10th Semester - Master Thesis
Author
Christensen, Mads Thrysøe
Term
4. term
Publication year
2021
Submitted on
2021-05-31
Pages
78
Abstract
This thesis examines the possibilities and limitations of using LinkedIn for international brand community building, with a particular focus on what Shaping New Tomorrow can learn from Harley‑Davidson’s established brand community. Drawing on Muniz and O’Guinn’s components of brand communities and Habibi, Laroche, and Richard’s perspective on how communities manifest on social media, the study explores how a professionally oriented platform shapes community dynamics. The dataset comprises ten LinkedIn posts from Harley‑Davidson and ten from Shaping New Tomorrow, plus comment sections from two posts per brand. The analysis applies Tafesse and Wien’s social media post categorization, Schau, Arnould, and Muniz’s practices framework, and Fournier and Lee’s role and script frameworks. The first part shows that the brands use different content types and that the boundary between “private” and professional content on LinkedIn is porous; brands should therefore align what the platform enables, what activates users, and the kinds of participation their content invites. The second part finds more dynamic interactions in Harley‑Davidson’s threads (a mix of positive, neutral, and negative comments featuring social networking and impression management among users and between users and employees) and more static, uniformly positive threads for Shaping New Tomorrow with fewer identifiable roles and practices. Overall, LinkedIn can provide a shared space for dialogue among users, employees, and the brand—supporting feedback and opinion mapping—yet its professional framing may constrain the creation of entirely new communities. Thus, LinkedIn appears well suited to sustaining existing brand communities like Harley‑Davidson’s, whereas building new ones—as for Shaping New Tomorrow—may require leveraging multiple social platforms.
Dette speciale undersøger, hvilke muligheder og begrænsninger LinkedIn rummer for international brand community‑opbygning, med særligt fokus på hvad Shaping New Tomorrow kan lære af Harley‑Davidsons etablerede brand community. Med afsæt i Muniz og O’Guinns komponenter for brand communities samt Habibi, Laroche og Richards forståelse af communities på sociale medier analyseres, hvordan communities manifesterer sig på en professionelt orienteret platform. Datagrundlaget består af ti LinkedIn‑opslag fra Harley‑Davidson og ti fra Shaping New Tomorrow samt kommentarsektioner til to opslag fra hver brand. Analysen anvender Tafesse og Wiens kategorisering af sociale medieopslag, Schau, Arnould og Muniz’ praksisramme samt Fournier og Lees rammer for roller og scripts. Første del af analysen viser, at de to brands benytter forskellige typer indhold, og at grænsen mellem “privat” og professionelt indhold på LinkedIn er flydende; derfor bør brands afstemme, hvad platformen muliggør, hvad der aktiverer brugerne, og hvilken deltagelse indholdet inviterer til. Anden del viser mere dynamiske interaktioner hos Harley‑Davidson (positive, neutrale og negative kommentarer med fokus på social networking og impression management mellem brugere og mellem brugere og medarbejdere) og mere statiske, overvejende positive tråde hos Shaping New Tomorrow med færre identificerbare roller og praksisser. Resultaterne peger på, at LinkedIn kan understøtte et fælles rum for dialog mellem brugere, medarbejdere og brandet og dermed feedback og meningskortlægning, men at platformens professionelle profil kan begrænse etableringen af helt nye communities. LinkedIn synes dermed velegnet til at vedligeholde eksisterende brand communities som Harley‑Davidsons, mens opbygning af nye – som hos Shaping New Tomorrow – kan kræve en kombination af flere sociale medier.
[This apstract has been generated with the help of AI directly from the project full text]