The phenomenon of blogs is growing rapidly and is expected to increase even in a more rapid pace. As Wright (2006) discuss; blogs provides a new way of communicating with customers, as customers want to be talked with, not to. Companies have newly started to pay attention to this and as a result, the concept of blog marketing has been born. The little research that has been done on blog marketing has been done from a company perspective. However, no or little research has yet considered how consumers use blogs. In order to use blogs as a communication tool, it is of huge importance for companies to understand how consumers use blogs in their decision making. Hence the purpose is;“To explore how and why consumers use blogs in their decision making process“ In order to answer this purpose we conducted nine interviews on young adults, as previous research suggests that this population use blogs the most (Tremayne, 2007). From the collected data a qualitative analyze was made in which the empirical findings was analyzed with support of the theoretical framework.From the analysis we found that consumers use blogs throughout their decision making…
Contents
1 Introduction
1.1 Problem Background
1.2 Problem Discussion
1.3 Purpose
2 Definitions
3 Theoretical framework
3.1 Blogs
3.1.1 Different types of blogs
3.1.2 How are people using the blogs today
3.2 Communication
3.2.1 Types of communication
3.2.2 Characters in communication
3.2.3 Word of mouth
3.2.4 Online WOM
3.3 Consumer decision making
3.3.1 The consumer decision making process
3.3.2 Reference groups
3.4 Previous research
3.5 Summary of theoretical framework and research questions
4 Method
4.1 Research approach
4.2 Research Strategy
4.3 Qualitative vs. Quantitative
4.4 Data collection
4.4.1 Interview methods
4.4.2 Sample selection
4.5 Credibility, transferability, dependability and conformability
4.6 Data presentation and analysis
5 Empirical findings
5.1 Interview with Anna
5.2 Interview with Anders
5.3 Interview with Jim
5.4 Interview with Josefin
5.5 Interview with Peter
5.6 Interview with Michael
5.7 Interview with Marie
5.8 Interview with Eric
5.9 Interview with Magnus
6 Analysis
6.1 Consumer decision making process
6.1.1 Need
6.1.2 Information search
6.1.3 Alternative evaluation
6.1.4 Purchase decision
6.1.5 Post purchase decision
6.2 Group influence in the blogosphere
6.3 Characteristics of influential individuals in the blogosphere
6.4 Characteristics of information in blog posts
7 Conclusion
8 Discussion
8.1 Limitations
8.2 Further research
Reference list
Author: Andersson, Johannes,Blomkvist, Martin,Holmberg, Mattias
Source: Jönköping University
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