Policies and Guidelines in B2B Social Media Marketing : A Qualitative Study

Abstract: This qualitative study focuses on how social media policies and guidelines are used in practice within nine different Swedish industrial B2B companies. This study identifies their social media policies and guidelines in order to examine its content and investigates how the participating companies use their social media policies and guidelines in their marketing activities according to the interviewees. A qualitative research method with nine semi-structured interviews has been conducted and analyzed with a thematic analysis by using research and theory within the chosen subject.The findings of this study reveals that the companies have social media policies and guidelines in place in order to satisfy different needs, hence, some of the companies use it as a fundamental framework, while other companies incorporate it to a greater extent and use it as a way of handling risks.Through its managerial and social media policies and guidelines implications, this study contributes to the identified research gap regarding how social media policies and guidelines usage in B2B industries by providing insights from practice.