Vain radioleikkiä? Podcastaus suomenkielisen harrastajan näkökulmasta

Pro graduni käsittelee digitaalisen kulttuurin piiriin kuuluvaa noin 10-vuotiasta harrastusta, jossa julkaistaan ja levitetään radio-ohjelmien kaltaisia äänitiedostoja Internetissä. Tämän harrastuksen nimi on podcastaus. Tutkimukseni tarkoituksena on ollut selvittää, millaista ja mitä podcastaus on käytännössä sen suomenkielisten harrastajien keskuudessa. Mahdollisimman kattavien tulosten saavuttamiseksi olen tehnyt tutkielmaani soveltavan osion, jossa olen toteuttanut kohteenani ollutta harrastusta itse. Oman kokemuspohjani kautta tutkielmaani on muodostunut osittain autoetnografinen ote. Olen analysoinut pro graduni kirjallisessa osassa rinnakkain muiden alan harrastajien sekä itseni luomaa aineistoa ensi sijassa kvalitatiivisin analyysitavoin, kuten suunnitteluanalyysin, media-analyysin ja jossain määrin myös toimintoanalyysin kautta. Podcastaus-harrastusta harjoittaa suomeksi hyvin pieni ja melko järjestäytymätön joukko. Tämän joukon sisällä havaitsin ristiriitaisia päämääriä ja tavoitteita, jotka kytkeytyvät sekä harrastajien omiin että podcastien yleisön odotuksiin. Koska kyseessä on nimenomaan vapaa-ajan huvi, sen tekemiseen ei välttämättä haluta tai voida käyttää samalla tavalla resursseja kuin työhön. Toisaalta yleisö suhtautuu positiivisemmin podcasteihin, joita on toteutettu ammattimaisesti. Harrastajan omaksi valinnaksi jää, miten paljon hän haluaa tavoitella yleisöä ja vastata sen toiveisiin. Podcast-harrastaminen voi tekijän paneutumisesta riippuen olla hyvin rikasta, mutta harrastukseen liittyvä yhteisöllisyys ei suomeksi toimittaessa välttämättä toteudu kovin helposti. Tutkimustulosteni perusteella päättelin, että suomenkielistä harrastajapodcastausta saattaisi auttaa, jos sen tekijät järjestäytyisivät ja yrittäisivät löytää itselleen yhteisiä tavoitteita, joilla alan toimintaan liittyviä resurssipaineita ja muita ongelmia voisi olla mahdollista vähentää. Jatkotutkimuksen kannalta huomautan juuri suomenkielisten podcastaajien yhteistyön parantamiseen tai suomenkielisten podcastien tunnetuksi tekemiseen liittyvän työn olevan tarpeellista.

Influence of Link Structure on Search Engine Result Pages of Online Nursery Shops

The primary objective of this thesis is to assess how the backlink portfolio structure and off site Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) elements influence ranking of UK based online nursery shops. The growth of the internet use demanded significant effort from companies to optimize and increase their online presence in order to cope with the increasing online competition. The new e-Commerce technology - called Search Engine Optimisation - has been developed that helped increase website visibility of companies. The SEO process involves on site elements (i.e. changing the parameters of the company's website such as keywords, title tags and meta descriptions) and off site elements (link building and social media marketing activity). Link Building is based on several steps of marketing planning including keyword research and competitor analysis. The underlying goal of keyword research is to understand the targeted market through identifying relevant keyword queries that are used by targeted costumer group. In the analysis, three types (geographic, field and company’s strategy related) and seven sources of keywords has been identified and used as a base of analysis. Following the determination of the most popular keywords, allinanchor and allintitle search has been conducted and the first ten results of the searches have been collected to identify the companies with the most significant web presence among the nursery shops. Finally, Link Profiling has been performed where the essential goal was to understand to what extent other companies' link structure is different that the base company's backlinks. Significant difference has been found that distinguished the top three companies ranking in the allinanchor and allintitle search. The top three companies, „Mothercare”, „Mamas and Papas” and „Kiddicare” maintained significantly better metrics regarding domain and page authority on the main landing pages, the average number of outbound links for link portfolio metric and in number of backlinks. These companies also ranked among the highest in page authority distribution and followed external linking.

Miten tietoisuus muuttuu

Kirjallisuusarvostelu

Miten päästä imperiumeista eroon? : kehityksen kritiikistä kritiikin kehitykseen

Kirjallisuusarvostelu

SOCIAL MEDIA IN INTERNATIONAL BRAND COMMUNICATION OF SMES - A multiple case study of small Finnish design-intensive companies

Social media is a rather new phenomenon which has revolutionised the world of online communication. However, academic research on how companies can benefit from social media is lacking. The research objective of this thesis was to examine the use of social media in international brand communication of small Finnish design-intensive companies. Therefore, this research contributes also to the research gap in SME branding. The focus was on communication targeted at consumers. The research was carried out as a mixed methods research employing the questionnaire and multiple case study methods. The questionnaire was used to gather preliminary information on Finnish design-intensive companies and to provide an eligible list of companies for deeper examination. Then, four case companies were studied in more depth. The empirical evidence of the case companies was mainly gathered through theme interviews. The results of the questionnaire shed light on the internationalisation of small Finnish designintensive companies. On average, the companies had internationalised rather quickly after they had been founded. However, the share of exports was rather low in most of the companies. The results revealed also that social media was already used widely in the exporting companies and the use can be expected to grow in future. The findings of the multiple case study suggest that branding activities in small Finnish designintensive companies are constrained by limited resources and skills. In addition, the branding activities are strongly guided by the vision and values of the entrepreneur(s) rather than extensive marketing research. The brand structure was simple in all case companies and they aimed at having a standardised brand image across markets. However, all case companies had faced a need for some adaptation of their international brand communication. Internationally important brand communication channels were international fairs, the internet, word-of-mouth and social media. Social media offered a cost-effective brand communication channel for the case companies. It was used for various purposes, such as creating brand awareness and affecting how the brand is perceived. The entrepreneurs found the use of social media to be rather easy and the case companies had not faced any major challenges. However, the companies had recognised that communication in social media requires consistency and planning. The planning was rather informal and stayed on a general level. Overall, the utilisation of social media in the case companies was limited by a lack of resources. It seemed to affect especially the follow-up of brand communication in social media which stayed rather superficial.