Like, comment, share and all that jazz : social media as communication and marketing tool case: Social media marketing approaches used by MaiJazz music festival

Master's thesis in International Hospitality ManagementSocial networks have become an integral part of everyday life for many. With an increasing number of companies using social media to communicate and build relationships with their customers, social media might be considered as the newest element of the marketing mix. The thesis’ objective is to explore the use of social media communication tools used by the jazz music festival, MaiJazz, in Stavanger, to define key social media objectives and to develop metrics or indicators of these objectives. The methods used to reach the objectives were a thorough literature review in the areas of company-consumer communication and social media in marketing and event management, a semi-structured interview with the managing director of MaiJazz as well as collecting and analyzing statistical data from Facebook Insights. The results show that the suggested social media objectives correlate; they are interconnected and influence each other. Furthermore, the conclusion of this thesis is that the company’s social media efforts will most lead to creation of a successful social media strategy, considering the manager’s positive attitude towards social media as communication and marketing tool and the company’s ability to measure social media effectiveness. The suggested recommendations include a more systematic use of social media analytical applications, and developing a set of measurable objectives as part of company’s social media strategy