• 1. Formulate, delimit and analyse a research topic within the topics of the course.
• 2. Select and apply theories and methods from the course curriculum to address the outlined research topic in the exam project and argue for their relevance.
• 3. List and critically reflect on the pros/cons as well as possible inherent contradictions of theories and methods applied in the exam project.

The intention of this course is to give you a deep understanding of how and why social media platforms are “social” and the implications of this for companies, for instance, in terms of engagement levels and brand loyalty. A cornerstone to provide this understanding is the project that you begin to develop from the very beginning of the course. So this course focuses on the assignment work as the key learning process. Working with your own problem delimitation will provide you with hands-on experiences of what real worlds challenges users tend to face and realistic scenarios concerning managerial implications. The course lecture topics provide inspiration for your project, for instance, in terms of videos, slides and other course materials.

Consumers are increasingly present on social media platforms. This provides large opportunities for sharing and co-creating company-related content. The social media landscape constantly changes and new categories and platforms form separate socio-cultural spaces, which adds complexity and underlines the importance of understanding this “landscape” better. Furthermore, traditional marketing channels are becoming more and more cluttered and inefficient. Thus, it is an obvious move for companies to develop a presence on existing relevant social media platforms. At the same time, tools and platforms arise and disappear quickly, but an understanding of how and why users engage on social media platforms and its implication for companies in terms of, e.g., loyalty is long lasting and can be applied across platforms; also when new platforms develop in the future.

Social media platforms form the basis for many different types of socio-cultural spaces that mirrors individual and collective consumer identities and where users participate for very different reasons. For instance, Facebook in the interaction space among friends as opposed to a Facebook Brand Page are very different spaces with different norms and traditions for interaction. Thus, these spaces are characterized by specific communication cultures, which entails the application of very particular communication strategies by those parties that are active on the social medium; and eventually social media specific positive and negative discourses. This also means that different types of company interventions and communication are welcomed with different strength leading to different types of relationships between the brand and consumers as well as to different attitudinal and behavioral outcome, for instance, Liking as compared to (long term) loyalty. If companies wish to focus on methods where content and mutual exchange on social media platforms are developed based on users’ own initiative, it is important to understand what aspects of identity seeking motivates consumers to engage in more permanent interaction and co-creation.

The course topics are designed to support your assignment work and include the following: 1) User’s perceptions of advertising and their motivation to engage on social media 2) Self-representation and self-expressive brands on social media 3) Blogs, crowdsourcing - and brand communities 4) Integrated Marketing Communication and 5) Multi-stakeholder branding.

Kozinets, R. (2017). Brand Networks as the Interplay of Identities, Selves, and Turtles: Commentary on 'Interplay between intended brand identity and identities in a Nike related brand community: Co-existing synergies and tensions in a nested system’. Journal of Business Research, Vol 70, 441-442de Vries et al. (2017). Explaining consumer brand-related activities on social media: An investigation of the different roles of self-expression and socializing motivations. Computers in Human Behavior 75 , 272-282.

Gao and Feng (2016). Branding with social media: User gratifications, usage patterns, and brand message content strategies. Computers in Human Behavior 63 , 868-890.

Lauren I. Labrecque (2016) Fostering Consumer–Brand Relationships in Social Media Environments: The Role of Parasocial Interaction. Journal of Interactive Marketing 28 , 134–148

Kwon et al. (2017) Consumers' Social Media Advocacy Behaviors Regarding Luxury Brands: An Explanatory Framework, Journal of Interactive Advertising, 17:1, 13-27.

Hudson et al. (2016). The influence of social media interactions on consumer–brand relationships: A three-country study of brand perceptions and marketing behaviors. International Journal of Research in Marketing 33 , 27–41.

Kornum, Gyrd-Jones, Al Zagir and Brandis, (2017). Interplay between intended brand identity and identities in a Nike related brand community: Co-existing synergies and tensions in a nested system. Journal of Business Research, Vol 70, 432-440

Kozinets, R. (2017). Brand Networks as the Interplay of Identities, Selves, and Turtles: Commentary on 'Interplay between intended brand identity and identities in a Nike related brand community: Co-existing synergies and tensions in a nested system’. Journal of Business Research, Vol 70, 441-442

Wan-Hsiu Sunny Tsai & Linjuan Rita Men (2013) Motivations and Antecedents of Consumer Engagement With Brand Pages on Social Networking Sites, Journal of Interactive Advertising, 13:2, 76-87.

Kelty Logan (2014) Why Isn't Everyone Doing It? A Comparison of Antecedents to Following Brands on Twitter and Facebook, Journal of Interactive Advertising, 14:2, 60-72

Cuauhtemoc Luna-Nevarez & Ivonne M. Torres (2015) Consumer Attitudes Toward Social Network Advertising, Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 36:1, 1-19.

Elaine Wallace Isabel Buil Leslie de Chernatony Michael Hogan, (2014a),"Who “Likes” You … and Why? A Typology of Facebook Fans From “Fan”-atics and Self-Expressives To Utilitarians and Authentics. Journal of Advertising Research, March

Elaine Wallace Isabel Buil Leslie de Chernatony , (2014b),"Consumer engagement with self-expressive brands: brand love and WOM outcomes", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 23 Iss 1 pp. 33 – 42.

Hung, H. (2014). Attachment , identification, and loyalty: Examinining mediating mechanism across brand and brand community contexts. Journal of Brand Management, Vol 21, 7/8, 594-614

Kim et al. (2011). Examining knowledge contribution from the perspective of an online identity in blogging communities. Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 1760-1770.

Kozinets et al., (2010). Networked Narratives: Understanding Word-of-Mouth Marketing in Online ommunities. Journal of Marketing, 74 , 2, pp. 71-89

Antorini and Muniz (2013) .The Benefits and Challenges of Collaborating with User Communities. Research Technology Management. May/Jun2013, Vol. 56 Issue 3, p21-28.

Daren C. Brabham (2010) Moving the crowd at Threadless. Information, Communication & Society, 13:8, 1122-1145.

Smith (2012). Beyond Promotion: Conceptualizing Public Relations in Integrated Marketing Communications. International Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications. Spring2010, Vol. 2 Issue 1, p47-57
Racki and Racki (2014). Integrated marketing communications paradigm in digital environment: the five pillars of integration. Megatrend Review. 2014, Vol. 11 Issue 1, p187-203

Kornum and Mühlbacher (2013). Multi-stakeholder virtual dialogue: Introduction to the special issue2013 Journal of Business Research, Vol 66(9), Sep, 2013. Special Section: Multi-stakeholder virtual dialogue, pp. 1460-1464

Gyrd-Jones, R., & Kornum, N. (2013). Managing the co-created brand: Value and cultural complementarity in online and offline multi stakeholder ecosystems. Journal of Business Research, 66(9), 1484–1493

Hillebrand, Bas; Driessen, Paul; Koll, Oliver. (2015). Stakeholder marketing: Theoretical foundations and required capabilities. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science., Vol. 43 Issue 4, p411-428.

Ryan, R. M., Deci, E. L. (2000).Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, Vol 55(1), Special Issue: Positive Psychology. pp. 68-78

Kozinets, (2002) The Field Behind the Screen: Using Netnography for Marketing Research in Online Communities., Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), Feb, Vol. 39 Issue 1, p. 61-72

Langer and Beckman (2005) Sensitive research topics: netnography revisited. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 189-203