Data collection

3.2.1 Conducting the study

The study itself concerning the measurement and financial value of social media marketing was implemented by semi-guided theme interviews. The research was conducted by interviewing Finnish DMOs during April, May, June, and September of 2019. In the study, altogether eight interviews were conducted. According to Tuomi & Sarajärvi (2002), the size of the data is usually smaller in qualitative interviews compared to quantitative research, as the emphasis in qualitative studies is on understanding a phenomenon, thus the number of informants being small. In qualitative interviews, the number of interviewees is not the crucial success factor for the research, since statistical generalizations are not made, but rather it is the

depth and quality of the information gained from the interviewees. The data will eventually be saturated, when nothing new concerning the central themes rise in the interviews (Tuomi &

Sarajärvi 2002.) This data started to be somewhat saturated after eight interviews in this study.

In the table below, the time and duration of the interviews, and the corresponding codes used in the analysis are presented.

Table 2. Details of the interviews.

The contact information for reaching the interviewees was accessed by Suoma Ry website and by Googling (Suoma Ry 2019). Suitable persons for the interview were first contacted by sending them an e-mail concerning the interview. If necessary, they were further contacted via telephone. When selecting the possible interviewees, focus was paid on how easily the interviewees could be contacted. For example, when the contact details were easily found on the website of the DMO in question, the person was more likely to be contacted. This is called purposive sampling (Hirsjärvi & Hurme 2011). In some cases, the persons the e-mail were sent to, forwarded the email to some other person responsible for marketing in the organization.

However, some DMOs refused the interview, thinking that their social media marketing measurement would not generate valuable contribution to the study in question. In general, however, the DMOs seemed to be interested in the topic of the thesis, which made it easier to get them to participate in the interview and research. In practice, the interviews were conducted mostly over telephone. In one interview, a Skype connection was used, and one interview was conducted face-to-face. The reason for conducting the interview over telephone was the most secure connection without any breaks since the Internet connection in Skype may break from time to time.

Code Date of the interview Duration

I1 24.4.2019 1.10.18

I2 25.4.2019 1.12.18

I3 26.4.2019 1.06.06

I4 13.5.2019 00.55.05

I5 28.5.2019 1.01.41

I6 5.6.2019 1.05.33

I7 13.6.2019 1.05.23

I8 9.9.2019 1.24.02

The interviewees ranged from marketing managers to CEOs. Before the interview, a letter concerning the interview was sent to the interviewees to get more information about the background and practicalities of the interview, including anonymity and confidentiality, which is important in interviews where businesses and their tactics are handled (Eriksson &

Kovalainen 2008). The letter can be found in appendix 2 at the end of this paper. All the interviews were conducted in Finnish and they typically lasted for about an hour, including the forewords and an informal discussion at the end. To limit the topic, in the interview the focus was on certain social media channels, namely Facebook and Instagram.

During the data collection phase – that is the actual interview, the purpose of the interviews is to record the interviewee’s perspective as well as possible. By doing this, the interviewer captures the actual things said by real people (Patton 2002.) In the study in question, the interview questions were recorded and later transcribed. In business research, it is usually enough to transcribe all that have been said. (Eriksson & Kovalainen 2008.) So, when transcribing the interviews of this study, only the words that were said, excluding mumbling or pauses were written down and analyzed at a later phase.

3.2.2 Semi-structured theme interviews

In semi-structured interviews, the interviewer has a topic to learn about (Rubin & Rubin 2012).

Semi-structured interviews include questions starting with “what” and “how”. In these interviews, the interviewee has questions, which relate to some topic, themes, or issues. As semi-structured interviews are not strictly structured, it is possible to acquire type of information that the interviewee would have not necessarily taken into consideration when planning the interview questions (Puusa 2011a.) An advantage with these interviews is that they are systematic and comprehensive, still the interview itself being informal and conversational. Also, during any type of interview, it is the responsibility of the interviewer to maintain the flow, how the interviewee reacts to questions, and what type of communication is appropriate for maintaining the flow in the communication (Patton 2002.) In this study, an attempt was made to keep the interview conversational. Flow was more easily maintained, when the interviewer was able to modify the interview structure according to the interviewee’s answers and naturally move from one theme to another.

Typically, interviews consist of main questions, probes, and follow-up questions. With main questions, it is ensured that each main question of the research questions is answered (Patton 2002). In this study, the research questions were planned in a way that the main questions were determined, and attention was paid that they were asked from each interviewee. In interview questions it is good to know how the interviewee him- or herself sees a certain phenomenon covered during the interview. By doing this, misunderstandings can be avoided in relation to the meanings used by the interviewee when analyzing the data at a later phase (Patton 2002).

In the beginning of a theme, each interviewee was first asked a question, which they could answer by telling, what comes to mind relating to the theme. After that, the interviewer proceeded to probe and follow-up questions. In probe questions, it is ensured that the interviewee keeps talking about the subject, giving details and examples. In follow-up questions, the interviewee is inspired to deepen the key concepts, themes, ideas, or events that they have first presented (Patton 2002.) Clarifying questions are also an essential part of the thematic interview. In the interviews of this study, clarifying questions were asked especially if the interviewer wanted to get more information about what the interviewee had just said. All in all, during interviews, the interviewees’ interpretations about certain issues, meanings given to them and how the meanings develop in interaction. (Puusa 2011a; Tuomi & Sarajärvi 2018.) In theme interviews, it is typical that the interviewee has knowledge or experience about a certain phenomenon or a process, namely about social media marketing and its measurement in this case. The researcher, on the contrary, has acquired essential information about a phenomenon, including the structure and processes essential for the phenomenon in question before the interview, thus forming the basis for undertaking the interview successfully. By doing this, the researcher deepens her understanding about the phenomenon in question (Puusa 2011a.) This was done also in this study before planning the themes and interview questions.

The interview themes should be based on theoretical, predetermined, framework applied in the research, and the questions relate to the themes in the interview. With the help of themes, the whole phenomenon is built into parts, and the researcher aims to understand the contents and the meanings with the help of questions she poses during the interview. Observing a single theme requires considering several viewpoints. In this way, the theme is a bigger entity than just one question (Puusa 2011a.) Based on the theory, the themes in this study were formulated to relate to the planning of social media marketing, measurement and financial value of social media marketing, as well as decision-making relating to social media marketing. The interview

questions were planned not to be equal with research questions. Also, the questions asked in the interview may have differed from the theoretical framework, as intuitive questions or questions relating to previous experience were asked with regards to the themes (Hirsjärvi &

Hurme 2008; Puusa 2011a.)

During the interview, all the themes should be explored, nevertheless, the interviews are different in length, shape, and forms of questions depending on the interviewee. In this way, the role of the interviewer may be different in each interview; in some interviews, she may be more of a listener, while in others he or she may have a more active role in asking clarifying questions (Puusa 2011a.) In the interviews of this study, the interviewees talked more than the interviewer, who was mainly a listener and kept asking additional questions and making short comments. Only in the beginning of the interview, the interviewer spent some time introducing the topic and telling essential information about the topic in question, thus, the interviewee was more of a listener. In general, the information gained from the interviewees was abundant and informative. The interview questions can be found in Appendix 1 at the end of this document.