Social Media: How to Interact with Millennials and Make Use of Self-Segmentation : A Case Study of Swedish Millennials’ Behavior on Facebook

Abstract: Social media are online accommodations where users can interact with other users, which has become a phenomenon that has grown and completely exploded over the past decade. Companies are well aware of this and has invested a large amount of resources in order to establish a better contact with their customers. Companies have several different fields of applications with social media such as gathering information, promotion, communicating with customers and reach out to desired audience effectively. Millennials are the generation who most frequently use social media and also grown up during the phenomenon's development. Previous research has shown that companies have had difficulties in reaching out to the millennial generation. This thesis purpose is to gain a deeper understanding of how companies can use social media to facilitate the segmentation process and effectively reach out to the millennial generation. Therefor two research questions have been established. The two research questions have been answered with assistance from relevant theory and research in the subject area. A case study was applied for the study, where the data was gathered from two focus groups discussing the social media platform Facebook. Each focus group consisted of eight participants within the millennial generation containing basic knowledge in marketing. The study’s result indicates millennials to follow (and thereby self-segment themselves) influential profiles they have a personal interest towards. However, Facebook is not the platform where the millennials follow these profiles. The study also indicates the best way to capture millennials interest on Facebook is through short, humorous videos with an interest capturing beginning. The study’s results also show millennia’s have a low interest in interacting with companies on Facebook.