"The question is how to use it?" - a qualitative study of Swedish banks and social media

Abstract

Social media have made it possible for companies and customers to have an open dialogue with each other, where people have the opportunity to participate in discussion in the public debate. This multi-way communication lets customers contribute with ideas and opinions and in return companies receive feedback and can develop real-time demand products and services (Grafström et.al. 2010, Kaplan et.al. 2010). With this thesis we aim to understand how the interaction between the Swedish major banks and their customers in social media is organized, and what the banks’ purpose is of using social media. We also aim to know the banks’ view of the multi-way communication. To be able to fulfil our aim of this thesis we have done qualitative interviews with one informant from each major bank: Swedbank, SEB, Handelsbanken and Nordea. Almost three years ago the first Swedish major bank, SEB, entered Facebook and it did not take long before Swedbank, Handelsbanken and Nordea did the same (Informant 2). Primary the banks’ purpose of using Facebook is to provide customer service and to have an open dialogue with the customers. The banks manage their Facebook pages by internally hire employees, have frequently internally training and by designing their own language used on Facebook.