Social media adoption and usage : A study within the industrial sector in Sweden

Abstract: Social media is considered an important marketing tool for B2B companies that are operating in the current decade (Andersson and Wikström, 2017; Brink, 2017; Itani, Agnihotri and Dingus, 2017). As social media has become a well-researched topic over the last decade, it has become more popular for businesses and individuals to use (Andersson and Wikstrom, 2017; Lacka and Chong, 2016; Michaelidou, Siamagka and Christodoulides, 2011). However there are limited research on how specific industries are adopting social media (Siamagka et al., (2015). Therefore, this thesis will contribute with research on why the industrial industrys adopt social media as well as how they are using it (Ibid).   Ten industrial businesses working in Sweden have been used for the empirical data collection. A qualitative approach have been used for this study in order to satisfy the purpose. All of the interviewees have experience within social media adoption or are working with social media on a daily basis. The interviews were conducted through phone and lasted approximately 20-50 minutes.   The conclusion of this study is that academic research within this field are somewhat in an agreement with the empirical data provided within this study. The main reasons to why industrial B2B businesses are adopting social media is because businesses can reach their target customers in an easy and fast way, also the pressure from stakeholders and customers have been an important factor to why some of the practitioners within this study have adopted social media. The barriers and benefits of using social media goes hand in hand. As one of the main benefits is the communication with customers and the main barrier is the negative comments that businesses can get. Although this study has indicated that the benefits outweigh the barriers when adopting and using social media. Findings from this study has shown that LinkedIn is the most useful social networking sites for businesses to use and this statement is also confirmed with the academic research done within this field.