Graduation Thesis: The Social Government Organization.
The Internet has evolved into a “Web 2.0” version, where there is an interaction between users. The networking site, Facebook, which is one example of social media, has only been online for a few years and already has over 500 million users around the world. Social media is an easy way to create contact and accessibility with their audiences and can become a tool for private individuals, companies and organizations to reach their target audiences.
The governmental organizations can also use social media to communicate with their customers, stakeholders and the public. But the governmental organizations have many directives and management requirements to consider. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of social media in greater governmental organizations with a focus on resource usage and benefit for the user. The essay also investigates how the social media usage are affected by the governmental organizations being driven by the state and having a requirement of being public.
Four major Swedish governmental organizations, with different approaches and processes for social media were interviewed to investigate the purpose of the essay. A content analysis of the participating organizations’ Facebook-pages has also been carried out. This resulted in a relatively coherent vision of social media. All businesses consider it important to be active in social media, but are concerned about how to handle privacy and personal data. It also appeared that the organizations do not believe that it is possible to use social media to streamline communication externally.
The conclusion is that the activities are more accessible to the public through social media and can create space for engagement and discussion. However, social media cannot be used as the sole tool to streamline communication externally between governmental organizations and the public and companies.
Read the essay (in swedish) HERE.
About Me; Anna Kjellander, the creative strategist
I am Anna Kjellander, 23 years old and grew up in Norrköping, a not so big town two hours from Stockholm. All my life I have been appalled by, amazed with, and fallen in love with media and communication. When I was a kid, it was the illustrations, books and later the self-penned ghost novels who took up my time. Later it became a fascination with the dreamy print ads in fashion magazines. When I started high school I was very clear what programme I wanted to apply to; social science and media. Photography, print technology, graphic design, film, expo and radio. I was taught how to be creative and I loved it! But in the end what caught me was neither photography or graphic design, as I had thought.
Previously, I read Publishing Management within Media at Malmo University (180 hp) and lived in Malmö for nearly three years. After these three years I wrote my graduate thesis and degree in Media Technology. I threw myself into this education, eager to learn more about the ingenious devices and secrets that the media world possesses. And I’ve learned a lot! In my years at Malmo Uni. I also interned and later worked at one of Duni AB’s communication departments and was very involved with managing their website. I have also learned a lot about graphic design and typography, original production and various graphic techniques. But what I really take with me from there years is what sounds like a small insight;
As long as you know the rules, you are allowed to break them.
In autumn 2010, I went to Hong Kong on the exchange term at CUHK, Chinese University of HongKong. There, I finally read it as I still felt had taken me, strategic marketing. For this I could add the class international communications and realized again how fascinating it is with Communications & Public Relations, PR. How it can be created, to prevent and build information and interest and connect with a target audience.
I am a huge consumer of blogs and creative forums online. I like to surf around the net for long hours, consuming information about the the world afar and near, and I am immensely excited when I hear about a really tricky or clever public relations campaign or a sleek advertising. I also get a bit angry when I realize that I fell for that smart and clever media trick.
For now I’m a student at Berghs School of Communication learning about Strategic Communication and PR. During this year I have so far been thaught so much, creating ideas, campaigns and concept at school, but for real businesses and people. Many of them displayed at this page.
Want to know more about me?
I’m easy to find and easy to contact.
GRADUATION PROJECT: Studentbyrån 2012
Based on these criteria below, Berghs School of Communication created the group, which together will implement the fun but intensive job launching and profiling the school’s final exhibition at the best possible way.
Collaboration: Mercedes-Benz, Jung Von Matt, Berghs PR and Interactive students
Campaign collaboration in the making…
Max
Course: Public Affairs held by Markus Lindblad (Weber Shandwick)
The Brief: Max have actively and successfully been lobbying for the reduction of the restaurant VAT (value added taxes). How and what should Max do now? How can Max still engage and keep in touch with their new contacts?
The Challenge: Staying in touch with the decision-makers and keep the engagement.
The Insight: The discussions around the restaurant VAT reductions have been sirceling around how many more jobs it could bring. Max have to change the converisation and stay currant before the restaurant VAT reductions fall of the radar and becomes uninteresting.
The Solution: The solution is being produced in this very moment.
Knowledge learned: During this course and the Max-case I got to change my perspective from the Marketing PR to PA. Me and my class have met with politicians from the Swedish Government like Roger Tiefensee (C) and Maryam Yazdanfar (S). Maria Ludvigsson from Svenska Dagbladet also shared her knowledge and taught me valuable knowledge around advocacy and lobbying.
UNA Sweden
Course: Strategic Communication, held by Ola Spännar (Program director, SKPR Berghs School of Communication)
The Brief: To develop a communication plan for the release of UNA Sweden website Världskoll, www.varldskoll.se.
The Challenge: Young adults in Sweden have very limited knowledge of the world. The aim with the website is to qualify young adults’ view of the world and increase their knowledge about how situation really is in developing countries. This to demonstrate that individual actions actually can make a difference. Our challenge was to communicate that the state of the world are better today because of aid from organizations like the UN, but this does’nt mean that we don’t have to do more.
The Insight: Young adults are drowned in information and very selective and particular with the information and media they consume. The website Världskoll will not be a self-driven choice within the target group. Only by being where they are, using their channels and their language can we create interest and drive visitors to the website.
The Solution: By doing a target group analysis for the various target groups we wanted to reach, we were able to adjust messages and tonality for the young adults, parents and teachers. By involving upper secondary school, where the young adults, the primary target group spend most of their time, they could be engaged in a competition. This competition was a quiz test on Facebook, to test their knowledge of the world. By doing the test, it could virally spread through facebook, creating traffick to the website and gain awareness around how little they know about other countries. The price was a class trip to one of UNs project countries and to blog about it via UNA Swedens webpage. Also, to raise awareness around the young adults poor knowledge of the world, an annual report was planned for, to show facts and create advocacy. This would help the UNA Sweden convince the schools of their engagement in the matter and also the parents, who can encourage their children to learn more about the world.
Knowledge learned: This case was particularly difficult to solve since the channel for the message was already decided. Based on the target group analysis, this choice of channel was wrong for the target group and there was a big risk that the website wouldn’t be able to solve the matter it was created for. There was also a very limited budget for the campaign that would continue during a whole year. To create a communication plan that were able to bring visitors and activity to the website and still stay within budget was a true challenge and a valuable one. The course itself brought a lot of knowledge where many guest lecturers, Per Schlingmann for example, shared their knowledge around strategic communication.
Secret brand
Course: Concept Development and Marketing PR, held by Jonas Sevenius, David Becker (Jung Relations)
The Brief: Create a concept for an image campaign. Create something new and fresh, which is tightly linked to the brand beliefs. (Secret Case)
The Challenge: To gain interest and interact with the target audience and increase wanted perception for the brand image.
Knowledge learned: During this course, I learned how to create PR campaign concepts which appeals to the clients needs. Besides the course being held by Jonas and David från Jung Relations; it was tightly linked with the business world by having lecturers like Åsa Elm from Gelmuyden Kieze, Mikolaj Dymek from Jung Relations and Desireé Maurd who previously worked at Prime. This gave me valuable tools and way of thinking to create a creative and engaging marketing and PR concept.
SAS
Course: External Analysis held by Bobo af Ekenstam (Docere)
Assignment: The purpose of the assignment was to, based on the SAS perspective,
map the airline industry and its environment. The report set the question of whether the SAS strategy 4Excellence can be applied to address the identified client, the multi-passenger.
Together with context and arena analysis’s conducted, a customer and trend analysis was made to identify appropriate communication strategies for SAS.
The Challenge: The business of aircraft travelling is complex and highly competitive. SAS have struggled to stay profitable the last years, in favour of the budget airlines, which have gained market shares in the industry. To regain its former strong position on the market, SAS wanted to re-evaluate their business strategy.
The Insight: The analysis was based on annual reports from airlines and business associations, but also qualitative interviews with passengers and employees at LFV. The results of the report showed that the multi-passenger exists even if the customer does not identify itself as such. A person who travels a lot in his or hers work is also flying as a leisure traveler. However, the person at these two occasions have slightly different preferences; for the business traveler is service and flexibility from the airline, the most important, while the leisure traveler often let the price determine which airline he or she choose. But the report also shows that even the leisure traveler have service as a extremely high priority, if he or she choses to travel by SAS.
The Solution: From the report, we presented an action plan that focuses on strengthening the SAS brand by including the external communication using the term Service and Simplicity.
The Action plan is based on six steps where the over all concept was to differentiate SAS with high Service and comfort but also by being transparent, informative and accessible to the SAS travellers. By communication Service and Simplicity, SAS can gain a stronger market share.
Knowledge learned: By doing a external-driven strategy, the company easier can find their blind spots and get a better understanding for the industry, the society and consumers. During this course I learned how to further use the SWOT-analysis, the PESTEL analysis and ways to calculate and forecast future challenges for a company.