Digital Economy: Analyzing the influence of social media marketing and platform-based economy on the food industries in Finland.

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of social media marketing and the use of the sharing platform economy on the restaurant industry in the Helsinki region. Restaurants rely heavily on paid sponsorship to increase their visibility to the overwhelming majority of digital consumers these days. The primary goal is to determine to what extent restaurant owners use social media advertisements to expand their businesses. The influence of food delivery applications like Foodora and Wolt is also discussed in the report. The value of these gig economies in the restaurant industry is enormous. The report also examines the positive and negative aspects of food delivery apps and how they contribute to business growth. The qualitative research method was used in this study. Eight restaurants from the Helsinki region were randomly selected for the structured interviews. The results from this study suggest that Facebook is the leading social media advertising platform for restaurants, followed by Instagram. The study also found that the majority of restaurants participate in paid sponsorship for marketing purposes. The key reasons for using food delivery apps were advertisements and business expansion. The owners preferred Wolt as the leading delivery partner. Based on this research, just half of the restaurant owners were satisfied with the use of delivery services such as Foodora and Wolt.