Forecasting with social media – Using Facebook likes to predict the results of the 2015 Finnish Parliamentary elections

Already one-third of the human population uses social media on a daily basis. The biggest social networking site Facebook has over billion monthly users. As a result, social media services are now recording unprecedented amount of data on human behavior. The phenomenon has certainly caught the attention of scholars, businesses and governments alike. Organizations around the globe are trying to explore new ways to benefit from the massive databases. One emerging field of research is the use of social media in forecasting. The goal is to use data gathered from online services to predict offline phenomena. Predicting the results of elections is a prominent example of forecasting with social media, but regardless of the numerous attempts, no reliable technique has been established. The objective of the research is to analyze how accurately the results of parliament elections can be forecasted using social media. The research examines whether Facebook “likes” can be effectively used for predicting the outcome of the Finnish parliament elections that took place in April 2015. First a tool for gathering data from Facebook was created. Then the data was used to create an electoral forecast. Finally, the forecast was compared with the official results of the elections. The data used in the research was gathered from the Facebook walls of all the candidates that were running for the parliament elections and had a valid Facebook page. The final sample represents 1131 candidates and over 750000 Facebook “likes”. The results indicate that creating a forecast solely based on Facebook “likes” is not accurate. The forecast model predicted very dramatic changes to the Finnish political landscape while the official results of the elections were rather moderate. However, a clear statistical relationship between “likes” and votes was discovered. In conclusion, it is apparent that citizens and other key actors of the society are using social media in an increasing rate. However, the volume of the data does not directly increase the quality of the forecast. In addition, the study faced several other limitations that should be addressed in future research. Nonetheless, discovering the positive correlation between “likes” and votes is valuable information that can be used in future studies. Finally, it is evident that Facebook “likes” are not accurate enough and a meaningful forecast would require additional parameters.

Datanomiopiskelijat sosiaalisen median käyttäjinä

Tutkimukseni aiheena on tarkastella datanomiopiskelijoita sosiaalisen median käyttäjinä. Sosiaalisen median käyttö opetuksessa on nykypäivänä jo aika yleistä. Erilaisia sosiaalisen median keinoja käytetään jo kaikilla oppiasteilla. Opettajan on tärkeää tuntea eri palvelujen tarkoitukset ja soveltuvuus opetustilanteeseen. Työn tarkoitus on tutkia sosiaalisen median palveluja kuudesta eri näkökulmasta, jotka tukevat opetusta ja oppimista. Näitä ovat verkostoitumispalvelut, virtuaalimaailmat, sisällöllinen kirjoittaminen, verkko-oppimisympäristöt, videoverkkopalvelut ja verkkoviestintäpalvelut. Työssä tutkitaan Lappeenrannan Palvelualojen koulun datanomiopiskelijoiden sosiaalisen median palvelujen käyttämistä sekä kysytään käyttöaktiivisuutta ja mielipidettä palvelujen käyttämiseen opetuksessa. Tutkimustulokset antavat kuvan siitä, minkälaisia sosiaalisen median palveluja opiskelijat käyttävät. Tutkimus osoittaa, että datanomiopiskelijat käyttävät sosiaalisen median palveluja ahkerasti, erityisesti wikiä, blogia ja pikaviestimiä sekä Moodle-oppimisympäristöä. Tutkimuksen perusteella voidaan kehittää opetuksen laatua ja opetusmenetelmiä sosiaalisen median opetuskäyttöä tukevaksi. Opettajan rooli muuttuu sosiaalisen median palvelujen käytön myötä yhä enemmän ohjaavaksi ja tasa-arvoiseksi opiskelijoiden kanssa. Opetus muuttuu yhteisöllisemmäksi ja verkostoituneemmaksi. Opettajan ja opiskelijoiden vuorovaikutustaitojen merkitys korostuu. Myös tulevaisuuden haasteet ja ennen kaikkea mahdollisuudet nousevat esiin. Opetuksen suunnittelussa on hyvä pystyä huomioimaan uudet mahdollisuudet ja käyttää niitä kattavasti.

Energiapalveludirektiivin 2006/32/EY toimeenpano ja vaikutukset

Euroopassa energiansäästöjen hakeminen on olennainen osa suurempaa ilmastostrate-giaa. Tämä työ tarkastelee direktiiviä 2006/32/EY energian loppukäytön tehokkuudes-ta ja energiapalveluista sekä sitä, millaisilla menetelmillä direktiivin esittämät toi-menpiteet otetaan osaksi kansallisia käytäntöjä Suomessa. Tämä diplomityö tarkastelee erityisesti elinkeinoelämän energiankäyttöä tehostavaa energiatehokkuussopimusjärjestelmää, koska se on keskeisin keino direktiivin toi-meenpanossa. Työ tarkastelee erityisesti energia-alaa painottaen sähkön tuotantoa sekä jakelua, koska sinne painottuvat myös direktiivin aiheuttamat lainsäädännön muu-tokset. Julkisen sektorin keskeistä roolia energiapalveludirektiivin toimeenpanossa käsitellään sekä esimerkillisenä energiankäyttäjänä, että suurena alihankintojen tilaajana. Myös energiapalveluyritysten liiketoimintaperiaatetta selvitetään tässä työssä.

Yliopisto-opiskelijoiden sosiaalisen median käyttö, sosiaalinen verkostoitumien ja stereotypiat eri koulutusohjelmien opiskelijoista

Tämä diplomityö tutkii Lappeenrannan teknillisen yliopiston opiskelijoiden sosiaalisen median palvelujen ja sovellusten käyttöä. Se tekee myös selvyyttä tavoista, joiden avulla opiskelijat muodostavat sosiaalisen verkostonsa muihin opiskelijoihin ja muihin ihmisiin. Se tutkii myös opiskelijoiden stereotypioita ja mielikuvia eri koulutusohjelmien opiskelijoista. Työn päätarkoitus on tutkia sosiaalisen median roolia opiskelijoiden elämässä. Tutkimustyö tehtiin verkossa täytettävällä kyselylomakkeella. Tutkimuksen tulokset esitellään työn loppupuoliskolla. Alkupuolisko esittelee sosiaalisen median käsitteitä ja palveluita sekä valaisee tietotekniikan roolia sosiaalisessa mediassa. Se käsittelee myös sosiaalista verkostoitumista opiskelijan näkökulmasta ja esittelee aikaisemmin tehtyjä tutkimuksia opiskelijoiden sosiaalisen median käytöstä.

Social media in the purchasing of knowledge-intensive business services

The purpose of this thesis was to understand how industrial buyers utilize social media in the purchasing of knowledge-intensive business services. By combining theories from past research a theoretical framework was formed to visualize the role of the social media at the different stages of the purchasing process. The subject was approached from the industrial buyers’ perspective instead of the knowledge-intensive business firm. The research was conducted using two qualitative research methods: interviews and netnography. The selected interviewees have been involved in the decision-making unit for purchasing knowledge-intensive business services. Additionally all of them are using various social media. Based on the interviews social media is used merely to support decision-making. Some of the interviewees had also shared their own experiences about the service and collaboration with the service provider with other social media users. Based on the interviews two social media were chosen for closer examination. The findings from netnography support the results from the interviews. The outcome of knowledgeintensive business services is dependable of the professionals. Therefore the information is used during decision-making process to confirm the formed image of the service, and the professionals of the service provider. Information obtained from social media complements information provided by the supplier. Even though the interviewees had not themselves used social media to find information about the service during search process, finding from netnography suggest it to exist. Industrial buyers ask other users’ opinions and experience about the services, and receive recommendations to them. Some recommendations are given publicly, but more discreet information is shared in private conversations. Observations in social media show that industrial buyers might be exposed to triggers to promote problem recognition as well. Companies share news and successful customer cases through their social media profiles, which might affect the industrial buyers, but to confirm this requires further research. The industrial buyers’ use of social media during different purchasing processes of knowledgeintensive business services can be conceptualize based on the findings. This helps companies to create right content to their social media pages, and encourage professionals to develop their networks in social media.

Customer Driven Service Development – Technology-based Care and Services for the Elderly

The objective of this master’s thesis was to examine technology-based smart home devices and services. Topic was approached through basic theories, transaction cost theory and resource-based view in order to build basis for this thesis. Conceptual framework was discussed by means of networks, value networks and service systems which provide a useful framework for service development. The needs of the elderly living at home were discussed in order to find out which technology-based services could be used to satisfy the needs. Segmentation and need data collected previously during proactive home visits was exploited and additionally a survey targeted to experts and professionals of social and health care sector was done to verify the needs. Finally, the results of the survey were analyzed using quality function deployment method to figure out the most important and suitable service offerings for the elderly. As a conclusion of analysis, social media and monitoring services are the most useful technology-based services. However, traditional home services will still maintain their necessity too.

Customer reference marketing and utilization of social media as an integral part of customer references

The objective of this Bachelor's Thesis is to find out the role of social media in the B-to-B marketing environment of the information technology industry and to discover how IT-firms utilize social media as a part of their customer reference marketing. To reach the objectives the concepts of customer reference marketing and social media are determined. Customer reference marketing can be characterized as one of the most practically relevant but academically relatively overlooked ways in which a company can leverage its customers and delivered solutions and use them as references in its marketing activities. We will cover which external and internal functions customer references have, that contribute to the growth and performance of B-to-B firms. We also address the three mechanisms of customer reference marketing which are 'status transfer', 'validation through testimonials' and 'demonstration of experience and prior performance'. The concept of social media stands for social interaction and creation of user-based content which exclusively occurs through Internet. The social media are excellent tools for networking because of the fast and easy access, easy interaction and vast amount of multimedia attributes. The allocation of social media is determined. The case company helps clarify the specific characteristics of social media usage as part of customer-reference-marketing activities. For IT-firms the best channels to utilize social media in their customer reference marketing activities are publishing and distribution services of content and networking services.

Media in the Ubiquitous Era: Ambient, Social and Gaming Media

http://www.igi-global.com/book/media-ubiquitous-era/49581

Jisc: Building a Cohesive Repository Shared Services Infrastructure for the UK

Panel at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Avalon Media System demonstration

Poster at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Audio and Video Repositories at Scale: Indiana University’s Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014