• Understand the challenges that social media brings to organizations
• Understand the underlying theory from curriculum about communities, social networking and corporate online communication/ creation of authenticity online
• Apply these models to selected business cases in case work and in miniprojects

Customers and consumers spend more and more time online in social networks, reading blogs, writing status messages for their friends and family, watching YouTube videos - and doing what is called “social search” on products, services and brands - simply asking their friends or peers for advice. Customers help each other with information, reviews, knowledge and news locally and globally. Trust between peers is rising - and trust in authorities is deteriorating.

So how can corporations thrive in this changing media landscape? If campaign messages are no longer enough and if sharing, participating and customer driven dialogue are new key elements in communication online, then what are the challenges to marketing campaigns, to segmentation and to branding? And what are the new possibilities - if any - we get with social media?

The scientific research on social media has grown during the last decade, but theacademic world has only recently begun to study the implications on social media, social networks and word of mouth in companies relationships with customers. The course will be based primarily on theories on online communitiesand social networks, including classic marketing areas like consumer behaviour, branding, advertising adapted to the topic of this course.

The main topics of the course are:

- Social media in organizations

- Communicating “to” or “with” stakeholders

- Branding and co-creation: conflict or synergy

- Marketing through social networks

- Word Of Mouth Marketing and Viral campaigns

- Future competencies in the marketing

Kotzinets et al. (2010), Networked Narratives: UnderstandingWord-of-Mouth Marketing in Online Communities, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 74, (March 2010), pp. 71–89

Fűller, Johann (2010), “Refining virtual co-creation from a consumer perspective,” California Management Review, Vol. 52, No. 2, pp. 98-122

Bernoff & Li (2008), Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

Christiakis & Fowler (2009), Connected – The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives

Harsha Gangadharbatla. (2007).Facebook Me: Collective Self-Esteem, Need to Belong, and Internet Self-Efficacy as Predictors of the iGeneration’s Attitudes toward Social Networking Sites. Journal of Interactive Advertising, June 9,

Kelly Louise, Kerr Gayle, Drennan Judy. (2010) Avoidance Of Adverstising In Social Networking Sites: The Teenage Perspective. Journal of Interactive Advertising; Vol 10, No. 2, pp. 16‐27. [Spring]

Gilmore & Pine (2007), Authenticity – what consumers really want

Kozinets, R. V. (1999) ‘‘E-tribalized marketing?: the strategic implications of virtual communities of consumption’’. European Management Journal, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 252–264.

Kornum (2008) Three Types of Online Community in Tollin & Caru, Strategic Market Creation, pp. 350-358

Shirky (2008), Here comes everybody – the power of organizing without organizations

Larsen, M. C (2007). 35 Perspectives on Online Social Networking. Social Computing Magazine. 05/07.

Larsen, M. C. (2008).Understanding Social Networking: On Young People s Construction and Co construction of Identity Online,in Online Networking – Connecting People. Sangeetha, K. (red.). India : Icfai University Press (General Management).

Zeng Fue, Huang Li, Dou, Wenyu. (2009). Social Factors in User Perceptions and responses to Advertising in Online Social Network Communities. Journal of Interactive Advertising; 10 (1): 1-13.

Tufekci Zeynep. (2008). Grooming, gossip, Facebook and MySpace. Information, Communication & Society; 11(4): 544–564