Historically, there was a belief in B2B (business-to-business) companies that the most effective communication with stakeholders should be conducted in person and in a direct manner. However, with the rise of the internet, many B2B companies have started to include social media in their communication portfolio, because it provides an opportunity for two-way communication, a wide reach of different stakeholders and thus, significant potential for building relationships, both existing and new ones. The purpose of this master’s thesis is to uncover how B2B companies use their own social media, which stakeholders they pay attention to, and primarily, how (and if at all) they build relationships with them through social media. The research was conducted with five Slovenian communications companies and consequently cannot be generalizable to all B2B companies. It consists of two levels: the first one is a desktop analysis, where we’ve studied how these companies communicated on selected social media in the past year. The second consists of semi-structured interviews with the companies’ representatives, where we’ve expanded upon the results from the desktop analysis. We’ve established that companies partly tailor their communication to different stakeholder groups, especially when it comes to potential new employees. Furthermore, most of the studied companies use social media as a means of maintaining existing relationships, rather than initiating new ones. Lastly, social media is seen as a meaningful support to other forms of communication and a relevant tool to establish a presence, however, interviewees emphasise that personal contact is irreplaceable and of immense importance.
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