact that if you use the [social] medium, you enter into a dialogue contract with the receiver (Appendix 6) meaning that you ethically bind yourself to respond, as in Asplund's responsorium. This statement lines up very closely with my proposed norm of content reciprocity. As previously quoted she also says that  the users have learned that they have access to corporations now (appendix 6). Consequently, she too feels that SNS users are expected to maintain a level of accessibility. Engagement is a term often brought up by SNS professionals. Jon speaks of engagement as a form of content reciprocity: I'm unhappy with my web host, I think they're inadequate. So, a few weeks ago I went out [on social media] and said that I'm not happy with Media Temple. me. So Media Temple started following Then I got an auto-response [that said]:  Call us and we

can help you out. It seemed at rst like they were active and engaged, but when I answered [their post] I got no reply. They have a bot that gives an automated response when anyone mentions Media Temple. It's not a real person, so it's not real engagement. (Appendix 2) As I see it, this statement shows that Jon felt that Media Temple was not accessible, they weren't engaged. In order to engage, an authentic person To engage is to  occupy or

needs to be present, available, and accessible.

attract (someone's interest or attention) or to  involve someone in (a conversation or discussion) ( engage, 2012). Yet, once you engage, you have become engaged, and to be engaged is to  pledge or enter into a contract to do something ( engage, 2012), and a contract is nothing more than a reciprocal agreement. By simply pretending to be engaged without entering

51

into a reciprocal agreement the user is simply insulted.

So, by not being

accessible as a person, an SNS agent cannot properly engage or satisfactorily reciprocate content. This excerpt from my interview with Maria contains information relevant to the authenticity of reciprocity:

When the companies I've worked with started out in social media there was a kind of jargon to the eect that you have to be personal. It was a lot about writing to your fans, and all communication should be on a rst name basis. But when everything grew so fast, the companies quickly realized that there was no way a single person could do all of it [SNS communications]. That undermined the credibility that there really was one person writing all the content. It could be one person writing, I'm not saying it can't be, but I think most people understand that there is a communications planner, coordinator, or someone who has comprehensive responsibility for many dierent communication channels. When that is the case you don't have to tell people all the time, I think people undserstand that this is how it works most of the time. (Appendix 3)

I think this excerpt shows that there is an incongruity between what the private users know and expect and what the professional users know and expect. In having knowledge about the inner workings of communication

professions, the professional may not fathom that the private user does not, or is not constantly aware of this. This is especially true when interacting in the back or side stage behavioral elds of SNS (Meyrowitz, 1985). The reciprocity seems to stem from an attitude of 'if you show me yours, i'll show you mine. Informant four explained:

You have to create engagement as a person, just answering a journalist's questions or conveying your company is not interesting if you're not interesting as a person. I've noticed that nowadays

52

people are more interested in what values the founders [of companies] have than their stockmarket value. What do they do in their spare time? [. . . ] (Appendix 4) So people want to see people rather than organizations in order to become engaged, to enter into a reciprocal dialogue, or to simply listen.

To be More Person-Like

The idea that organizations have or should have personalities was not foreign or new to my informants. It is more dicult to gain an understanding of how, and if, this concept has changed with the popularization of social media. The most likely change is the fact that SNS professionals are expected to embody this personality in ways that have never really been done before. In this

section I will analyze some aspects of the change towards the personication of organizations. As previously stated, Hochschild speaks of the dissonance that occurs between the identity of the employee, and the expectation that they embody the identity of their employer. This embodiment of a personality other than one's own can cause cognitive and emotional dissonance (Hochschild, 2003) which can in turn lead to diculties in portraying the organisations' personalities authentically and transparently (Ind, 2006). This kind of dissonance may be elucidated by an excerpt from my interview with Maria:

Me: Does your company have a personality? Maria: Yes, absolutely! Very much so. Me: Have you talked about it and decided what it is? Maria: It has been extensively discussed and dened.

It consists of

two dierent elements. The rst is a brand identity, while the second is a real person who exists, the guy who owns the company.

53

(appendix 3) So, the fact that a company or a brand can be considered to have a personality is established and even extensively discussed in her organization. However, Maria's organization has a duality in their identity; on one hand they have a brand personality, while on the other there is a real person acting as a gurehead for her organization. Whether or not there is anything in that duality of personalities that says something about how social media is aecting any kind of change in how organizations present themselves is not clear. More clear, however, is that there must be dissonance between her organizations personality and the personality of their gurehead, or else this division that Maria speaks of would not be necessary. In this specic case the dissonance is solved by creating two separate online personae. However, in other cases it may be more of a matter of plastering on a smile and getting on with personifying the organization that pays your salary (Hochschild, 2003). The following excerpt from my interview with Jon may further explain the change that social media is having on how organizations present themselves on social media.

Me: What is your view on the connection between the type of changes

that are needed and the concept brand personality? You don't become friends with a logotype, but they still have some sort of personality?
Jon: Yes they do, but in social media we are increasingly getting used

to getting in touch with people who answer in a natural informal way, like friends. I believe the best method is when companies like Coca-Cola or Toyota have people, for example: Ville who works for Coca-Cola, who responds on behalf of the company. Personally, I talk, network, or engage, only with specic people. In that sense there Is a connection to brand personality. I think it's dicult to separate the company from the people who work there. It's always the people you seek out.

(Appendix 2)

54

One possible interpretation of this excerpt is that there is something implicit both in the way social media is structured technically and in the way that sociality is structured culturally which, as a user of SNS, dictates the need for a personality. The organization, brand or company may strive for their own identity, but they cannot truly engage in a responsorium (Asplund, 1987) without a personality, or the perception of inhabiting a physical entity or body.

Popularization or Convergence?

Upon reexamination, the expression  popularization of social media as used in the beginning of the section above, or the expression  the popularity of social media as in the rst paragraph of this thesis paper, are almost too vague. By analyzing the perspectives of my informants, I have reached the conclusion that social media is not merely  popularized, but is rather converging into the everyday life-world of an undened, but not rare, group of people. Social media now  serves peoples' fundamental social needs (Denti et.al, 2012:9) giving reason to believe that there is, indeed, convergence going on. So, from my experiences with these communication professionals, the changes I am trying to determine and analyze are not so much a result of a  popularization as it is a result of the convergence of social media and the sphere of everyday social behavior for the classes of people with consistent internet connectivity. In being a qualitative observation, it is impossible to positively dene or enumerate this class of people. In a sense the changes are, if not the result of a convergence culture (Jenkins, 2008), then a result of the convergence of culture and sociality with electronic media. Jon, my rst informant exemplied this concept of convergence when he said :

Everything is integrated [now], when everything is integrated it aects almost everything, we live in a social world now, people

55

talk and communicate, there are incredible amounts of channels. Corporations try to understand this in order to be a part of using the same methods of communications that people use in real life. (Appendix 2)

The concept of living in a socially integrated digital world aligns nicely with Jenkins's theory of the convergence culture. However, my interpretation of this excerpt puts focus on the convergence of sociality rather than the broader concept of culture. Taking this view, social convergence can be claimed to be so strong that even organizations are integrating into the social or side stage regions of our everyday lives (Meyrowitz, 1985). Maria claries a little about how this actually happens:

[. . . ] I had to gure out how the consumer experienced the brand and then handle the problem. I can do that by explaingin in a video, by being better at answering certain questions in our forums while simultaneously lowering the bar to help people nd a specic page where they can read more. There could be many solutions to the problem, but the main problem will remain the same [. . . ] the problem doesn't change simply because you choose social media. (Appendix 3)

The way I understand this is that in order to engage the consumer, to help them solve a problem, the organization will go to where the users are and talk to them there on their terms. It is not a new thing for organizations to convey information in all manner of places. That which makes it a candidate for convergent behavior is that they are now going to these places and being social with the people in their own behavioral region on their own behavioral terms. They are coming into people's living rooms and talking with them, and not to them.

56

Part VI

Conclusion
In this section I will summarize and conclude my analysis. The primary goal of this thesis paper was to show that something is changing in how organizations present themselves on social media. I have shown that according to my informants something has changed in how organizations present themselves on, or because of, social network sites. I believe that I have also been able to show that this change has its roots in that the technical and cultural structure of oSNS is constructed for sociality. Therefore, we can conclude that the organization has retrogressed from the broadcast model of communication to a more informal interpersonal style of communication. Throughout the thesis paper I have used phrases like  popularization of social media and  the popularity of social media, and in retrospect they are a little too vague. Informant Jon explained how he experienced everything as being integrated, as integrated into a social world that corporations try to understand and be a part of. So, social network sites are not merely

 popularized, they are converging into the everyday life-world of the masses of people who use them to mediate their social lives (Jenkins, 2008). Initially, in order to understand how organizations are presented on social media, it seemed important to clarify the dierence between a personal SNS user and a professional SNS user. It quickly became apparent that the main dierence between a personal user and a professional user of SNS lies in their intent of use. The professional user is in it for monetary gain, while the

personal user is likely in it to gain or maintain social prestige or status. As a consequence, their strategies of use also dier. However, since SNS and

Facebook in particular are social by nature, and sociality is the domain of the personal user, the professional user must adapt to this sociality. The

best way to adapt to this sociality is for the professional user to draw on

57

their own experiences as personal users. In short, they try  to be a part of using the same methods of communications that people use in real life (Jon, Appendix 2). Therefore, the dierence in behavior between personal and

professional user, between person and organization, has become increasingly dicult to discern. Despite the apparent similarities in behavior between person and organization on SNS, their intents remain dierent. The issue with this dierence lies in transparency (Ind, 2006), or the visibility of this dierence. Since their behaviors are similar, it becomes easy to mask these intents, purposefully or not. However, there are ways for the organization to be transparent about its intents and still create SNS content that has value for the users it interacts with. The increased visibility of SNS users made possible by the technology of SNS leads to a prevalence of sousveillance, everyone monitors everyone (Ganascia, 2010). When everyone is subject to that kind of public exposure at all times, being seen as insincere or devious has far reaching consequences. The social consequences of breaking norms become much more severe when the entire community is watching, for personal and professional users alike. Informant Paul revealed the implicit norm that responsibilities are not to be depersonalized. In a sousveillance rich society, deecting responsibility for your actions has far reaching public consequences. This further strengthens organizations' motivations to become personied. All of my informants brought up the concept of accessibility, which further claries what kinds of responsibilities are expected on SNS. Accessibility is the ability and willingness to honestly respond to social stimulus, a similar concept to that of transparency. I interpret my informants' responses

as showing that there is normative pressure on SNS to present yourself as accessible, and in consequence, by granting access to your person, as taking your responsibilities personally. Being accessible means showing social reciprocity, and social reciprocity

58

is what is expected of a person. Therefore, organizations that try to become engaged, accessible and reciprocal on SNS seem to become more person-like. On SNS, social stimulus comes in the form of content. So, accessibility is

at once a way to present your commitment as a personal responsibility to reciprocate content, and a way to present and dene your identity. The SNS professional's goal is often to engage the personal users' attention for their own purposes. In order to engage personal users, the organization or professional user is forced to at least pretend to reciprocate the users' attention;  you have to be prepared for the fact that if you use the [social] medium, you enter into a dialogue contract with the receiver (Julia, Appendix 6). This is often a problem for organizations because they are

structured for economic reciprocity rather than social reciprocity. Economic reciprocity requires more careful deliberation unlike the social reciprocity of reciprocating the users' attention, which is faster paced and more improvisational in nature. By joining the personal users in the informal side stage behavioral region (Meyrowitz, 1985) the organization can enter into responsoriums on equal terms with personal users (Asplund, 1987). When the organization

is on equal terms with the personal user they no longer present as an abstract mythical entity, they simply present as a social individual. Therefore the organization can be seen to be demystied (Meyrowitz, 1985). By joining in a specic universe of discourse within their side stage sociality they inter-subjectively further develop and solidify their personalities or identities (Habermas in Reese-Schfer, 1995). The idea that organizations have or should have personalities is not new. What has changed about this idea with the popularization of social media is the fact that SNS professionals are expected to embody this personality in ways that have never really been done before. This embodiment of a personality other than one's own can cause cognitive and emotional dissonance (Hochschild, 2003), which in turn can lead to diculties in portraying the

59

organisations' personalities authentically and transparently (Ind, 2006). So, what was the vessel of this change: private individuals, social media professionals, the organizations with their faux-personas, or the technology itself ? The answer to that question has to be 'all of the above.' All of these possible factors both inuence and are inuenced by the changes in sociality and communicated identity. The still unanswered, yet glaringly obvious question is: now that I have given this so much thought, what do I think Carlsberg should have done instead of asking me whether I prefer skiing or snowboarding? Keeping in mind that I am not certain of the post they made verbatim, the problem is that the intention of their question was unclear; they were not transparent in their status update. Why did they want to know? It must be taken as fact that they did not post their question simply for their own entertainment. The problem of not knowing their intentions is twofold: rstly, it made the Facebook user (me) suspicious and uncomfortable, and secondly, without knowing their reasoning exactly I cannot oer a denite answer to what they should have done dierently. Consequently, I will simply have to manufacture a hypothetical situation in order to propose an alternative status post or behavior style. Imagine

that Carlsberg is sponsoring a bar in a ski resort, and they would like to organize a winter sports competition with this bar as a central hub. In such a hypothetical situation they might want to hear whether or not their Facebook contacts prefer skiing or snowboarding, so they can adapt their event planning accordingly. If that were the case, they could simply say something like we are sponsoring a sports competition at so-and-so bar in such-andsuch ski resort and we would like to know if you guys would prefer skiing or snowboarding as the main event. That would add value and reciprocate the attention of winter sports interested Facebook contacts of Carlsberg. At the very least, being forthright and sincere would have relieved me and possibly other personal users of the discomfort of not knowing what Carlsberg

60

really wanted out of the exchange. In any reciprocal situation, be it social or economic, it is important to be clear on the terms of the exchange.

10

Future Research Directions

During the course of writing this thesis paper a couple of future research directions have come to mind. After I had conducted my interviews I had the insight that the people I had interviewed were basically all strategists rather than operational. Rarely would any of them be the one to actually type their client's or employer's Facebook status. This gave me the idea of interviewing the operational SNS agents; to nd the blue-collar SNS workers so to speak. A second possible direction to take future research could be to analyze the content of organizations' status posts and their accompanying comments and discussions.

61

Part VII

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Leif, Isak Barpopuolos, Ida Nilsson, Linda Holmberg, Magdalena Thulin, Malin Wendeblad, Lisa Andn, and Emelie Davidsson, eds.  Sweden's largest Facebook study. Gteborgs Universitet. Web. 13 Mar 2012.

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Louise. "Skapandet av ett bttre jag  en kvalitativ studie av det sociala mediet facebooks inverkan p det personliga varumrket." BA Thesis. University of Stockholm, Stockholm, 2011. Print.

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2010. Oxford University Press. 11 August 2012 <http://oxforddictionaries.com/denition/ Fuchs, C. Social networking sites and the surveillance society. Salzburg/Vienna: Forschungsgruppe  Unied Theory of Information, 2009. Print. Ganascia, Jean-Gabriel. "The generalized sousveillance society." Social Science Information. 49.3 (2010): 489-507. Web. 14 Aug. 2012. Goman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin Books, 1959/1990. Print. Hochschild, A. The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. 2. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. Print. Ind, Nicholas, ed. Beyond Branding: How the New Values of Transparency and Integrity Are Changing the World of Brands. IllusBranding: How the New Values of Transparency and Integrity Are Changing the World of Brands&pg=PA3 Jenkins, Henry. "The cultural logic of media convergence." International journal of CULTURAL studies. 7.1 (2004): 33-43. Web. 23 Jul. 2012. Jenkins, Henry. Konvergenskulturen. Gothenburg: Daidalos, 2008. Print.

trated Reprint. Kogan Page Publishers, 2006. Print. <http://books.google.se/books?id=M

Kietzmann, Jan H., Kristopher Hermkens, Ian P. McCarthy, and Bruno S. Silvestre. "Social Media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media." Buziness Horizons. (2011): 241-251. Print. Kvale, Steinar. Den kvalitativa forskningsintervjun. Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2009. Print. 54.

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Latour,

Bruno.

"Where Are the Missing Masses? Ed.

The Sociology of a

Few Mundane Artifacts." Shaping Technology/building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change. Weibe Bijker and Ed. John Law. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992. 225-258. Print. Mead, George H. Mind, Self, And Society, From The Standpoint Of A Social Behaviorist. 1. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press, 1967. Print. Meyrowitz, Joshua. No sense of place: The impact of electronic media on social behaviour. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Print. Reese-Schfer, Walter. Habermas, En introduktion. Gothenburg: Daidalos, 1995. Print. Silverstone, R. Media and morality : on the rise of the mediapolis. bridge, UK ; Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2007. Print.  social. Cam-

Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. <http://dictionary.reference.co Web. 13 Feb. 2012.

Verbeek,

Peter-Paul.  Materializing Morality: Design Ethics and Technological Mediation. Science, Technology, & Human Values. 31.3 (2006): 361-280. <www.jstor.org/stable/29733944>. Web. 4 May. 2012.

Wladis,

Adam, and Sarah Johansson, eds. barometer." Mediakademin.

"Medieakademins TwitterWeb. 9 Aug

Aitellu, 20120308.

2012. <http://medieakademin.welcom.se/pdf/120308_MedieAkedemins_Twitter

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Part VIII

Appendices
A Appendix 1: Interview script extracted from research questions.
Research Questions:

1. Is there a behavioral ethic particular to social media?

(a) An ethic that in dierence to other contexts, can be described as demanding reciprocity of content? 4. (b) Which types of agents are the vessels of my proposed ethic or norm, private individuals, social media professionals, the organizations with their faux-personas, or the technology itself ?

2. Are organizations changing how they present themselves as entities within, and perhaps because of, social media?

(a) particularly to seem more person-like? (b) How can we understand this change as a process, does it originate within the technologies, the individuals, or within the organization?

I have tried to correlate the numbers and letters in my interview script to the numbers and letters of my research questions as listed above (in the opposite order of how they are presented in Part II). the script. somewhat. Intervjumanus: This is mostly for my own convenience to make sure I have covered my research questions adequately in It is likely that it is desirable to change the order of the questions

65

1. Upplever du ett behov fr din organisation / de organisationer du representerar att anpassa sin kommunikation till sociala medier?

(a) Vad gr du fr att anpassa kommunikationen p s stt?

i. Hur upplever du de interaktiva aspekterna av sociala medier i ditt arbete? 2. ii. Hur pverkar detta sttet du arbetar p?

A. Hur behandlar du kommentarer p dina inlgg i sociala medier, varfr gr du s?

(b) r det viktigt att ha koll p utomstende inlgg i sociala medier i ditt arbete?

i. Vad beror det p?

A. Skiljer sig din personliga sikt frn din proessionella sikt kring hur viktigt det r vad andra gr p sociala medier, varfr skiljer de sig /alt. inte?

2. Upplever du att de organisationer du representerar ndrat sttet de framstller sig sjlva p sedan populriseringen av sociala medier?

(a) p vilket stt? d?

/alt. vilket stt r det som de framstller sig p

i. Finns det er stt det har ndrat sig p? ii. Kan du se ngra kopplingar mellan dessa frndringar och konceptet  brand personality ? [lite fr ledande..?] 2.

66

(b) Hur pverkar det hr hur du arbetar?

i. Vad fr dig att gra s?

A. Bertta mer, varfr?

ii. Pverkar sjlva tekniken som sociala medier bygger p frndringarna du beskriver?

A. Hur?

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Appendix 2: Interview Jon

Jag:

Det handlar ju om sociala medier, det fattar du.

Jag vet inte

hur mycket jag ska bertta innan. Jag frgar bara frgorna. Jon: Jag: Frga. Ja, Upplever du ett behov fr din organisation och andra organisationer som du jobbar med att anpassa sin kommunikation till sociala medier? Jon: Ja, absolut, det r s ndvndigt nu, det beror p mlgruppen, vad man vill gra, hur lngt man vill n och hur man vill kommunicera. publiken. Om det ska vara intern kommunikation eller med Det r jtteviktigt. S mnga kanaler nu r sociala:

blogging, audio, twitter, facebook och google plus och de pverkar varandra. Man kan se att businessblogging har frndrats p de sista tre ren sedan twitter och facebook blivit s jttepoppis. Det r mindre kommentarer p businessblogs, s d mste man g ut p andra kanaler. Man mste kommunicera, om kunden nu vill vara p ntet t.ex. Twitter, d mste man vara dr. S, I min organisation r det jtteviktigt, och jag ser detsamma fr nstan alla. Jag: Jon: Alla som har privatkunder, eller? Oavsett vilka kunder, om man jobbar inom b2b, business to business r det ocks viktigt. T.ex. om du r ansvarig fr att kpa en fotokopieringsmaskin i ditt fretag, d mste du vlja rtt. Om du vljer fel maskin, d kommer du f mycket skit frn dem du jobbar med eftersom du kpte in en dlig maskin. hemsida. S du gr ut och kollar p ntet och det r nstan skert att du hittar en Om du har ett twitterkonto d kan du frga twitter:  Is this machine good? Om du d har kanske 1100 fljare, d fr du ett svar. Absolut, det r jtteviktigt. Jag: P vilket stt tycker du att man behver ndra kommunikationen p egentligen? Jon: Jag: Menar du dem som inte anvnder sociala medier eller? Ja, dem som inte anvnder sociala medier och dem som anvnder dem p fel stt.

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Jon:

Okej, jag frstr. Om jag brjar med dem som inte gr gr det, d tycker jag att man mste g tillbaka till mlgruppen, vad vill man. Hur lngt ska man komma? Ska man slja, ska man skapa bttre ntverk, bttre kommunikationer? Det beror p vad man vill. S det r inte s att ett Jag: fretag behver sociala medier bara fr att vara med. De mste identiera  the nal goal , vad de vill. Sen kan man kolla p vilken kommunikation och vilka kanaler man ska anvnda, det r inte ndvndigtvis s att mlgruppen sitter framfr datorn. studies, fr nu r det s mycket drute. Men jag tycker att om Jag kan ge ett exempel: garen gr allt fr man vill se mjligheterna som nns, d mste man titta p caseJag pratade med en kollega som har ett vanligt caf i middleof-nowhere USA som kund, utan hemsida. facebookvnner med honom [cafet]. att alla som kommer in och kper smrgsar till lunch ska bli Han gr s, och han gr s D kan han Man ska konsekvent, s att han 1000 vnner p Facebook.

g ut och prata med dem, men det r vldigt nischat. prata med [dem man vill n].

nischa Sociala medier drfr att man br prata med dem man vill De som anvnder sociala medier p fel stt, de kommer till mig och sger att de vill vara med p sociala medier. P facebook, twitter, google+ precis som alla andra. Nr de sedan ftt det brjar de bara skrika. De publicerar inlgg efter inlgg utan ngot engagemang. Det r fel stt. Det T.ex. som r fel med att gra s r att de inte tnker strategiskt. dem man vill prata med. konversation med dem.

ska man inte flja alla, man ska g in p twitter sk och hitta Om fretaget vill n ensamstende mammor i Stockholm ska de ska upp sdana fr att brja en Man ska inte flja vem som helst. Jag Och sjlvklart ser mnga fretag i min branch som gr misstaget att de fljer alla andra som hller p med marknadsfring. mig eftersom de ocks jobbar i samma branch. Jag: Du pratar om engagemang, min nsta frga handlar om interaktivitet, jag tror att det r ungefr samma som du tnker med engagemang. anpassa sig? Jon: Ja, jag kan ge ett exempel p det. web-host, jag tycker de r dliga. Jag r missnjd med min S fr ett par veckor sedan r det ngot interaktivt som gr att man mste r det ingen av dem som vill kpa en marknadsfringstjnst frn

gick jag ut och sa att  I'm not happy with Media Temple. D

69

brjade Media Temple flja mig.

Sen ck jag en autorespons: Det verkar i brjan

 Ring till oss och frga s kan vi hjlpa dig. jag inget svar.

som att de r aktiva och engagerade, men nr jag svarade ck De har allts en bot som ger ett automatiskt svar nr ngon nmner Media Temple. Det r ingen person, s det r inget engagemang. Jag: Jon: Inget riktigt engagemang? Nej precis. Men, andra sidan ck jag svr frn en annan webhost. Det var en person som frgade  kan vi hjlpa dig, det r inte s att vi vill att du yttar till oss men har du tnkt p... Det r mycket bra personlig service, och det r p det sttet jag menar. Jag: Mer personlig, de r mer mnskliga, det r bttre att vara mer mnsklig? Jon: Ja, precis. Jag tnker p Gravatars [globally recognized avatars], det r mnga fretag som har sin logo istllet fr ett ansikte p sin prol, men man blir inte vn med en logotyp. som jobbar i fretaget man blir  vn med. Jag: Hur upplever du att det funkar i de stora organisationerna som Coca-Cola. P deras Facebook page t.ex. s lgger de upp, publicerar, grejor d och d, och det r ju inte signerat av en person utan direkt av Coca-Cola. Upplever du att de budskapen som de snder ut r annorlunda eller behver vara annorlunda p sociala medier n i traditionella medier? Jon: Oj, det r svrt att sga. jag ser det som att det [du beskriver] De tycker att Det r personerna

r enkel broadcast media, det r ngonting annat.

de ska vara p sociala medier men sen lnkar de till videor, bilder och allting bara fr att pusha folk att tnka p dem utan att egentligen veta vad de gr p just sociala medier. Maersk. Det r den stora btrman, Maersk. Jag har bara sett ett stort fretag som jag tycker gr detta p ett bra stt, Dem r jttebra, de berttar sin egen historia, de visar varje dag en bild frn sin historia fr de har funnits i 150 r. De berttar en historia. Coca-Cola, de bara gr ngonting fr att vara kul, det r bara fr uppmrksamhet, det r brand-penetration, det r inte brand personality.

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Jag:

Jag hoppar fram lite.

Man blir inte vn med en logotyp.

Jag har

en frga som egentligen kommer senare. Hur ser du p kopplingen mellan den hr typen av frndring som behver gras och konceptet brand personality. man blir inte vn med en logotyp, men de har nd ngon sorts personlighet? Jon: Ja, det gr dem, men inom sociala medier blir vi mer och mer vana att f kontakt med personer som svarar p ett naturligt, informellt stt, som kompisar. Jag tycker det r bst nr fretag som Coca-Cola eller Toyota har folk, t.ex. Ville, som jobbar fr Coca-Cola som svarar fr fretaget, men jag [som kund] pratar, ntverkar eller engagerar mig i en viss person. P det sttet Jag tror nns det en koppling nr det gller brand personalities. dr. Jag: Det r alltid personerna man sker sig till. Hromveckan kom Carlsberg upp p min Vad tycker

att det r svrt att separera fretaget frn personerna som jobbar

Jag har ett exempel.

feed och frgade  Gillar du snowboard eller skidor? du om det? Fr mig r det ngot annorlunda. Jon: Det r det, det r en strategi. samtal. De vill starta sam.

Det r det

man sger inom sociala medier, som fretag mste man starta Man mste diskutera, och d mste man ta initiativet. D kommer man in ett Det r drfr jag tror att de gr s. fretag, det r en person. Jag: Jon: Jag: Jon: mjaa, inte alls tror jag r det meningslst? Jag tror att det r meningslst. Ja, precis, det r s tidigt. fretagen. Jag: Jon: Jag: N. Det r lttare fr en liten byr och enstaka konsulter. Varfr mste man starta ett samtal egentligen? Fretagen frsker, det r mycket

samtal, och nr man r dr fr man uppleva att det inte r ett Om du svarar, hur svarar dem?

snack om att kommunicera, men det r inte ltt fr de stora

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Jon:

Jag tycker s hr:

varfr r folk ute p ntet?

Nr det gller

fretag r det fr att hitta information.

Om du har ett prob-

lem, ngonting som ska xas eller om du vill kpa ngonting s gr du till google, till twitter eller till Facebook och frgar ditt ntverk eller skverktyg. Fretagen som anvnder sociala medier ska starta samtal, de ska engagera. slutar kunden att lyssna. meningslst. Om du frgar ngonting ska de hjlpa dig, de ska svara. De ska inte slja direkt fr d Det r samma sak som nr ngon frsker stoppa dig i centrum fr att frska slja ngot, det r Om fretaget istllet frgar:  Vad har du fr probd kan de anvnda lem egentligen? s att du brjar bertta,

samtalet som ett steg i  the marketing funnel, the sales funnel. Konversationen, samtalet brjar och s snabbt som mjligt vill de ju frytta dig till  the sales funnel. [Exempelvis:]  har du problem med web hosting? kanske jag kan hjlpa till. . . . Ja jag frstr, det r jttesvrt, Kolla p det hr som vi har att erb-

juda, kanske kan jag hitta en bttre lsning fr dig? Jon: S kan det g om man brjar samtalet. funnel. Jag: Vi pratade om brand personality. Hur upplever du att fretag Om man gr p It's all about the sales

och organisationer representerar sig sjlva? varit innan sociala medier? Jon:

deras prolsidor s att sga, r det annorlunda frn hur det har

S du menar skillnaden mellan t.ex. fretagets account p twitter och fretagets hemsida?

Jag:

Till exempel, ja, eller frut var det vl telefonkatalogen, jag vet inte.

Jon:

Ja, precis.

Gammeldags medier, telefonkatalogen och sdant, d

kan man inte visa ansiktet, man kan inte ha brand marketing. Det r kanske i svartvitt eller gulsvart eller... Jag: Jon: Visa ansiktet? Ja, jag tycker man ska  show don't tell.... man ska visa vem. Det r svrt, fr fretag nns i olika former. small to medium sized businesses. I en stor koncern, typ Volvo, r det jttesvrt att visa vem man r jmfrt med De har det mycket lttare att visa att det r Ville som tar hand om det hr och Ann som tar

72

hand om det hr.

D kan de visa det p hemsidan till exempel. Men det nns ocks dem som vljer att  Ville som tar hand om Eniros webD blir det lite mer

Men nr det gller sociala medier r det mnga fretag som vljer att anvnda logotypen. visa ett ansikte. conversational. Jag: Jon: S vad sa vi nu... det var ansikte... Men sociala medier pverkar hemsidan. Fr 10 r sedan var Vi r T.ex.

hosting, att det r du som tar hand om det.

hemsidan mycket mer som ett magazin, som en broschyr. man visar sig sjlv som mycket mer tillgnglig. folk.

s hr, vi gr s hr och s vidare. Sociala medier har gjort s att  Accessible. Om man tittar p en modern hemsida r det ofta s att de presenterar De r ocks ofta lite mer informella, kanske visar de bilder tillsammans med hunden osv. Jag: Jon: Vad beror det p? Jag tror det r s att sedan sociala medier har blivit allt strre har vi frndrat vrt stt att kommunicera. reklam, vi kper inte det. hur den fungerar. som r gratis. Jag: Jon: mm D gr man ut p sociala medier och pratar och pratar. kollar p mobilen, vi smsar, bloggar och lser bloggar. dig av vad du lyssnar p. nu. Allting r integrerat. Vi Vi vill inte lyssna p Det r content-marketing som hller.

Dr man skriver om hur man ska anvnda produkten eller visa Man ska leverera ngonting som r  quality ,

Sttet

att lyssna p musik r annorlunda, via spotify kan du dela med Nr allting r integrerat pverkar det nstan allting. kanaler. Vi lever i en social vrld

Folk pratar och kommunicerar, det r s otroligt mnga Fretagen frsker att frst och vara med och anvnda

samma stt att kommunicera som folk gr i verkligheten. Jag: Jon: Jag: Ja. och... Och, nu r det en global marknad ocks! Ja.

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Jon:

S om du sker efter ngonting p google kan du hitta det du sker hr, eller i USA. ditt sprk. kulturellt. Kanske nns det ett fretag i Sverige som har ett brand personality som du knner igen, som pratar De behver inte vara svenskar, men de frstr dig Det r p det sttet ocks.

Jag:

S den hr frndringen mot att bli mer social fr fretag, var tror du den kommer ifrn? Tror du den kommer ifrn en ren teknologisk mjlighet som skapat denna frndring eller r det ngon annan, typ normativ frndring s att sga? r det hnan eller gget?

Jon:

Ja, jag frstr.

Min egen tolkning r att det r s hr:

jag ty-

cker att efter andra vrldskriget s har Kapitalismen dominerat,  late capitalism. Om man lser Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, post structuraliser, som har jobbat med  the post modern condition fr att frst vrlden. T.ex. Marshal McLuhan:  The medium is the message. Man kan se att nr teven kom p 50talet i USA, handlade det om att slja, interruptive marketing, slj slj slj! Desto mer teknologin utvecklades blev den dominant, det blev en rst i samhllet. Teven fanns verallt, och nu r teve i centrum, man har teve verallt. att kpa. Varfr? Jo det handlar om Det r en del av kapitalismens mekanism, att kpa. Jag tycker att bcker och lmer

Grnsen mellan oss och teve r som Baudrillard sa: det blir  Hyperreal, det nns ingen grns. blivit snabbare och snabbare. Jag: Jon: Mm Tnk p MTV p 80talet, pltsligt kommer en kanal som bara r reklam. MTV r reklam fr musik. Det frndrades hela tiden Ntet r samma mot snabbare action. mycket med en gng. Till slut kommer ntet. har brjat anvnda samma stt att kommunicera, de har bda

sak, mycket stimulans, mycket [knpper med ngrarna], mycket Detsamma gller utvecklingen mot mobilt Det som driver allt det hr r kp. internet och rrlig bild. Jag: Jon: Mmm Det r kp, eller att tjna pengar. Jag menar, Baudrillard

pratade om ontologi och jag tycker att ontologin av  late capitalism r fragmentation, det r inte hgkultur, det r lgkultur; allt ska vara poppis.

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Jag: Jon: Jag: Jon:

Jag tycker ju att det r bde konvergens och fragmentation Jo Alla medier blir samma, men Precis, jag tycker det som ligger bakom det hr med  late capitalism det handlar om kp.  The language of capitalism is catchy, fast, and friendly. dier och allt detta. jag ser ett sammanhang mellan sociala meSociala medier r en naturlig utveckling av Det behvs komAtt snabbt

kapitalism, kapitalism behver sociala medier. kunna skapa bra kontakter. Jag: Jon: Jag: Ja. Och kp.

municeras s snabbt som mjligt, ver hela vrlden.

Varfr verkar det vara s svrt d fr mnga fretag? Allts, alla fretag r ju kapitalistiska.

Jon: Jag:

Precis. Men, det knns som att det r vldigt mnga som inte r s bra p det.

Jon: Jag: Jon:

P sociala medier? Ja. Det r alltid s, man r rdd fr ngonting som r nytt. inte vuxit upp med ntet. tion. ntet. De

som sitter i  management positions r ofta ver 50 och de har Om man ser p nystartade fretag, startups med generation Y, generation X r ju mer min generaS, generation Y, eller  millenials, de som r fdda efter Jag tror att de fretag som har dem i ledarpositioner Fr mig, om jag gr 84 eller 85, men de som r fdda efter 92, 93 de vxer upp med kommer anvnda sociala medier mer och mer och p ett bttre stt fr att det r mer naturligt fr dem. sociala medier. frstr varfr. Jag: Den gamla gubben? och pratar med ett fretag och sger: absolut, ni borde anvnda D r det oftast de hgsta cheferna som inte

75

Jon:

Ja, precis, den gamla gubben, och ven om han gr med p att testa s lgger de inte tillrckligt med resurser p det.

Jag: Jon:

Det krvs ju resurser..? Det krvs resurser, och sjlvklart r det hr nytt, det r ngot som utvecklas hela tiden. Man kan se p Twitter, som har Facebook utvecklas hela Bara fr 6 Mnga fretag som brutvecklats jttemycket p en kort tid. mnader sen var det helt annorlunda. just det hr med timeline och..

tiden. Bara det hr med Facebook Pages fr fretag.

jade frst vad det var har ftt helt annorlunda frutsttningar,

Jag: Jon: Jag: Jon:

mmm, det har ndrat alla ja, och Facebook har ndrat  terms of use ocks mm Man kan inte lnka till hemsidor eller slja genom Facebook lngre. det gr det svrare. Fretagen mste hnga med, utvecklas, de mste lra sig hela tiden, och det r inte ltt.

Jag: Jon: Jag: Jon:

Vad tycker du om de frndringarna? Som Facebook har gjort? Ja Jag tror att Facebook kommer att slppa greppet ganska mycket faktiskt nr det gller fretag. Jag tror att vi ser en ganska stor Jag tror att Facebook rr sig Det jag frndring p vg p Facebook.

mot att ha mindre och mindre med business att gra. ser r att mnga fretag slpper Facebook. Jag: Jon: Mhm Precis.

De har varit med, de har fans, men det r mindre en-

gagemang efter Facebook timeline. Det r inte ltt att lsa en Facebook wall lngre. Jag: Jon: N. Det r mindre  reach. Det som man ck gratis frut, om man

publicerade ngonting gick det ut till alla som hade  gillat, men nu mste man betala fr den tjnsten.

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Jag: Jon:

mm Vi fr bttre data p det hela, och nr vi frstr bttre hur det fungerar s ser man hur det

Jag: Jon:

r det bttre data nu? Jaja, absolut, nu har Google Analytics kommit med Google Social som gr det lttare att se. Det nns andra ocks, som Hoot Suite  Kiss Metrics som levererar och de andra fretagen som t.ex. bttre och bttre information.

Jag: Jon:

mm Nr man har bttre information d kan man ta stllning till vad man ska gra.

Jag:

Jag tror nstan att jag r klar, jag mste kolla, men det nns en massa att prata om nd. Jo.. SEB p Facebook t.ex. det r mest som en kundtjnst de har dr, den r jttebra tycker jag.

Jon:

Ja, det tycker jag ocks.

Det r ett bra exempel p hur ett

fretag ser precis hur de kan anvnda en kommunikationskanal. De frstr precis hur de ska gra, folk vill ha svar s fort som mjligt. SJ t.ex. har varit med p det hr lnge. Jag kommer Det ihg att jag testade en gng att frga efter tidstabellen nr jag skulle ka till Eskilstuna och jag ck svar inom 3 minuter. var fantastiskt. resurser. S det r kundtjnst. Men det innebr att

man mste vara uppkopplad hela tiden, och det krver mycket Det betyder att har man vl brjat att leverera dr s Om det r kan man inte sluta fr d blir kunderna irriterade. r tv stt att anvnda sociala medier. t.ex. Jag: Ja, dr kan man ju fnga upp folk som inte direkt sker hjlp ens. Jon: Man kan bara ska upp folk som behver hlp.

mnga som anvnder det i alla fall. Krishantering och kundtjnst Twitter r bra fr det

Jag tror att Facebook ocks vill vara s, men inte n. Det handlar om sk. Att ska information, man sker svaret. Eller s kan det handla om kundtjnst, om min nya mobil inte fungerar, hur ska jag gra? Sjlvklart r det ntverket som svarar:  stackars Hr Om de inte dig, jag har kpt en anna, du borde ocks ha kpt det hr. mste fretagen vara med fr att delta i samtalet.

77

gr det s gller vrldskonkurrensen.

Svarar inte det Svenska

bolaget s kanske ett Brittiskt bolag svarar och tar kunden. Jag: Jon: Jag: Jon: Ja, just det. Frstr du vad jag menar? Mm Om fretaget inte r med p Twitter eller Facebook fr att sga att du fr en kae p mitt kaf p sder om du skriver ett inlgg med #gratiskae p Twitter s kommer ett annat kaf att gra det. Det handlar om att hitta nya stt att kommunicera och slja p. Jag: Jon: Mm Folk vill inte lyssna p  broadcast marketing de vill ha ett frhllande, men inte liksom  real relationships. Jag: Ja, liksom.... nu sger vi att jag r klar med mina ocella frgor.. [31:50]

78

Appendix 3: Interview Maria

Jag:

Upplever du ett behov fr din organisation att anpassa sin kommunikation till sociala medier?

Maria: Jag:

Ja! Det gr du; vad gr du d, specikt, fr att anpassa kommunikationen till sociala medier?

Maria:

Det r framfrallt, att innehllet mste vara relevant fr kanalen man anvnder. S det mste vara t.ex ett srskilt antal minuter lm, en srskild lngd text eller bildmaterial som r utformat p ett specikt stt och s vidare.

Jag: Maria:

Hur upplever du den interaktiva aspekten av det d? Just den vrld som jag arbetar i, design, s r det strsta interaktiva momentet rrlig bild och bildmaterial fr att folk vill se vad det r vi presenterar.

Jag: Maria:

S engagemanget frn dem du skickar till d? Det kan t.ex. vara 360graders roterande bilder, en snabbintervju, eller s jobbar vi t.ex. mycket med renderingar s att man kan f uppleva platsen innan den har blivit byggd t.ex. och s vidare.

Jag: Maria:

mm S det handlar mycket om det visuella sinnet nr det gller interaktivitet.

Jag:

Mm, men det verkar som att det r ganska mycket  broadcast som ni kr snarare n att verkligen engagera samtal?

Maria: Jag: Maria:

Det leder ju ofta till ett samtal. mm Men det r svrt att starta upp ett samtal i text, eller att be dem skicka in eller bidra ngonting.

Jag:

mm

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Maria:

Den strsta kllan fr interaktivitet fr oss r frmodligen att man delar bilder, eller visuella moment.

Jag:

Ja, just det. Hur behandlar du d kommentarer p sdana inlgg som ni gr?

Maria:

Det r mest feedback fr oss.

T.ex.

 h, jag gillar det hr

jttemycket eller  det hr har jag sett frut eller  vad roligt att ni har kommit p den hr lsningen det r mycket den typen av kommentarer som inte krver s mycket terkoppling. dem. Vad vi kan gra r att dela vidare de kommentarerna, eller bara armera Det leder inte jtteofta till diskussion, ibland gr det det D r det en designer eller arkitekt som delar och d kan man bidra till den sjlv. Ett bra exempel r nr vi delar ett projekt. ett projekt och d r det massor med andra som r involverade i det projektet som kommenterar och berttar vad de tyckte var bra eller dlig i projektet. Jag: Maria: mm D kan man ju vara mer interaktiv och delta och diskutera p samma premisser om vad man tyckte var bra eller dligt. Jag: Tycker du att det r viktigt att ha koll p utomstende medier, omvrldsbevakningsaktigt? Maria: Ja, personligen tycker jag att det r jtteviktigt. Det r jttebra Sen

om man kan ta tempen p vad som sgs om ens varumrke. sa, att man fr feedback p det man presenterar.

r det s att i fretaget jag jobbar inom nu s r det precis som jag Jag har jobbat D t andra tidigare dr det har varit mycket mer komplicerat, dr kunden har varit mer aktiv med att kritisera en tjnst t.ex. r det jtteviktigt. D kan man till och med mta positiva

och negativa kommentarer s att man verkligen kvantierar det. Men i det fretaget som jag jobbar nu nns det inte s stora riskfaktorer med vad folk sger. Jag: Maria: Ja, det r svrt att kritisera en stol p det sttet? Ja, och om ngon gr det s r det vldigt lite man gra t det. Om de sger att de inte gillar den nya designen s r det vldigt svrt att vara interaktiv dr. sga [tystnad] . . . ..... Det r klart att man kanske kan

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Jag: Maria:

Varfr? Ja, precis, vad tycker du, eller vad skulle du tycka var bttre eller s. Det r svrt att ge en jttebrafrklaring p snt, det r ltt att bli defensiv.

Jag:

Nr du representerar ditt fretag p sociala medier, representerar du d dem under fretagets namn eller under ditt namn?

Maria:

Det r en intressant frga, fr det r ngonting som jag tycker har ndrats ganska mycket under de senaste 3 ren kanske.

Jag: Maria:

mm I det yrket som jag har jobbat i, PR, planning och kommunikation verlag s var man tidigare mycket mer sin egen person, men nu knner jag att det r mycket mer s att alla frstr att bakom varumrket sitter det en person som skriver.

Jag: Maria:

mm Det behver inte ndvndigtvis vara mitt fr och efternamn, men frn brjan gjorde jag s, men nu anvnder jag bara fretagets namn. Folk frstr att jag r jag, jag behver inte presentera mig sjlv som mig sjlv lngre. [06:57]

Jag:

Jag kommer inte ihg varfr jag ska frga nsta frga, jag hoppar ver den.

[skratt] Jag: Upplever du att de organisationer du representerar ndrat sttet de framstller sig p sedan sociala medier blivit s otroligt jttepopulra? Maria: Ja, jag tycker att nr de fretag jag jobbat med brjade med sociala medier fanns det ngon slags jargong som innebar att man var tvungen att vara personlig. frnamn. hr. Det handlade mycket om att skriva till fansen och all kommunikation skulle gras med Men nr allt vxte s snabbt s insg alla ganska snabbt att det nns ingen chans att en person kan gra allt det D blev trovrdigheten i att det verkligen var en person som Det kan ju vara den personen skrev allt det hr lite avtrubbad.

som skriver, jag sger inte att det inte behver vara s, men jag

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tror att mnga frstr att det nns en kommunikationsplanerare, koordinerare eller ngon som har vergripligt ansvar ver massa olika kommunikationskanaler. D behver man inte sga det hela tiden, jag tror att folk frstr att det r s i de esta fallen. Jag: Knner du att det nns ngra kopplingar mellan den hr typen av frndring och konceptet  brand personality? Maria: Ja, fast jag tror fortfarande att det nns rum fr att g tillbaks till det dr mer individfokuserade. Till exempel s gjorde vi nyligen en satsing p en journal som garen till fretaget skrev sjlv. Han kan ju inte gra Twitter, Tumblr och Facebook samtidigt. Han kan gra en sak och den skriver han sjlv, han reser otroligt mycket, och det kan ju vara intressant och relevant information fr folk att ta del av hans ledarskap, vad han upplever, vilka han trar och s vidare. Jag: Maria: r han VD? Ja, och d kan han f den kanalen, det kan ju ses som vldigt bundet till en sorts brand personality, men jag tror inte att alla sociala mediekanaler behver ha en s pass personlig anknytning. Jag: Maria: Varfr? Drfr att jag tror att det nns ett behov av snabb information, det r sociala mediers funktion. Behver jag dela bilder p en ny Behver jag sga Samtidigt produkt s behver inte det vara personligt, den kan bara vara na bilder p en ny produkt och inget mer. att ngonting har hnt och att vi har ngot nytt att erbjuda s kan jag f utt den informationen sakligt men snabbt. vr VD skriver p sin Tumblr. Jag: Maria: mm Men de tv kommunikationsstten behver inte motsga varandra. Jag: Maria: Jag: N, ne, precis. Har ditt fretag ngon personlighet? vill jag att det ska nnas en personlig kanal som t.ex. den som

Ja absolut! Jttemycket s. Har ni pratat om det och bestmt vad den r?

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Maria:

Den r jttediskuterad, och denierad. element.

Den bestr av tv olika

Den ena r en varumrkespersonlighet medans den

andra r en riktig person, som nns, han som ger fretaget. Jag: Maria: Okej, gr de tv ihop p ngot stt? Ja, och nej. Den ena r mer som en visionr person som vill Medans den andra r mer De tv r

vissa saker, som kmpar fr sin sak.

av en plats och en kultur som nns p stkusten i USA i en fabrik dr man tillverkat aluminium sedan 40talet. som viktiga krpersonligheter utav fretaget. Jag: Maria: Varfr gr ni s? Drfr att det nns en viktig historia att bertta tycker jag om var det hr fretaget kommer ifrn, men samtidigt nns det en ledarskap och en drivkraft som ocks mste representeras. sakerna mste man kunna visa samtidigt p ngot stt. Jag: Hur mycket tror du sjlva tekniken som sociala medier bygger p har pverkat de frndringar som du beskriver. Maria: Jttemycket, jag tror det handlar jttemycket om just formatet. Om man t.ex. vljer att gra en journal, som jag sa, i ett forum som Tumblr s r det fr att det r extremt enkelt fr honom [garen] att bara skriva och trycka p en knapp, han behver inte gra ngonting mer. mer jobb. Medans andra typer av sammanlnkande sociala ntverk och som du sa om monitoring s krvs det mycket D mste man ha ngon som har bttre kunskap i hur man navigerar. Jag: Maria: Jag: Ja, precis man mste lgga mer resurser och s? Ja. Jag tnker delvis p saker som att Facebook precis har ndrat p sina regler, gjort en timeline osv. Maria: Hur pverkar det ditt arbete? De inte samma, men de mste ngonstans representeras bda tv

Inte s mycket egentligen eftersom att jag har hllt p med det s lnge s gr det ganska fort fr mig att navigera i det. kunden i frga liksom, och det r dr det gr strst skillnad. tror att jag var inne lite p det innan ocks. jag andra sidan tar det alltid lite extra tid att frklara det hr fr Tidigare fanns det

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kanske en eller tv saker att lra sig som man kan gra sjlv, men nu r det s komplicerat att det gr inte [fr en person med andra arbetsupgifter]. Men samtidigt tycker jag att det ska nnas saker de gr sjlva, som kundservice gr sjlv eller s. Men det behvs ngon sorts vergripande ansvar fr att bemstra den komplexiteten p ngot stt. Jag: Ja precis [ 14:30 ] Nu fr man ju man ju inte gra direkta frsljningar p facebook lngre Maria: Jag: N men det spelar vl inte s stor roll fr dig? Du har vl inga kunder p det sttet? Maria: Jag: Du menar som auktion allts Ja, eller vad som helst, jag har inte lst det nya avtalet ordentligt men det verkar som at tman inte ens fr komma verrens om en frsljning p facebook lngre enligt avtalet med facebook lngre. Det r klart att man skert kan det nd, men man fr inte. Maria: Jag: N, det mste ju vara svrt fr dem att kontrollera det. Men det r vl mest att man inte kan gra stora kampanjer osv lngre. Maria: Vi har ju inte riktigt sna grejor. men det nns varumrken jag jobbade med tidigare som lyckades jttebra med sdant. Jag: Nu nr man skriver saker p sin facebookvgg som organisation s gr det inte automatiskt ut till alla som  likat ens facebook, det mste man betala fr, eller hur r det? Maria: Ja, nu mste anvndarna aktivt vlja att f den informationen, frn brjan s kom den automatiskt. Jag: Maria: just det.. Men sdant har frndrats mycket p senaste. MailChimp fr vra nyhetsbrevsutskick. Vi anvnder ju S

De r jttehrda med

att alla som r med p listan har godknt att f utskick.

fort man fr fr mnga p sina listor som inte ppnar sina mail eller att mailen fastnar i spamlter s stnger MailChimp ner mjligheterna till massutskick fr oss tills vi lst det problemet. [xylofonljud]

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Jag: Maria: Jag: Maria: Maria:

r det ngon som spelar p xylofonen drnere? Ja, det r lite jobbigt, men de hller oftast inte p s lnge. Det spelar ingen roll. Ja, det r ingen som kan spela xylofon nd. [17:03]. . . Jag vet inte hur mycket du vill at tjag ska ta exempel frn olika saker som jag har jobbat med eller bara frn det hr jobbet.

Jag: Maria: Jag:

Bde och... Fr p ett stt har jag ju mer specika exempel frn andra jobb. Ja, jo, men det har jag tnkt p att jag kanske borde ha riktiat in mig p en viss bransch eller s, om du frstr vad jag menar. Eftersom det r olika?

Maria:

Det r jtteolika, men samtidigt s kanske man mste... jag jobbade ju t.ex. med Comhem tidigare och dr r ju sociala medier helt avgrande eftersom det strsta som hnder fr dem r konversationen som pgr i sociala medier fr varumrkets liking och preferenser och alltihopa. Det r superviktigt. Men fr fretag som Emeco t.ex. handlar det mycke tmer om att ha en nrvaro, en presentation av varumrket, inte s mycket en diskussion p samma stt.

Jag: Maria:

Era huvudkunder r r vl i huvudsak fretag? Ja, precis det r arkitekter och designers som dessutom har en slutkund i sitt led.

Jag: Maria: Jag:

r allt ni gr  bespoke eller har ni produklinjer? Vi har ca 10 produktlinjer som nns tillgngliga hela tiden. Jobbar ni med att engagera arkitekter och butiker, eller frsker ni engagera mnniskor som gr till butiker?

Maria:

Vi engagerar arkitekter och designers, vi har dem som huvudmlgrupp, men det som r intressant r att oavsett vad det r fr fretag man arbetar fr s formar sig den sociala mediekanalen efter det behovet. Det nns t.ex. ett nytt socialt ntverk som riktar sig till arkitekter och designers som heter arcello..[`?] vilket

85

r superintressant p s stt at det r en hybrid av hur sociala ntverk fungerar fr proessionella personer. Det viktigaste fr en arkitekt, designer, mbeltillverkare eller en supplier av ngonting r vilka projekt man har gjort itllsammans och vilka projekt man har gjort tidigare och ska gra i framtiden. kan vara allt frn ett stort hotell till en stor restaurang. Det Arcello

har d byggt en platform som fungerar som Facebook p s stt att man har en prol, men det man kopplar an till r vad man har fr projekt. Ett projekt kan vara ett jttestort huvudkontor i holland t.ex. vilka ca 60 personer kanske knyter an till. Jag: Maria: Som taggar allts? Ja, man taggar sig sjlv. D kan man se att tv personer har Eller s kan man se

jobbat tillsammans p samma projekt osv.

att ett visst projekt har en underbar trlsning eller fasadlsning, d blir det jtteltt att se hur folk har arbetat och vilka de har arbetat med. Jag: Just ja, d kan man se att den och den lsningen var bra och ltt ta reda p vem som gr snt fr att f kontakt med dem? Maria: Ja, dr ser man allts sociala medier frn ett annat perspektiv n man gr hos t.ex. Comhem som fr bemta sina kunder under kris t.ex. League. Kriser som nr internet gick ner under Champions Det hr sttet r mycket mer ett skande av content Dr mste man som

eller relationer infr nsta projekt. Man kanske vill att en viss arkitekt ska rita sit tnsta projekt eller s. det hr fretaget jag jobbar p nu anvnda sociala medier som en presentation, s att man presenterar sig sjlv och s att man hela tiden nns tillgnglig. D mste man bde vara personlig Men i fall du t.ex. och informativ, bde emotionell och rationell.

blir kritiserad som ComHem, jag jobbade med SJ ocks, dr var sociala medier en helt annan grej fr dr var du tvungen att p ett personligt plan [23:20] bemta kund i kundens eget forum. vilket i det hr fallet kanske var facebook eller tradera osv. Jag: Maria: Jag: Lite customer serviceaktigt? Ja, precis. Men det r klart att det nns olika behov som driver.

Var Comhem och SJ liknande s?

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Maria:

Ja, de var jttelika.

Men det handlar ju ocks om en otrolig

snabbfothet. Allts det r att du ska reageare inom 10-20 minuter, det kan bli en otrolig kris [p den tiden]. Det kan vara ngot fruktansvrt som hnt eller ngon som gjort ngot idiotiskt. D gller det ju att du r jttesnabb. Men det r ingenting som alla fretag behver, att vara s snabbfotade. Jag: Maria: Nej, alla fretag r vl inte lika krisbengna? N, jag har t.ex. En bra kompis itll mig som jag jobbat med. Vi har gjort social mediemonitoring fr HM, och dr r det ocks s att det krvs en snabbfothet fr att det r s otroligt stort. Det r en sn maskin s att det hnder s mycket saker I alla tidszoner hela tiden. Jag: Maria: Mm. S dr handlar det om att det blir ett verktyg att se vad som hnder, och vad folk tycker och tnker samtidigt, konstant. Jag: Maria: Det hr med personligheten och snabbheten beror p hur....? Ja, det r allts att du ska lsa ngonting. Om du har ett problem och lyckas vara snabb och personlig dr s vinner du som varumrke kanske det frtroendet hos den som kanske har varit kritisk. Men som ett litet designfretag frn stkusten av USA behver jag ite lsa det problemet varje dag, det r inte det som krvs. Dremot mste jag nnas  top of mind , jag mste inspirera, jag mste f ngon att se en bild och knna att  herregud, det hr r det bsta jag sett, det hr ska jag anvnda I mitt nsta projekt! [25:58] Jag: Maria: r ni mindre personliga d? Ja, och nej. Fr att en del av det mste vara emotionellt, att jag mste fnga in kunden p ett emotionellt stt. Dremot mste jag vara nstan p snudd till teknisk fr att kunna frklara vad det r dem har kpt. Skulle jag vara personlig dr hela tiden s tror jag det skulle vara rtt svrt att f en uppfattning om vad det hr fretaget faktiskt p riktigt gr. Jag: Ja, nu str det still fr mig.

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Maria:

Men det r ju s att I rollen som planner t.ex. P reklambyra eller s som jag jobbar nu handlar det jttemycket om huruvida du r en vanlig traditionell planner eller en digital planner. Fr mig r det vldigt svrt att se skillnderna mellan de tv. Jag tycker att jag utvrderar den kommunikation vi hller p med p ett stt som fortfarande r baserad p den traditionella modellen av att lsa problem i kommunikationen. Fr mig spelar det ingen roll om det r en reklamannons eller ett internetforum. Ngonstans handlar det om vad jag vill sga och vad jag fr sagt, oavsett var jag gr det.

Jag: Maria:

Tycker du att det inte r ngon skillnad p de tv? Jo, det nns jttemycket skillnader, men hur jag hanterar problemet eller hur jag utfr min del av vad jag vill sga och vad jag fr sakt r likadant. Kanalerna r sjlvklart olika eftersom den ena r interaktiv och den andra r passiv p ngot stt. Men om jag som fretag vill g ut med kommunikation kring en kultur man har eller en ambition man har..

Jag:

S du menar att engagemanget hos mlgruppen vxer p samma stt I bde tradionella och sociala medier i din branch, inom design?

Maria:

Ja, precis I den [28:33] formen, men samtidigt r det s att nr jag gjorde mycket jobb fr SJ och Comhem var det fortfarande s at tjag var tvungen att ta reda p hur konsumenten upplevde varumrket och sen hantera det problemet. Det kan jag gra genom att frklara ngonting I en lm, genom att vara bttre p att svara p vissa frgor I vra forum och samtidigt skapa en lgre trskel fr att f folk att g in p en viss sida dr de kan lsa mer. Mnga saker kan vara svar p problemet, men huvudproblemet var fortfarande den samma, kanske att det rder lg trovrdighet. Problemet blir inte annorlunda fr at tman vljer sociala medier. [29:32]

Jag:

Hur var det p de fretagen, p Comhem och SJ, har de ngon sorts brand persona eller s som man ska flja? Eller sger man bara  hej, det r Maria p kundtjnst?

Maria:

Ja, det r det jag menar.

Sj hade frn brjan s [hej det r

Maria], men sen blev de 8 stycken som satt I deras Twitter t.ex. P Comhem var det jttelnge som hette Ola och en kille som

88

hette Samuel. Dr skulle det vara personligt, men jag tror inte det fungar lngre fr de har blivit fr mnga. Men frn brjan var tanken s. Men jag tror inte det r ngon som frvntar sig snt lngre. Jag skulle inte gra det. Jag: N, men det blir nd, det hr med konversation och s, det gr inte att ha en konversation med ett varumrke? Maria: N, men jag menar bara att man inte behver veta vad den personen heter. Jag: Maria: Jag: Nej nej, absolut inte, men.. man frstr ju att det r en person ja, men jag har ett exempel. Carlsberg kom upp p min feed Det har ju

och frgade om jag gillade skidor eller snowboard.

ingenting att gra med l, men det r ocks p ngot stt att de vill skapa en konversation. Vad tnker du, har du ngon tanke om det? Maria: Ja, det r ju mrkligt. Jag undrar genast vad det r de vill. Om det verkligen var ngot de ville veta skulle de kunna frga dig opublicerat, skicka ett mail som ingen annan ser. De kanske ska starta en ny sponsorkanal I re och vill ta reda p vilket berg de ska stlla sig I. D frstr man att de vill starta en konversation. Men hr vill de ju att du ska ppet prata I deras kanal om vilken sport du gillar. Fr mig skulle det behvas nnas ngon  reason for being ngonting som du skulle f, eller som skulle leda till ngonting fr att du I deras publika kanal skulle prata om vilken sport du gillar. Jag: Ja det ville vl skapa engagemang p ngot stt, men det var vldigt underligt tycker jag, som en kompis, om ngon jag knner hade gjort s kanske jag hade hoppat in och snackat, men det hr knns liksom inte som att de r intresserade p riktigt, jag vet inte vad de vill, de beter sig som en polare p ngot stt..... det r konstigt? Maria: Ja, de vill att du ska prata I deras kanal, men d mste de presentera en diskussion som r intressant fr dig att driva. P ngot stt, skidor eller snowboard r inte en diskussion ens.

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Jag:

Jag skulle kunna tycka att det r intressant att prata om men jag knner inte att de skulle engagera sig.

Maria: Jag: Maria:

Men det skulle de faktiskt kunna gra. Dom vill ju slja l? Jag kan koppla det till hur de planerar ett event eller ngot som de ska gra.

Jag:

Det knns mer som om de bara vill sitta och lsa vad andra skriver och sen anvnda till ngot.

Maria:

Jo, p ett stt, men ta det jag pratade om med fretag som har kritik riktade mot sig. Dr blir sdana konversationer helt naturliga. Nr SJ pratar om ett nytt biljettsystem, d kan det vara tusentals kommentarer. Det beror ju p hur relevant diskussionen man fr r. I mitt varumrke skulle jag kunna frga vilken favoritfrg folk har. Men jag gr inte s fr jag tycker inte det r ndvndigt. Det r klart det skulle kunne skapa en nrvaro I sociala medier. Det r inte tillrckligt dierentierande eller relevant fr just det hr varumrket. Jag mste presentera ngonting och frga vad de tycker om det. S Carlsberg I det hr fallet kanske behver frga vad du tycker om att de ska brygga l p ngon krsbrslsning istllet. D skulle det nog bli mer diskussion.

Jag:

Nu kan vi vara klara.

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Appendix 4: Interview Paul

Jag:

Har du, i ditt arbete, upplevt ett behov fr din organisation och i allmnhet att frndra sitt stt att kommunicera utt?

Paul: Jag: Paul:

jag r ju ingen organisation va. N, du r ju inte det men Drfr blir frgan fel, sg s hr: jag har ju haft ngon sorts

personligt varumrke utan att veta om det i 20 r och det var jag nstan ointresserad av fr att allting handlade om att ta fram bra knck och hitta bra scoop och s vidare. Populritetsfaktorn De var ngot som man inte verhuvudtaget var intresserad av.

senaste 14 ren nr jag varit pr konsult s har jag naturligtvis haft vldigt mycket nytta av att den bakgrunden som jag var vldigt omedveten om fanns. Folk lser ju in det i det jag gr idag. Fr mig personligen s r det naturligvis s att det r mycket mer intressant idag vad jag r fr sorts personligt varumrke. Jag: Paul: ja och hur det uppfattas fr det pverkar mina arer, fr det gr ju det. Det gjorde ju inte det frut nr jag var reporter, d var det snarare en frdel att vara tminstonde rejlt respekterad och nstan lite skrckinjagande. Jag: S knner du att den kommunikation som du fr ut oentligt utt, har du ndrat p den p ngot stt under de hr ren dr s stora frndringar skett? Paul: Jag: Paul: Under vilken tid? Ja, vad ska vi sga frn nittonhundra... nr du brjade med PR.. Jag brjade 97-98 och d hade vi inte speciellt mycket bloggar och s vidare. Vi brjade med det i Ronge Kommunikation som ju var lite strre, och d var det nn gng 2004 eller ngot sdant som vi vvde in det i det varumrket vi frskte skapa fr Ronge kommunikation. D ck jag ju tnka p att vi var ett fretag med 7 anstllda ungefr och att jag inte ck riskera de vrigas arbete genom att vara fr tydlig i mitt stt att debattera osv.

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Jag: Paul:

mm.. Och sedan 2010/11 r det bara jag som tjnar och frlorar p hur jag beter mig.

Jag:

Har sociala medier i allmnhet pverket hur du jobbar med traditionella medier ocks?

Paul:

Allts jag jobbar ju med alltihopa i ett system, och man kan ju sga att det jag lr ut som medietrnare och krishanterare i vldigt hg grad r att den mediala uppfattningen om dig kommer att vxla mellan grovt sett tre lgen. Expert eller s r man en David. Antingen r man Goliat, Som ett exempel s kan man

vara den fula Ica-jtten som tjnar massa miljoner p mnniskor eller s r du expert som pratar om massa konsumptionsmnster i Dagens Industri, eller s r du oret som ck skmda tomater eller en glasbit i barnmatsburken och s vidare. det det som nns. I grunden r I mitt varumrke s har jag varit vldigt Jag vill vara den som Det har jag byggt hela

tydlig med att jag vill vara expert p det jag gr, jag har byggt den i 14 r, jag brjade med det direkt. gra bra analyser av det som hnder. uppfattas som bst p medietrning, krishantering och att kunna mitt varumrke kring, i den mn den nns, och den nns ju. Jag: Paul: Hur har du gjort d? Det har jag gjort steg fr steg genom att helt enkelt frst g ut att bertta att jag gick ver frn journalistik till medietrning, till pr konsultarbete och varfr jag gjorde det i en stor artikel i Resum. jag var vldigt ppen och tydlig med att det hr r ngot jag r stolt ver, det hr r ngot som ska bli roligt, det r inget jag gr fr pengarna utan det r ngot jag gr framfrallt fr att f en utveckling. Sen har jag, till skillnad frn nstan hela pr branschen, har jag samma instllning som de esta frisrer har. Om jag visar att jag kan agera i medier, om jag visar att det fungerar, att jag gr mig frstdd, att jag inte fr massa stryk bara fr att jag r medial och s vidare. d nns det ett visst hopp om att jag ocks kan lra mina kunder ngot liknande. Ungefr som frisrer som har en snygg frisyr, och bara drfr r en reklampelare fr att man faktiskt kan klippa hr. Jag: Ja, det r intressant tycker jag, du r en av de f tycker jag som r aktiv p sociala medier som har vart med och vara aktiv innan

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sociala medier ocks.

Knner du att sprkbruket har frndrats

i de traditionella medierna ocks, hur man beter sig utt allts. Paul: Fr mig s r jag vldigt trygg i att mnniskor beter sig idag p ungefr samma vis som man gjorde p 60-70talet. skliga beteendet r inte speciellt annorlunda. skulle jag vilja sga har blivit mycket vrre. Det mnKonsekvenserna Dr har jag en

tes som inte r speciellt vetenskaplig men som jag tror p och det r att med dokusporna, med robinson som frsta grej, som i tiden sammanfaller med att jag slutade med journalistiken, s blir det p ngot vis en ordentlig skjuts fr att man gr in fr personligheter p ett annat stt n man gjorde i journalistiken tidigare. Det blev vldigt tydligt, den vanliga mnniskans rtt D fanns att gra bort sig och frstra sitt liv nstan via dokuspor bigbrother och s vidare fanns inte nr jag var journalist. om de inte begriper bttre. det en grundlggande attityd att man ska vara rdd om folk ven Man ska akta sig fr att slppa fram drar och sdana som verkligen r fullstndiga egocentriker och cirkusartister p olika stt, utan vrna den enskilda mnniskan. Det r borta anser jag. Det betyder att Mikael Persbrandt och D mste man ju vara Om du har arer alla de hr skandelerna med fyllefester och kokain och allt snt r mycket mer kraftigt representerat idag. nnu mer rdd om sitt varumrke. Man vet att allt kommer

ut, mycket mer idag anses av allmnintresse.

vid sidan om, om du r elak mot din fru, om du till och med slr henne och samtidigt ocks har en sn dr jvla kaftan och kosmos attityd som han hade vad fan han hette, du vet vad han heter, du vet vem jag menar.. Jag: Paul: Umm.. ja.. man mste vara

Ja du vet vem jag menar, det gr att googla. rdd om det.

I och med att du har mjligheten via sociala

medier och att medier blir mer och mer personcentrerade r det fruktansvrt viktigt att inte bygga sitt varumrke starkare n vad det frtjnar. mjlighet. Jag: Paul: mm Jag har trat mnniskor i levande livet frn sociala medier dr jag mrker att deras twitteralias eller deras twitteravatar osv va Det nns en sdan frestelse och det nns en sdan

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r mycket trevligare och mycket mer genomtnkt n personen r. om det r s att du till exempel har digitala kontakter och frsker rta och hitta ngon kan du grna vara 190cm fast du inte r det och du kan vara 20 r yngre osv men frr eller senare konfronteras du alltid med en verklighet. Jag: Paul: Ja Det jag har blivit vldigt tacksam ver r att i princip alla som trar mig sger att jag r ungefr som de trodde att jag var. Jag: Paul: Ja, d har man lyckats. Ja d har jag gtt ut ungefr med det ungefr som jag r, inte fr gott. Jag: Du har ju ganska tur d att du r din egen. person som r ett riktigt ansikte utt. Paul: Delvis var det ju s nr jag p Ronge Kommunikation fast vi var mycket sm, hade vi varit mycket strre d hade jag velat ha ngon typ av konferans. Vi har haft det i tidiga sammanhang fr att frska med vrdeord faststlla vad man vill att den hr organisationen ska st fr. S d frsker man hitta de hr vrdeorden Hur lng ifrn och tnka efter hur pass lngt ifrn dem vi r. har man att n dit? Det blir genast

intressant nr det r en strre organisation som inte har ngon

den bilden vi sjlva skulle vilja att man hade av oss, hur lngt Fr det andra, kommer vi verhuvudtaget kunna ta oss dit och vilka steg p vgen mste vi ta fr att den omvrldsbilden ska stmma med den bilden vi skulle vilja stta. D mste det ta tid. Det jag upplever r att de strsta krascherna uppstr nr mnniskor, understdda av traditionella medier framfrallt, vxer snabbare n de frtjnar och d tappar den dr sjlvinsikten. jonas birgersson som var it gud t.ex. som idag Barnevik som byggde S inte r ngonting p grund av kraschen.

ett fruktansvrt varumrke p att vara den ledande industrialisten i sverige, kte ygplan runt i hela sverige och s vidare. r borta. ikea t.ex. Jag: Ja just det [11:35] fr han 800 miljoner i en pension och pltsligt r han dd, han idag pgr ju ett krig mellan uppdrag granskning och

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Paul:

Om man r r s kan man sga att uppdrag granskning verkar ha instllningen att de till varje pris ska se till att Ingvar Kamprad dr olycklig.

Jag: Paul:

Mm Dom frsker krascha det varumrket, jag sger inte att det r rtt moraliskt eller som kritik. som har varit. Men det r bara attt se p det Nu har Frst var det hr med de hr fonderna, skattes-

tiftelserna och alltihop som var i uppdrag granskning.

det varit om skogen i karelen, och hrnst kommer det vl ngot om att de har anvnt sig av strangar i ststaterna. Det bara fortstter. Jag: Paul: ja.. men varfr har ingvar kamprad klarat sig? sitt varumrke lngsamt och tlmodigt. jo, fr han har byggt Men om du

D blir det som ngon

sorts granitvgg som r vldigt svr att sl igenom.

tar en kille som Refaat El-Sayed t.ex. som kom som en komet fr mnga r sen s fanns det inget skyddsrcke fr honom nr han blev avsljad fr att ha en falsk doktorshatt, han fll ju direkt. Jag: S du menar lite att det hr personcentrerade mediefokuset som nns nu skapar mjlighet till att bli mycket strre mycket snabbare? Paul: Ja, och nr du vxer alldeles fr snabbt s har du inte byggt upp frsvarsmekanismerna. Nr du har vuxit tillrckligt mycket Du hr att det frams vill traditionella medier riva ner dig.

frallt r traditionella medier jag koncentrerar mig p, och det r drfr att i sociala medier nns det idag en konikt mellan tv teser. Den ena tesen r att vi r numera alla journalister. Det vi skriver och det vi bloggar ser lika snyggt ut som det som journalister skriver, vi kan ta bilder lika bra och vi kan distribuera precis lika eektivt utan tryckerier osv. ister drfr att medlen nns. Allts r alla journalJag hvdar ju tvrtom att alla

som r p sociala medier r uppe fr ngot syfte, ven journalister r uppe fr ett syfte, fr att strka sitt varumrke, fr att pua fr sina grejor, alla har ngon typ av marknadsfingssyfte som r ute, s egentligen kan man verstta i stort sett ven mig sjlv till ledarskribentsrollen, alla r ledarskribenter, jag r ocks ledarskribent. Jag skrev ju att Juholt utstts fr ett mediedrev,

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att det var som tjurfktning med en matador dr man viftade med massa skynken och slnge spjut och s vidare. frstr du? Jag: Nn mste ju kasta spjuten s kan du hjlpa dem att vrja sig sen? Paul: Ja, men det ligger ju i journalistens roll att det ska vara tillrckligt intressant s att man oavsett vilken sikt man har fr information, en annan vy eller en annan bild. fr. Uppgiften r att betjna lsaren tittaren lyssnaren s at tman fr vad man betalar Ingen betalar ju mig fr att jag bloggar, om man inte r en riktigt myglig typ. Jag: Paul: Inte direkt i alla fall, men indiriekt s har du ju.. S nr jag bloggar, r med i tv program, morgonsoor osv. s r det ju ett indirekt stt att marknadsfra mig vilket gr att jag r framgngsrik i mitt jobb och tjnar mycket pengar. jag skulle aldrig g in och marknadsfra direkt. ny form fr medietrning eller ngot annat. skulle inte falla mig in dr. Jag: Men Jag skulle inte Eller at nu har Det r kanske vlskrivet men det r ju inte journalistik, det r krnika,

g in och verkligen skriva en blogg om att jag har utvecklat en jag 10rsjubileum s nu fr ni medietrning fr halva priset, det jag pratar om det som rr mnet.

Precis, r inte det en av skillnaderna som har skett, i min uppfattning i alla fall, sedan sociala medier har blivit riktigt stora, att det blir mycket mer indirekt marknadsfring p det sttet. man kan ngonting och att bryr sig om det hr osv. Att man sljer inte direkt, utan man r mer indirekt, man visar att

Paul:

Ja, dom som r bra gr det. inte det.

Dom r bra, dom som r dliga gr

Jag: Paul:

N Dom som r riktigt bra gr det fr att det r frtjnstfullt. Dom visar I praktiskt handling vad dom gr fr nytta. Det nns en site som jag kan sga r helt jkla o nr det gller twitter och sociala medier och som motsvarar ungefr gretas konditori. Men som r ett fredme nr det gller hur man ska arbeta. Den heter Odla.nu. S fort man ska ta reda p vilket djup man ska

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stta potatis, eller hur jag ska plantera purjolk utan att frkultivera. Vad du n har fr frgestllning och googlar p den s kommer du till den hr siten. Vad r det? Jo, de gr nytta, de ger information, det nns en kunskapsbank, det nns en chatt. Allt jag har gjort I min trdgrt bygger p att jag kollat upp det p deras site. Allt nns dr. Det r ungefr det jag frsker gra med medietrningen ocks. Jag frsker sga att det hr hnder nr man kommer med argumentet  vi har brustit I vra rutiner t.ex.  Det r det kassaste argumentet du kan ha nr du gjort fel drfr att det sger ingenting om vad det r som var fel, hur du har identierat det, vad du tnker gra t det. Dessutom avpersonierar du ditt eget ansvar. Drfr skriver jag den typen av bloggar, inte ofta, en gng I mnaden kanske. [18:10] Jag fr ibland ett jkla genomslag, jag ck 11000 p ngot och ibland ganska taskigt och1300 p det senaste blogginlgget jag gjorde. Jag tycker det r ett kraftfullt och bra stt att anvnda sociala medier p. Fr mig blir det vxelvrkar[osker p ordet] Nr jag gr ut och r skitfrbannad som vanligt om t.ex. Nr det r oentlig upphandling och det bara handlar om oentlig upphandling som bara handlar om pris till slut och det r ngon kvacksalvare som fr uppdraget fr 12000 nr jag skulle ta 45000 va. D gr jag ut och sger det I dagens media och I bloggen och sger att jag aldrig mer kommer delta I en oentlig upphandling. Vad grundar jag det p? Jag: Det r vl det som ofta kallas content marketing, att det r bra innehll...? Paul: Jag har ingen fras fr det, jag ocks sdr lite halvallergisk mot ashiga fraser. Jag frsker inte slja in ngonting till dig. Jag: Paul: Nej nej.. Men jag frsker inte det, utan jag frsker bara bertta om hur jag tnker. Dom som tnker p det sttet. T.ex. Om SJ gr upp p sociala medier och verkligen tnker att det hr ska bli en mycket mer avancerad kundtjnst, vi ser p det hr 20 r I framtiden. En kundtjnst med frklaringar av olika saker som har hnt osv. Det kommer leda till att det blir mindre aggressivitet. D ar de en bra utgngspunkt. Jag har sagt till SJ att de fr passa sig fr att om de blir fr bra p kommunikation s kommer

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det skra nnu mer I gonen hur usla de r p tgen. Att de inte gr I tid, d blir det kontraproduktivt. Jag: Ja, det r intressant. Har man brjat bli bra p kommunikation s kan man aldrig backa sen. r man vldigt aktiv I sin . . . Paul: Det r vldigt mrkligt allts, jag fr ju ofta frgor om hur det gr till nr jag r med mycket. En del frgor r riktigt knppa, typ om jag fr betalt eller om jag betalar. De tror att det mste nnas ngot system I det. Men det gr det inte. Mitt system r att om man r expert eller anses vara det, d ska man vara oerhrt lttillgnglig I de frgorna. Jag vill aldrig se ngra citat eller godknna citat eller ngonting. Jag tycker att jag ska kunna det hr. Om jag missar eller gr fel s lr jag mig ngonting som jag kan lra ut till kunderna sen. Jag r vldigt ordd, jag tar allting p volley, precis allt. Jag: Paul: Ja Men jag tar aldrig ngra egna initiativ. Jag har aldrig tagit ngot initiativ att jag ska vara med ngonstans eller gra ngonting [I medier]. De fr de gra. Det betyder att om du r med mycket under en period, d har jag upplevt under de hr 14 ren, d kommer det en svacka dr du inte r med p ngra mnader. Den tycker jag r jtteskn, d jobbar jag som vanligt och bryr mig inte om det. Jag tror att om du brjar bli rdd I den situationen, I den svackan. Om du r ngon av de dr mediala statsvetarna som nns t.ex. Och blir nervs och oroar fr att du inte nns Det r jtteltt. Jag har lngre, d har du brjat f ett beroende av att synas. D blir det farligt fr det mrker journalisterna. sett det hr. Jag kan vara festrkare I det hr. Jag: Haha, det var ett bra citat, om festrkning. Det hr med per-

sonlighetsfokus, och s pratar du om att om man r en expert I ett mne s mste man vara tillgnglig. Hur jobbar man d med kommentarer I sina bloggar, det som skiljer det traditionella mot det sociala, att det kommer kommentarer och att det r interaktivt. Paul: Ja, jag ser ett system I hur det funkar. Bilden haltar lite. Men om du tnker dig Facebook som en bil, s kan den bilen ha tonade rutor, man kan ha en passagerare osv. vldigt privat. Facebook kan du hlla Jag Jag knner folk som bara har 20 vnner.

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har ngonstans mellan 2500 och 3000 vnner. Denitivt r inte alla vnner, utan det nns ven ender dr. p bilen. Du kan hlla det privat om du vill. Bloggar r p stt husvagnen, den hakar du Den ska alltid vara ppen, du kan titta in I den, du lnkar ju den, alla ser den, du kan inte hlla den privat. S dr mste du vara vldigt varumrkesmedveten, du fr inte skriva aekt, du fr inte skriva fr berusad, du mste tnka efter hela tiden. Det kommer du inte undan med. Den lnkar jag d till bilen. Sen p husvagnen har jag en cykel, och det r Twitter. Med den tar jag korta smresor p olika vgar osv. Det r 140 tecken, det r det snabba rappa som jag gillar bst egentligen. Men sen frstr jag bilden fr sen sger jag att till den cykeln [24:28] s nns en cykelkorg dr jag lgger bloggen eftersom jag lnkar den till twitter ocks. Men du frstr min tanke med hur jag interagerar med alla de hr olika. Bloggen lnkar jag jmt. Nr jag lnkar den till Facebook s fr jag en typ av kommentarer som ofta r mer knslomssiga, mer privata, folk blir argare, det blir annorlunda, lite mer amatrmssigt men det sger jag utan frakt. P Twitter blir det mer profesionellt, det blir mer Staan Dopping, det blir mer genomtnkt. Dom som r arga blir arga p ett smartare stt. Jag: Paul: Ja, man korrekturlser sina inlgg lite mer dr kanske. Ja , det r mer yrke I den delen. Jag behrskar ju alla. Men jag kan sga att jag knner mig mer hemma p twitter n vad jag gr p facebook. P facebook r det mycket mer lallande med bilder som kommer upp osv. Jag: Som jag har uppfattat det s r twitter ett mer professionellt ntverk medans facebook r mer privat. Det r klart att man Det som att vara kan vara aktiv som organisation p facebook, men d har man en annan medlemskapstyp, det r separat. annonsr I en tidning. Paul: Sen r det en annan, om du orkar, du sa ju samtal, nu fyller jag bara ver hr med grejor. Det jag brukar sga I mina trningar r att I journalistiken s ger du aldrig storyn. Det r alltid journalisten som ger storyn, det r alltid journalisten som har slutredigeringen och bestmmer hur dina uppgifter ska tas in och andra eventuella kontrahenter tas in osv. Men I sociala medier s ger du storyn. Det r den stora skillnaden, dr bestmmer

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du hur lng ska bloggen vara, hur mnga tecken, vilken argumentation, du kan anvnda den traditionella retoriska modellen dr du brjar med att frska f upp en sorts sympati och tar en mnniska I handen och fr dem genom storyn till dina slutsatser. Det kan du inte gra med journalistik, de har inte tid. Det r journalisten som styr, och de accepterar inte det, inte ens av experter. Kanske framfrallt inte av experter. Att man sitter och mstrar dem och talar om fr dem hur dispositionen ska vara. De ger storyn. Jag brukar ta ett exempel p det om nr Stina Dabrowski intervjuade Khadda I ett tlt och sger till honom: r du medveten om att du r ett skmt I arabvrlden? Han sitter ddstyst och lgger sen upp ett vilt skratt har hon berttat eftert. D knner jag att han tnkte p om han ska hugga huvet av haggan eller om hon ska f g. Genom att han inte hugger Du kan hugga huvudet Det som r s huvudet av henne s ger hon storyn.

av tuppen men du kan inte ge en sann vision.

frestande med sociala medier fr fretag och organisationer osv r att ntligen kan de bertta sin version [28:08]. ntligen kan de bygga ett varumrke s som de vill att det ska vara uppfattat av andra. De gr det frst lngsamt, med f hrare/tittare osv. Men s smningom nr det blivit varma I klderna s har de byggt upp en strre skara. Det r det som r frestande. Jag tycker att rtt mnga profeter som r ute och verkligen fr ut fretagen p det hr sttet, som r duktiga p tekniken, kanske ocks stller till det lite fr dem fr att det viktigaste r ju att tnka p vilket ml de vill uppn, hur vill de att omvrlden ska se p dem, vilka steg behver vi ta under lng tid framt behver de ta fr att komma dit. Det r ett strategiskt tnk som har jkligt lite att gra med hur man lr sig att koda, slnga in bilder och sdant som folk nu blir rika p att de lr ut. Jag: Paul: Jag: Ja precis det r en kunskap I sig. Ja. Det hr med personlighetsfokuset d, var kommer det ifrn tror du? Varfr har det blivit s? Paul: Jag: Jag Jag kan inte vara empirisk ju.. Det r jag som r genom att frga dig.

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Paul:

Frn 80talet har det satsats p en sjlvideologi som vxt ver tiden och blivit strre och strre.: den fanns inte innan, nu r det jtteviktigatt ha en image, att ha en kometkarrir, att satsa p sig sjlv, tnka p sig sjlv, utveckla sig sjlv och s vidare. Det tycker jag ck en boost med de hr dokuspa programmen. Pltsligt ck vi kndisar som bara var kndisar fr att de r kndisar. Pltsligt ck vi mnga. Frut hade vi bara Alice Timander. Som inte blev knd fr att hon var tandlkare utan fr att hon gick p premirer. Det var jtteovanligt. Folk som var knda var ngot, de var sngare eller s. Nu nns det ju en kalle anka som mlar sig sjlv bl I ansiktet osm heter ngot som Robinson Robban eller s. S blir han kndis fr det, eller fr att han stter p Att bli knd fr att bli knd. tjejer p toaletten p Spy Bar.

Att ta enorma risker. Det tror jag har pverkat andra mnniskor runtomkring, ven riktiga kndisar, till att kanske ta lite strre risker. Jag: Paul: Jag: Vad var frgan nu... Vad har du fr tes d, vad r din vinkel? Jo, det som ck mig att brja med det hr var att jag satt p Facebook dr jag umgs med mina vnner ibland. S kommer Carlsberg in och undrar om jag gillar skidor eller snowboard.. Paul: Jag: Det r fr jvligt... Ja, fr det frsta har det ingenting med l att gra. Det r en underlig grej. De beter sig som en mnniska. Jag vet ju att de inte r det. Jag vet ju att frmodligen s r de inte alls intresserade av det. Paul: Jag r ju inte nra snt dr. marknads grejor. Jag hatar ju snt. Det dr r

Om det fanns ngon intelligens I det s r De lser upp dem p

det att Carlsberg och de hr slss stenhrt fr att tvinga olika restauranger fr att ha de hr fatlen. lnga kontrakt, d str de fr stor del av lokal, skyltar, andra saker, underlgg osv. Det vet jag ju. D kan det ju vara s att de vet att det r en stor boom uppe I re. D vill de veta, bland dem som gillar oss, ker de skidor eller snowboard. Men jag tror inte att det r s, jag tror att de vill bli din kompis. frnedrande. Det r ju ungefr som att bli kompis med michelingubben va, det r ju

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Jag:

Ja, det var dr jag brjade, sen frsker jag grva I var det hr beteendet kommer ifrn.

Paul:

Fr mig r snt dr bullshit. pros nr jag sger det.

Jag r hlften mnniska hlften De Det

[33:35] Jag menar, det r att jobba

med reklam, och reklam utgr frn vra lgsta instinkter. utgr frn det som r mest egoistiskt och mest smaklst. r min grundinstllning. Jag hatar reklam.

Det hr lter som

det. ... Det r inte PR mnniskan som tnker s. PR mnniskan tnker snarare p att om man ska ut I vinter, hur mnga l kan du ta utan att du kan bli allvarligt farligt I backen? Nstan en antireklam. Tnk dig fr nu sger de. PR mnniskan [hr inte vad han sger] Sg att det r ngon som bryter armar och ben och s har de varit ute och kte fast de har druckit fr mycket l. Om ni [lbolaget] redan r ute och varnar fr det , d kan de hnvisa till det, s tnker en PR mnniska, s tnker jag I alla fall som PR kille. Jag tnker att det ska nnas sans, det ska nnas relevans. Odla.nu t.ex. De skickade p mig ngot jvla nyhetsbrev, och det brevet kan jag ju vlja, det r vldigt ltt att avst frn. andra sidan tycker jag att det r bra, jag lr mig en o annan grej. Det r s du mste nrma dig. Jag skrev det I min bok ocks. En vanlig framfusig frsljare kan stlla till ett helvete bara genom att knacka p drren och vertala ngon eller ringa ett samtal. Men med sociala medier s r de framfusiga sljarna inne I ett vardagsrum utan att ens knacka innan. Jag: Ja, det var lite det jag menade med det hr mailet jag skickade, I din bok frgade ju du om vad som hnder nr det privata blir oentligt, och jag tnke rmig att det hr r lite omvnd grej nr de hr stora fretagen och organisationernas marknadsfring som var lite sober frn brjan, den har blivit mer privat, det blir som en konvergens mellan mnniskor och fretag, de vill ocks vara personliga och kndisaktiga. Paul: Mitt stt att tnka, jag har ju inte s mnga r framt att hlla p med det hr, r att det dr r krt. Det dr r ett sidospr som kommer sjlvd. Det r reklamistiskt, det utgr frn att mnniskor r idioter. Om du dremot brjar bygga upp digitala ombudsmn eller digitala kundservice mnniskor som r mnniskor och som nns, som faktiskt svarar p dig och gr grejor. S det blir en service, att de tillfr ngot nr det blir en chatt. Utan att frhva mig, som en enda person, jobbar ju mycket s.

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Jag:

Exakt, men det hr har jag ftt som exempel av ngon annan, att han hade haft problem med sin webhost och de var s otillgngliga nr han twittrade om det, sen kom det en annan webhost och hjlpte honom med sitt problem utan att slja ngot direkt till honom och bara hjlpte.

Paul:

Det r ju fruktansvrt eektivt. Juldagen fr tv r sen tror jag det var upptckte jag att jag hade lagt ver hela mailen och s vidare p me.com fr Mac, jag ck det inte att fungera helt enkelt. Jag drog ivg ett mail till dem, inom 5 minuter kom det ett svar dr de undrade vad jag hade fr problem. Efter tv minuter ck jag svar med en frklaring I tre punkter och en upmaning att maila tillbaks och svara om du lste problemet, inte som det hr svenska nr man vidarebefordras till ngon annan hela tiden. Jag fljde instruktionerna som fungerade utmrkt, och s svarade jag med ett tack. Bra sa han, jag skulle nska att du fyllde I det Hela grejen ska vara att det ska Det r det positiva. Det r hr formulret om hur du gillade min service I det hr som skulle vidarebefordas till hans chef. sjlva grset. hjlpa, sociala medier ska hjlpa.

Ogrset, det som stjlper, det r puckad reklam

som kommer dessutom I mailform va. S fort jag fr ngot snt skriver jag ngot svidande. Jag vill inte ha det. Ingen reklam I den digitala brevldan. Jag: Nstan som nr du svarade p mitt mail dr, kndes det lite som att du misstnkte att det var ngot sdant. Paul: Jag ville bara vara sker p vad det var. Och s ville jag att du skulle vara frvissad om vem jag r. Jag: Paul: Jag: Paul: Ja, jag ville kasta ntet ganska brett med mnga infallsvinklar. Ja, jag r ju inte I den branschen liksom. Men du r nrliggande. Jag r vldigt nrliggande, men fr att terg till ditt exempel s tycker jag att de borde inte ha ngon jvla fansite som man ska gilla. t helvete med gilla, utan istllet det hr ska du tnka p om du kper detta, nu har vi ftt ett problem, eller nu har vi den grejen, nu har vi lyckats med det hr osv. Man ska knna att som gare fr man ett mervrde.

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Appendix 5: Interview Informant Four

Jag:

upplever du ett behov fr din organisation eller de organisationer du representerar att anpassa sin kommunikation till sociala medier?

Inf.4. Jag: Inf.4.

Ja. Isfall, hur, vad gr du fr att anpassa kommunikationen? Sociala medier r en kanal och dr handlar det mest om att frska f kunden att frst hur man p bsta stt kan anvnda den fr at tn ut och kommunicera. ett visst budskap och s. Bde internt och externt. Dom esta kommer itll oss fr extern PR, att de vill n utt med D frsker vi hitta den kanalen som r bst fr att n ut med det budskapet och d tycker jag att sociala medier ofta spelar en stor roll, mer n vad de esta tror.

Jag: Inf.4.

Varfr det, hur menar du? man brukar prata om att vara dr ens mlgrupp r, och fr nstan alla varumrken idag s r det sociala medier. digitalt. Det gller ven B2B fretag som ofta tycker att det r svrare at tkommunicera I dagslget har jag hittils inte trat ngon kund som eller jag rekommenderat att inte nnas dr [p sociala medier] lyssna i alla fall. Det funkar fr dom esta.

Jag: Inf.4.

Vad den strsta skillnaden p traditionella medier tycker du. Jag tycker att snabbheten r det som skiljer mest. Just nr

det gller sociala medier s upplever vi, som jobbar mycket med krishantering, att i traditionella medier har man mycket lngre betnketid. man vet att en viss tidning trycks dagen efter, det I sociala medier dremot rcker det r frst d smllen kommer. i hela vrlden.

med att ngon twittrar vad du sagt och p tv sekunder nns det S ur krishanteringssynpunkt s har man inte lngre lika lng betnketid fr att ngonting ska utvecklas till en kris utan man mste hantera det mycket snabbare. Jag: Det r vl lite av det som r interaktivt med det, att det blir snabba reaktioner? Inf.4. Ja.

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Jag:

Hur upplever du d den interaktiva aspekten av Sociala Medier i ditt arbete.

Inf.4.

I mitt arbete r det frmst att jobba fr vra kunder, men ocks ur vrt fretags synpunkt. Den interaktiva biten r ju bde en Har du vl gett dig ut, har du jttemjlighet och en stor risk.

som policy att fretaget ska besvara alla kommunikationsfrgor, vara interaktiv, diskutera med kunderna, d fr man verkligen frbereda sig p att man kan komma att f mycket skit. olika slags frgor. vilken tonalitet. [p sociala medier] Jag: Generellt sett, tycker du att de esta fretag och organisationer behver besvara alla kommentarer och s, eller? Inf.4. N, det tycker jag inte. Det nns mnga gnger sdant som... Vem gr vad. Det gller att verkligen ha beredskapsplaner fr hur man hanterar Nr uttalar man sig och i Allt sdant r A och O fr att ge sig ut dr.

Det vi gr mnga gnger i omvrldsbevakningen r att vi tittar igenom allt brus och plockar upp vad som r vrt att svara p. r det bara ngon som sagt:  blh den hr produkten r cklig snarare n konstruktiv kritik dr man faktiskt kan diskutera t.ex:  vad r det fr procenthalt i kttet? det beror lite p hur kritiken r riktad. Tar de upp vsentliga frgor som man knner att er borde f kunskap om r det denitivt vrt att lyfta upp i ett digitalt forum s att er fr ta del av det. Jag: Inf.4. Vad anvnder ni fr verktyg p bevakningen? Jag har gjort lite egna varianter, jag har testat nstan alla sociala mediebevakningsverktyg och jag har kommit fram till att inget verktyg har allt. S jag gr vldigt mycket egna bevakningar Det r p forum och med ordkombinationer och ord i RSS, en privat och en fr jobbet. D brukar man snappa upp nstan allt. Facebook som det kan vara svrt att snappa upp. Jag: Inf.4. Jag: Ja just det, Facebook r inte s skbart. N precies, det kommer vl, men inte riktigt n. N. [05:50] Knner du att de organisation som du representerar

har ndrat sttet som de framstller sig sjlva p sedan sociala medier har blivit s jttepopulra?

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Inf.4.

Jag tror att man har blivit mycket mer medveten och att man inser att det gr liksom inte att smita lngre. Transparansen kar med sociala medier, man mste redogra fr vad fretaget hller p med, man mste redogra vad fr policys man har. Det blir en ganska stor HR frga, vad fr medarbetarna kommunicera, med sekretessavtal osv. frgor. Medvetenheten har lyfts p vldigt mnga plan om vad man internt har fr struktur och regler fr sdana

Jag:

Finns det andra stt det har ndrats p, hur de framstller fretagets identitet? Tror du att det har ndrat sig?

Inf.4.

Ja, att det successivt gr mer och mer mot transparans r en fryttning som krver en hgre frstelse fr kommunikation, speciellt digital kommunikation p hgre ledningsniv. befattningar i organisationern heller. Det gr inte lngre att lmna ver det ansvaret p personer med lgre Det gller att de [hgre Det r ett beattningarna] ska frst hur snabbt det kommuniceras och vad man kan sga och vad som gr hem i vilken kanal. ngonting bra eller dligt. agendan. eektivt stt at tmta, man fr direkt ett gensvar om man gr Den frgan har hamnat hgre p Det knns som att chefspositioner och VD r mer

medvetna och bengna om hur fretaget ska arbeta och r mer involverade de frgorna nu. Jag: Kan du se ngon koppling mellan den typen av frndring och konceptet brand personality? Inf.4. Jag: Jag frstr inte? Du sger att man mste vara mer transparent och mer ppen, tror du att det frstrker tankar om brand personality? Inf.4. Ja, det tror jag. Skull eman titta p vad fretagen har fr och Man vill framst som ett sjysst

vrdeord eller visioner s tror jag att saker som  ppenhet  rlighet ligger hgre upp nu. fretag.

Det kan nog mycket vl ha kopplingar med hela mod-

erniseringen av kommunikationen i och med att det blivit digitalt. Jag: Inf.4. Det r vl sjlva det sociala i det? Ja. Det r vldigt viktigt att nnas ven digitalt fr dem som Det hr med att sga att vi besvarar

jobbar med kundkontakt.

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ingenting digitalt, ni fr ringa till kundtjnst. f konsumenter som kper det digitalt. missnjet vxer med klagoml och liknande. Jag:

Det r vldigt

D riskerar man att

Hur pverkar det hur du jobbar mot dina kunder, vad sger du till dom?

Inf.4.

Vi ska ju vara en rdgivare till kunden.

Jag ser vldigt mnga Mnga fretag har

frdelar med digitalt, men ocks riskerna.

svrt med mtningar och sdant. Mycket av min tid lggs p rdgivande roll gentemot hur man anvnder kanalerna p rtt stt, vilket budksap ska till vilken kanal. landen som r frlegade idag. det hela? Hur anpassar vi pressmedeHur kan vi modernisera Vi tnker p Hur nr vi till den mlgruppen

som inte lngre publicerar vidare dem.

Ska vi istller livesnda via bambuser, eller ska vi

lgga ut ett videoklipp med intervju med VD'n. dr man bara matar i en nde. Jag:

hur vi kan n fram istllet fr som i de traditionella kanalerna

Generellt sett, vad tycker du behvs fr att gra ett pressmeddelande till ngot socialt?

Inf.4.

Pressmeddelanden kan ha en funktion men de har tappat i vrde. Just nr man vill ut till [traditionell?] media s vill de ha unikt material. Kanske bildmaterial, inforgraphics, statistik eller grak. De vill ha ngot mer matnyttigt. Kan man som fretag leverera det till dem s har du mycket bttre chans att n fram n genom ett tradinellt pressmeddelande som ser likadant ut fr alla som fr det. Kan du ge dem ngot unikt och gr s att de slipper gra lika mycket jobb men nd visualiserar din pong s brukar det vara mycket mer framgngsrikt.

Jag: Inf.4.

r det mer personligt? Jo, men det kan det absolut vara. Journalister som verkligen gr

sitt jobb bortser ofta frn pressmeddelanden, de kan se en vinkel i det, men de vill ringa personligen och prata med kontaktpersonen fr att f egna citat. exklusivt, ngot eget. De vill ha en unik vinkel, ngonting Det tnket, att de vill ha nHar de rd s skickar de en egen fotograf

istllet fr att ta pressbilderna. ngonting exklusivt.

got eget, det r mycket enklare att slja in till media om de fr

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Jag:

Genemot den stora massan d, som du sa att pressmeddelanden r lite frelgade, gr man direkt ut till stora massan med sdana typer av saker d via sina sociala kanaler?

Inf.4.

Det kan man absolut gra. My Newsdesk till exempel.

vi har anvnt mnga olika kanaler. Det r samma sak i pressmeddeDet gr ju

landen, man kan bifoga tabeller, bildmaterial osv. vilken kanal man vljer, press, webb osv. material.

att poppa till det, men man mrker att man mste anpassa efter De vil ha olika sorters  Blir Mnga gnger frgar vi vad de skulle vilja ha.

det enklare fr er om vi skickar med bilder snarare n att ni tar pressfoton osv. Jag: r det mest en sprklig skillnad p det som ska i print och det som ska p webben? Inf.4. N, det handlar ven om material. Mnga gnger r det snabbare puckar i det som ska upp p webben. Ja eller Nej, ingen betnktetid. De vill ha vldigt konkret, det r ocks fr Ofta vill de ha mycket mer

bilder, kortare texter och mer bildmaterial. komma fortare ut med en nyhet. ocks.

att det tar lngre tid att skriva ngot och p webben vill man Sen kan man flja upp med Filmmaterial I de fall man ett lngre reportage i printversionen dagen drp. digitala tidningar har jttemycket rrligt.

har bra rrligt material s r det ofta vlkommet ocks. Jag: Inf.4. r det ngon skillnad i hur man engagerar folk i sociala kanaler? Det r det dr med transparansen. Det r vldigt tydligt vad som gr hem eller inte nr det r digitalt. retweets eller likes du fr. Du ser direkt hu rmnga Du Var Det r vldigt snabb respons.

ser hur mnga gnger det har delats eller skickats vidare vilket man inte riktigt kan med vanliga tidningar och annonser. folk positivia eller negativa nr de lste den? tydligare digitalt. kommunikation. Jag: S det r mycket lttare att mta, d r det klart att mtningen pverkar hur man beter sig sen till slut? Inf.4. Ja, det tror jag absolut. SJ skrev ngon gng  puss o kram i Det blir mycket

Man fr extremt bra statistik som jag verklige

tycker att har en stor frdel i det digitala nr man ska mta

slutet p sina tweets. D ck de genast svar frn folk som tyckte

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att det var extremt konstigt. Svar som  har ni ingen policy,  hur lr ni upp era medarbetare,  vad puss, jag r frbannat fr mitt tg inte har kommit. Det r klart att man kan ha verseende [17:03] med snedtramp men det kan f vldigt stora eekter, men det dr var nd ganska oskyldigt. Jag: Inf.4. Ja, visst. Det r klart att det r som det som hnde p UD igr dr de had uttalat sig om ngot konstverk. Sen gick de ut och trodde Den att deras twitterkonto hade blivit hackat, men det visade sig att det var en medarbetare som misstog kontot fr sit tprivata. dr mnskliga faktorn nns ju alltid. att ta bort. I sociala medier fr det

ofta strre eekter, det gr s snabbt och det r vldigt svrt Ngon hinner ju alltid ta en printscreen och skicka till tidningen innan ngon har hunnit radera. Det hnger vldigt mycket p mnniskorna bakom och hur synkade dom e med fretages vrderingar, regler och policys. fretaget. Jag: Mmm, blir det viktigare d med de hr vrdeorden, fr de en mycket strre vikt fr alla medarbetare, inte bara i marknadsfringsoch PR avdelningarna? Inf.4. Ja, jag tror det. Har man vl sagt att vissa vrdeord ska genomsyra sin verksamhet och ppenhet r det som gller s kan man inte gmma sig nr det blir kris. Man kan inte hnvisa till kundtjnst eller att ngot r hemligt osv. Jag: Inf.4. Varfr kan man inte det? Man vet att det kommer f bakslag. jttepuckade ledord: En annan PR byr hade Att de verkligen andas

 det r enklare att slja en lgn n att

alltid tala sanning eller ngot liknande. Jag: Inf.4. mm Sen fr det sjlvklart eekt p hur man ser p deras kunder och deras varumrken och vilka som jobbar dr. Vrdeorden r allts jtteviktiga fr vad du vill att andra ska tycka om ditt fretag. Sen stmmer det inte alltid, men du stter en niv, sen mste du leva upp till den. I sociala medier har t.ex. medborgarjournalistiken ftt strre genomslag s att en ensam bloggare kan

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snappa upp att ett fretags vrdeord inte stmmer verrens med hur fretaget upplevs. Det gller att frmedla samma anda i D all kommunikation. Annars r det bara ord p ett papper. tappar man vldigt stor trovrdighet. Jag: Det som gjorde mig intresserad frn brjan var att carlsberg kom in p min facebook feed och stllde frgan:  gillar du skidor eller snowboard och jag undrade vad kopplingen var egentligen. Det har du ngon kndes annorlunda fr hur de skulle bete sig frut. tanke om det? Inf.4. Just det hr med att skapa engageman r det som mnga fretag brottas med. likes. Mnga gr en plan fr vad de ska skriva p Sen mter de kommentarer och facebook, vilken dag, vilken tid.

De frsker mrka vilka mnen de ska kommunicera, vad Vem vill prata om frskringar p soDet r det mest osexiga som gr D fr

intresserar vr mlgrupp. Jag jobbade tidigare p ett frskringsbolag. Det var skitsvrt. att prata om. ciala medier Det nns ju inte.

Det r vldigt lg engagemangsprodukt.

vi prata risker, eller erfarenheter och mjligheter med resande. Jag: Inf.4. mm D fr vi stlla in oss pe det samtalsmnet. Det r ingen som Om

vill prata juridiska termer, hur fungerar min frskring osv.

man inte gr mnet attraktivt s skapar man inget engagemang. Just de hr produkterna som int r HM eller Coca Cola har en strre utmantn. Jobbar man med skrivare eller en serviceprodukt t.ex. Man mste hitta sin niche [inom kommunikation] . Mnga fretag tampasfortfarande med att hitta niverna. sig fram helt enkelt. skert ngon riktning som passar bra. sponsrar ngot skidevent eller ngonting. inte nr de stller frgan sdr. konsument. Jag: Om en kompis hade frgat hade jag skert tyckt det var intressant att ge mig in i en sn diskussion. knns det som. men de r ju inte intresserade av att starta ett samtal med mig, de vill ju starta samtal externt S som jag har tnkt p det r att det blir Man fr testa

Mter man under hela tiden s hittar man Nr carlsberg frgade Men det framgr ju

om du gillar snowboard eller skidor s r det skert fr att de Man kanske tycker att det r

kul att de frgade, men det har ju ingen koppling till mig som

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mer och mer personligt och fretag personer, som individer. ifrn.

beter sig mer och mer som

Jag frsker lista uta var det kommer

Det kanske bara r fr att man mste starta samtal och

det r bara personer som kan samtala. Inf.4. Vi mrker ju att bde person-pr fr fretagsledare och enskilda personer vxer jttemycket. Person-Pr planer efterfrgas mer, det nns vldigt mnga som brjar inse vikten av att det gr inte lngre att vara anonym som VD eller som talesperson fr ett fretag. Man mste som person skapa engagemang, att bara svara p journalistens frgor eller frmedla fretaget, det r inte s intressant om inte du som person r intressant. ing n hur aktien gr. mycket mer. Jag har mrkt att det Sdant mrks numera r mycket mer intressant vad grundarna har fr vrderVad gr de p sin fritid? Jag tror att mnga som suttit i styrelserum hela Fr dom har det nog gtt rtt fort. Mnga av

livet r vldigt ovana med att kommunicera med slutkonsumenten genom medierna. personligt. dem vill inte vara personliga, de vill inte mixa sin yrkesroll med Det blir ofta krav p att man personligen ska leva Om efter varumrkets regler om man har en hgre befattning. s kan man som hgt uppsatt inte kra en lyxbil privat. Jag: Inf.4. Jag: Inf.4. Jag: mm Fr du mste leva efter fretagets vrderingar. Om det inte r en elbil. N, precis. S att det stller hgre krav p individer.

man allts jobbar med SL som driver hllbarhetspolicy fr miljn

Knner du att trenden nu r att individerna i fretaget ska representera fretaget som individer eller nns det ven versionen att fretagets egensignerade kommunikation r mer personlig?

Inf.4.

Jo men det tror jag.

Det r vldigt mycket bjuda in till samtal Eller rsta vilken av dessa Man lter konIstllet

och att bjuda in till att terkomma med feedback. Man lter kundambassadrer betatesta produkter. sumenten spela en strre roll. fr att ha en monolog. tre nya produkter som r bst s behller vi den.

Man bjuder in till dialog.

Det kan vara fejkat och det kan vara

rligt menat att man vill produktutveckla frn konsumenten.

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Jag:

Den frndringen, tror du den bara kommer frn mtningar av konsumenterna eller kan den komma frn ngon annanstans ifrn ocks?

Inf.4.

Jag tror p en humanisering av hela samhllet just nu och det gller att ligga i framkant om man vill hnga med. Jag vet ju att jag sjlv som konsument vljer produkter utifrn bde fretagets vrderingar, hur vl de lyckas leva upp till dem och hur kommunikativa de r. tjnst har inte jag idag. Fretag dr man mste ringa till kunKan man chatta med kundtjnst och Kan man skapa

f svar p en minut, sna fretag vljer jag. uppgifter s vljer jag det frsta.

ett enkelt konto med facebook connect istllet fr att fylla i 400 Jag tror att konsumentens krav Mnga gnger s gr jag inte r tvingar fretagen att hja ribban.

och handlar i butik lngre utan jag handlar frn e-handel. pass mnga alternativ. vlja p fem butiker.

e-handeln krnglig s vljer jag ngot annat eftersom det nns s Om jag vill handla skor p ntet kan jag Man vljer den smidigaste lsningen. Jag

tror att konsumentmakten blir strre vilket stller hgre krav p fretagen att hnga med fr att motsvara kundens frvntningar. Tlamodet r mycket mindre nu. kommer inte tillbaks. Jag: Verkligen, jag tror att jag r uttmd p frgor. Jag stnger av. Hittar man inte det man sker p en webbsida s lmnar man den vldigt vldigt snabbt och

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Appendix 6: Interview Julia

Jag:

Upplever du ett behov I din organisation eller de organisationer du representerar ett behov av att anpassa sin kommunikation till sociala medier?

Julia: Jag: Julia:

Ja, dom behver anpassa den lite grann ja. Hur gr du det generellt sett? Fr det frsta behver det vara lite mindre innifrn och ut n vad traditionell sndarkommonikation r. Man mste tnka lite p att man mste ha en mottagare som ska vara intresserad av det hr [det som ska kommuniceras], och s ska man korta ner det ganska radikalt samt anvnda mer lmer och bild. Det r vl de enkla punkterna skulle jag sga.

Jag:

Hur upplever du det interaktiva I det, at tman fr svar p tal och s.

Julia:

Om man ska bredda det nnu mer s mste man rusta sin organisation en aning mer nr man kommunicerar I sociala medier n I traditionella medier. Man mste vara beredd p att om du anvnder mediet ingr du ett dialogavtal med mottagaren. S du mste vara beredd p att ha tid till att svara ocks.

Jag:
[tekniska

Har du lrt dig det sjlv?

problem bryter inspelningen som brjar om, men svaret p frgan var JA]

Jag: Julia:

Vi tar det igen, hur upplever du det interaktiva? Man mste vara beredd p att det blir interaktion, det r oftast Julia: pongen med att kommunicera I de medierna. D fr man rusta or ganisationen, man fr vara beredd p att man inte r frdig nr man trycker p send som det r nr man skickar ut reklam eller ett pressmeddelande. frvntar dig och vill ha. Nr du trycker p send, d brjar jobbet, du mste ha tid att svara fr det r det du

Jag:

Och det hade du lrt dig sjlv?

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Julia:

Ja, precis, men sen r det ju s att jag r konsult och representerar massa olika organisationer hr. Det r vldigt olika fr olika fretag. Hr r vi ju alla kommunikationskonsulter s hr kan ju alla det hr, men om jag r konsult t ett fretag som aldrig har jobbat I de hr medierna s r det en lite annan situation. Man lr sig tillsammans med de olika fretagen utifrn de frutsttningar som de har kan man sga.

Jag:

Ja, precis. Nr fretag fr inlgg p sociala medier, hur tycker du att de ska behandlas I allmnhet?

Julia:

Om man inte bara tar det enklaste att svara snabbt, med respekt, och med sanning; s tycker jag att de ska behandlas som mjligheter till marknadsfring egentligen.

Jag: Julia:

Spelar det ngon roll om det r b2b fretag eller mot privat. Det r jttesvrt med b2b fretag tycker jag I sociala medier. Det nns mycket frre bra exempel p projekt eller kanmpanjer dr det har funkat I b2b. Det r mycket lttare mot direktkonsument n mot b2b. Jag tror att det r ungefr samma sak men att det r lttare mot direktkonsument.

Jag: Julia:

Men det r viktigt I alla fall att hlla koll p utomstende inlgg. Precis, om man bara ska gra en sak s r det vl det. Man ska brja med att hlla lite koll.

Jag: Julia: Jag: Julia:

Vad tycker du att det beror p? Vad fr ngonting? Att det r viktigt att hlla koll. Drfr att det kan g vldigt fort att stjlpa ett fretags frtroende I sociala medier. Det vrsta man kan gra r att ignorera och att inte bemta.

Jag: Julia:

Fortstt... [03:55] Jag tror att dels frlorar du mjligheten att lra dig ngonting om dina konsumenter som kan vara jttevrdefulla insikter fr hur du ska forma dina kampanjer, du kan spara pengar p att hlla koll. Det r folk som pratar om ditt varumrke. Du kan sno det dom sger och sen rikta din kommunikation rtt.

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Det r dumt at tinte hlla kol, dessutom r det farligt. I synnerhet om du r ett kontroversiellt fretag, fr det kan startas en storm p ngot digitalt forum som sedan kan vara avgrande fr er frsljning eller rykte p sikt. Du kan vinna p att ha koll och du kan frlora p att inte ha koll. Jag: Julia: Skiljer sig din personliga sikt frn den du har proessionellt? Nej, inte alls faktiskt, och det tror jag r vldigt viktigt att ha med sig. Jag tror att det r vldigt f som r enbart representanter fr fretag idag. Idag yter det ihop otroligt mycket. Idag s r du ett medium, du r en konsument, och du r en avsndare. Grnserna har suddats ut dr. Jag: Knner du att dom organisationer som du representerar ndrar sttet som de framstller sig sjlva p sedan sociala medier har blivit s jttepopulra? Julia: Ja, det skulle jag sga. Jag tycker att en del gr det vldigt bra, men en del gr det mindre bra, men de som gr det bra dom har frsttt att dom mste ha en lite mer informell ton och approach I sociala medier. Det kan de vinna vldig vldigt mycket p. De som gr det mindre bra r dom som fortstter p exakt samma stt, eller ltsas att de har frsttt och har en lite mer informell ton, men dom gr det inte p riktigt, det funkar inte. Jag: Julia: Vad r det som r p riktigt d? Det som r p riktigt r att man dljer ingenting lngre, man kan inte dlja ngonting. Dessutom kan man inte ignorera ngonting lngre, det var lite det vi var inne p innan. Startar ngon en grupp eller twitterstorm eller skickar ut en insidevideo frn din fabrik elle rliknande s r det ingen id att frneka det. Det enda du kan gra r att svara direkt p samma forum dr det har startats. Jag: Kan du se ngon koppling mellan den typen av frndring, allts att man blir mer informell och ppen till konceptet brand personality. Julia: Jag: Och vad lgger du I det? Ja, typ det hr med vrdeord och s hr man har I fretag.

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Julia:

S du menar att man skulle ha tvingats ndra ven vergripande vrdeord I fretag?

Jag: Julia:

Ja.. Ja, det tror jag, fr jag tror att det som h nt r att tidigare har man haft en socialmediepolicy, en kommunikationspolicy, man har haft guidelines. Jag tror att de som gr bst och har kommit lngst r de som har integrerat det hr. Sociala medier r inte en kanal lngre, utan det r en del av all kommunikation, allts det pverkar brand identity ocks, hur man kommunicerar I alla kanaler. S det tror jag att dr har det tryckts p lite.

Jag:

Hur pverkar det hur du jobbar? Frsker du f dina kunder att gra s?

Julia:

Jag har alltid det perspektivet, det gr inte att inte ha det om man jobbar med kommunikation, den strsta delen av kommunikation idag r att se till att ngon hjlper dig att sprida ngonting eller tolka ngonting eller lsa ett problem.

Jag:

Hur mycket tror du att sjlva tekniken som sociala medier bygger p styr dom hr frndringarna som du beskriver, med teknik s menar jag inte bara datachips utan ven sjlva mjukvaran, infrastrukturen som man mste frhlla sig till.

Julia:

Det r ganska mycket, jag skulle ha sagt tvrtom fr ngra r sen. Jag skulle ha sagt att det r samma mnskliga drivkrafter och beteenden som driver det. Men nu skulle jag sga att tekniken blivit s frnad s att ven ngon med vldigt lg kunskap om teknik eller datorvana behrskar tekniken I stor utrstrckning. En pensionr kan ju idag hitta p, skapa och sprida ngonting. P samma stt kan en ettring frst sig p en iphone. S idag har det extremt stor betydelse fr demokratiseringen av kommunikation.

Jag:

D tnker jag ocks p att det hr att Facebook bytte till Timeline, det gr vl jttestor skillnad antar jag?

Julia:

[09:10] Extremt stor skillnad, som alltid s mts det frst med skepsis och sedan ser man mjligheterna med det och s ppnas det en vrld av nya mjligheter nr man frstr.

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Jag:

I anvndaravtalet fr man inte gra direkfrsljning direkt p Facebook.

Julia:

N, De ndrar vldigt ofta p Facebook, det r det svraste att frhlla sig till som kommunikatr inom digitala medier. Facebook avtal. Det som r intressant dr r att de har gtt frn att vara torg till galleria. Frr stod alla bara och skrek t alla hll ppet, men nu har de frnat det s nu gr du in I sm shoppar, p Facebook ocks. Dr mter du olika varumrken och fretag. Det har blivit som en business med smbutiker. tjnst. S man kan inte st och skrika lngre. S knns det. De reglerar allting s att ingen kan tjna pengar gratis p deras

Jag:

Vi kan hoppa tillbaks till det hr med informell kommunikation, kan du bertta mer om dom som gr p fel stt. Vad r de de gr som r fel?

Julia:

Det strsta felet r att om man tar politiken fr ngra r sedan som exempel. Den som hller samma tal p youtube som de precis hade p ett torg, och undrar sedan varfr det inte fr era miljoner views. Man mste ha kortare klipp, mer kontroversiellt, sammanfattningar, vad r krnan, tesen t.ex. Du mste ha ngot dr du gr bort dig elller utmanar ngon. Samma format som funkar I radio, TV eller tidningar fungerar inte p samma stt p sociala medier. Det gr att verstta I reklamvrlden ocks, banners och tidningasnnonser fungerar inte. Fel format, innifrn och ut, vanlig kommunikation direktpublicerat digitalt r inte eektivt. Det r det strsta problemet tycker jag. Det brjar folk lra sig nu. Nu skulle jag sga att det strsta felet r att verskatta folks intresse fr ens produkt. Du mste ju ge ngonting ocks. Jag har 50 samtal I veckan med ngon som sger att:  vi har spelat in vr vd hr nu nr han berttar om vr rsredovisning, det borde vi vl kunna f 50-60tusen views p? Nej det fr man inte, vad fr man ut av den egentligen? Sen nns de dom som verskattar dialog:  vi lgger ut frgor p vr Facebooksida och det r ingen som svarar s frgar jag tillbaks vad det r de frgar om. D svarar de:  Ja, om de vill ha en ny smak p den hr lsken eller inte suck. Konsumenten har blivit mycket krsnare. Det rcker inte med lite dialog utan du mste ju f ut ngonting. Frn att det fr ngra r sedan funkade att enbart ge ut produkter s funkar det inte lngre. Nu vill man vara med och pverka ett fretag p riktigt om det ska vara intressant. Steget efter att ge

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bort produkter var att man ck bestmma hur produkter skulle se ut, vad de skulle ha fr frpackning med mera. Nu r det p riktigt, nu vill man in I fretagets uppbygnad, pverka leverantrsled, pverka policys eller se till att det gr rtt till. Det r det som r intressant nu. Det r de riktigt modiga fretagen som vgar och frstr pongen med det. Jag: [13:16] Jag har ett exempel p ett fretag som frgar om jag gillar skidor eller snowboard. Fr mig r det en frga som jag kanske hade hoppat p att diskutera med en kompis, men inte med ett fretag. Vad tror du om det? Julia: Jag: Varfr dom gr det? Varfr dom gr det och vad det r som gr att jag uppfattar det som underligt. Julia: Frst tror jag att frgan r stlld p fel stt, det dr r inte en ja eller nej frga. Man sger inte skidor punkt. Det r intressant om man svarar skidor fr att. Till exempel. Frmodligen r det inte det de r ute efter egentligen. De vill frmodligen kunna sga att x antal gillar snowboard bttre n skidor, gissar jag. Jag: Kanske, men det var ju ingen sn dr man klickar ja eller nej. De la upp det som ett inlgg p Facebook som man kunde kommentera p eller lika osv. Julia: Varfr det r konstigt, det vet jag inte varfr du tycker. Jag tror att det r ett ganska vanligt stt att frga fr att testa att f lite interaktion.. Det hr var jag ju lite inne p tidigare att det rcker inte riktigt lngre, att stlla en ja eller nej frga p det sttet gr inte hem lngre. Det r nog inte att folk tycker det r konstigt som, folk r trtta p det. Man undrar varfr de frgar det, det ska vl dom skita I, varfr ska jag bertta det fr dig? Dremot gissar jag att om de hade gett lite sammanhang typ  vi gr en underskning I norden och ska se vilket land som gillar skidor mest I norden s att man knner sig delaktig I ngonting s kanske man hade varit med. D hade de haft ppna kort om vad de hller p med. Det krvs lite mer n s helt enkelt. Jag: Fr mig [15:47], det jag vill skriva om r att det knns som om fretag brjar bete sig mer och mer som mnniskor, som individer p ngot stt. Jag vet inte var det kommer ifrn. Kommer det

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ifrn tekniken?

Kommer det frn publiken, frn anvndarna,

ngon sorts moral eller etik som gr att man mste vara s. Eller r det frn kommunikationsarbetarnas sida. Julia: Jag: Julia: Som sger att det mste vara s? Ja! jag tror att det var lite det som jag var inne p frut att det r svrt att dra grnsen nu. Nr r man proessionell och nr r man privat. Nu kan ju pages kommunicera som personer, tekniken har ju gjort det. Du kan ju skicka meddelande som en page, frut kunde du inte det. D var det en gruppfunktion som byggde p att en personlig anvndare startade en grupp som d var fretagets oentliga prol. Nu har ju det frsvunnit s nu mste man inte fronta lngre. Det har blivit vldigt svrt, alla r ju mnniskor. Det r vldigt svrt att inte kommunicera som en mnniska nr man helt pltsligt gr detsamma p jobbet som man gr I alla andra sammanhang privat. Alla r s vana vid tekniken vid det hr laget. Det hr har jag inget belgg fr, men erfarenhetsmssigt s tycker jag att de som sitter p den positionen p ett fretag ofta r dem som gillar de sociala och digitala medierna mest. Det r ju ocks en frutsttning fr att kunna gra det okej eller bra. Ibland r det inte rtt person I fretaget, dvs. Den som har bst koll p tonalitet och vergripande ml med kommunikationen samt vergripande strategi p sikt r inte alltid den som r ansvarig fr sociala medier I fretaget. Ofta r det en ganska ung person som r duktig p facebook och twitter som har erbjudit sig att ocks ta hand om de sakerna p jobbet fr att de tycker det r kul. Frut var det vanligt at det var praktikanter som satt och gjorde detta. Man trodde frut att sociala medier krvde ett teknikunnande snarare n ett kommunikationskunnande. Det kan vara en del I det tror jag. Jag: Men det r en annan sorts kommunikation n det tradionella sndar-mottagar perspektivet? Julia: Jag: Mm. Tror du att det kommer ifrn [18:25] . . . jag tnker mig att

det kommer huvudsakligen frn ngon av de tre stllen jag sa tidigare, men jag vet inte vad som pressar hrdast. Var tror du den hrdaste pressen kommer ifrn?

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Julia: Jag: Julia: Jag: Julia:

Vad hade du?... kommunikationsbyrerna... eller? Eller anvndarna eller tekniken, infrastrukturen.. D skulle jag nog sga att det r . . . ja det r jttesvrt. Det r klart att allt hnger ihop. Ja, men jag tror att det r mer en kombo av anvndare och infrastruktur, men andra sidan s r ju alla kommunikatrer p kommunikationsbyrerna ocks anvndarna. Drfr blir det lite svrt. Du kan inte vara rdgivare utan att vara anvndare.

Jag:

S du tnker dig att de som r kommunikationsansvariga fr sociala medier tar med sig den hr moralen frn sitt privata anvndande in I sitt proessionella anvndande?

Julia:

Ja, det tror jag. Det r jag vertygad om. Det hr med att vara expert p sociala medier har frsvunnit lite eftersom det har brjat integreras I den allmnna kommunikationen. Fr ngra r sedan s var det ett lika med tecken mellan att vara ung och ha de hr expertkunskaperna om sociala medier. [20:55] Det var verkligen ett generationsglapp dr. De som satte p kundsidan och bestmde hur man skulle kpa upp kommunikationskonsulthjlp de anvnde inte sociala medier sjlva vilket gjorde att det blev mnga kids som gav rd. D r man informell, d r man det som du r ute efter, jag tror det kan hnga ihop dr.

Jag:

Det verkar som att de esta fretag tycker att det handlar om att engagera anvndarna, men det som jag knner inte alltid fungerar r att nr man vl har engagerat dem s mste man fortstta engagera. [20:45] Stller man en frga som Carlsberg gjorde s vill man f ett terkoppling p sitt svar. Annars faller det platt?

Julia:

Precis, det hr r svrare n andra tagande som kommunikationsplaner och reklamplaner eller vad du nu har gjort fr ngonting. Det hr r ett pgende lngsiktigt arbete som inte brjar och inte tar slut. Det r det som r den stora utmaningen. Nsta steg I all fretagskommunikation r att bli en form av sammhllbyggare, att ta ansvar, inte bara fr ditt nromrde utan fr vrlden I stort. Det r det som krvs av fretag idag. D brjar det bli intressant p riktigt. Det r som vi pratade om tidigare, man br bjuda in konsumenten till att prata om riktiga frgor istllet

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fr huruvida man gillar skidor eller snowboard. Snarare br man t.ex. frga:  Vra snowboards tillverkas av det hr materialet I den hr fabriken, vi ger tillbaka s hr mycket pengar till det nromrdet fr att... Det r de frgorna som kommer bli relevanta att visa upp och prata om. Inte en ja och nej frga om en smak. Jag: Jag har brjat knna att kommunikationstnket bland proessionella brjar g ihop lite med vanlig beteendevetenskap p grund av det hr sociala I det. Kommunikationen slutar alltmer skilja sig frn vanlig mnsklig kommunikation, som mellan mig och dig nu till exempel. S var det inte med de traditionella medierna. Kommunikationen blir luddigare p ngot stt. Julia: Vad pratade vi om, du sa att att kommunikationsvetenskap brjar bli mer beteendevetenskap. Det stmmer tycker jag. [24:28] Jag: Ja, det r kanske det sociala som kommit in som gr att det blir s? Julia: Exakt. Det som de fretag jag tycker r duktigast har frsttt r hur de ska anvnda kraften de fr av att engagera anvndarna. Nr du fr deras ra fr du ven viljan att gra ngonting. Det r supersvrt. Det var lttare frut. Om du lyckas med det, att samla ihop stora mngder mnniskor, d har du nstan ett ansvar att anvnda de resurserna till ngonting. D kan man pverka I s extremt stor utstrckning. De som r bst tycker jag r dem som hittar ngot stt att anvnda kraften p. Skitsamma snowboard eller skidor. Dremot, om du har ngra hundra tusen anvndare kan du uppmana dem till rtt sak. D kan du pverka samhllet p riktigt. Till exempel s har McDonalds en halv miljon gter om dagen. Om de gr en frndring I hur de bemter gsterna, eller byter till ekologiskt kae, det ansvaret r ju p riktigt. Det tror jag vi kommer se mycket mer av. De som ligger I framkant kommer dra nytta av det hr, nr de samlat ihop sina anvndare kommer de se till att de gr ngonting bra ihop med dem. Jag: Julia: Desto strre man r desto svrare mste det vara. Men jag tycker... jag tycker att du har en pong. Dr kan man sga att anvndarna har lrt sig p ngot stt att de har tillgng till fretag nu. De vill lra knna ngon I sociala medier. D vill man lra knna fretagen ocks. D hnger det ihop dr. Om du

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dljer ngot fr en vn s r det inte okej. Frsker du pracka p ngon ngot s r det inte okej. Stller du en frga och gr s r det inte heller okej. Samma spelregler blir det ju, det har du p ett stt rtt I. D r det vl s att anvndaren ocks blir lika besviken p ett fretag som man blir p en vn som man tror bttre om. Jag: S du menar att det r de vanliga sociala reglerna som gller mellan mnniskor som brjar glla mellan mnniska och fretag ocks? Julia: Jag: Julia: Ja. Ja det r ju ngot sdant jag frsker komma fram till. D nns det ju ett gammalt hrligt begrepp inom retorik och loso som heter vir bonus arestotoles.. D r det vl det. verkar. God man, mnniska. D r det fretagens ideal numera isfall.

Man ska vara ngon form av sunt frnuft individ oavsett vad det Nu brjar jag tnka p business p business istllet... jaja, sidospr.. Jag: Det spelar ju ingen roll fr min uppsats om vi pratar om business to business eller inte. Julia: Ja, det r sant. Om man brjar tnka p det lngsiktigt s ndras ju frutsttningarna fr vilka det r som kommer tjna pengar och p vad. [29:20] Jag: Julia: Jag: Julia: Jag: S det r ngonting med beteendeetiken som frndras? Mm Reciprocitet har jag tnkt p ocks. Exakt Ja.. jag r klar med min intervju.

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