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PurposeThe purpose of this research is to investigate the use of Twitter in business as a medium for knowledge sharing and to crowdsource information to support innovation and enhance business relationships in the context of business-to-business (B2B) marketing.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a combination of methodologies for gathering data in 52 face-to-face interviews across five countries and the downloaded posts from each of the interviewees' Twitter accounts. The tweets were analysed using structural topic modelling (STM), and then compared to the interview data. This method enabled triangulation between stated use of Twitter and respondent's actual tweets.FindingsThe research confirmed that individuals used Twitter as a source of information, ideas, promotion and innovation within their industry. Twitter facilitates building relevant business relationships through the exchange of new, expert and high-quality information within like-minded communities in real time, between companies and with their suppliers, customers and also their peers.Research limitations/implicationsAs this study covered five countries, further comparative research on the use of Twitter in the B2B context is called for. Further investigation of the formalisation of social media strategies and return on investment for social media marketing efforts is also warranted.Practical implicationsThis research highlights the business relationship building capacity of Twitter as it enables customer and peer conversations that eventually support the development of product and service innovations. Twitter has the capacity for marketers to inform and engage customers and peers in their networks on wider topics thereby building the brand of the individual users and their companies simultaneously.Originality/valueThis study focuses on interactions at the individual level illustrating that Twitter is used for both customer and peer interactions that can lead to the sourcing of ideas, knowledge and ultimately innovation. The study is novel in its methodological approach of combining structured interviews and text mining that found the topics of the interviewees' tweets aligned with their interview responses.

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This paper reports on a study regarding how vertical integration is used to increase customer relations in the printing industry and illustrates the competitive consequences with vertical integration towards customers. Results show that since direct customers are perceived as more loyal and profitable than advertising agencies and/or print brokers, integration of content creation is common to increase relations with direct customers. However, as direct customers' part of total production is still very small, integration of content creation gives rise to a potentially competitive situation between printing firms and advertising agencies. Printing firms recognized this problem as they try to avoid this competition. Two different approaches to the problem are illustrated. Printing firms either focus on simple jobs that are not of advertising agencies' interest or they isolate these services in a separate firm, and consequently can compete for direct customers and still be a printing firm to advertising agencies.

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Bled eConference, organized by University of Maribor, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, has been shaping electronic interactions since 1988. Bled eConference is the oldest, most traditional and well renowned conference in the field with more than 30 years of tradition. The theme of this year's conference is dedicated to "Digital Transformation -Meeting the Challenges".The evolution of digital technologies and solutions has significantly impacted the way in which business is conducted and have big implications on our lives. Nowadays digital economy calls for transformation of businesses, governments, education and societies as whole. It also calls for enabling policies and politics for cross border and global digital business.In this year's conference, we address various aspects of digital transformation and provide directions and guidelines for organizations to meet and overcome these challenges on their way towards successful digital transformation. Themes covered in the papers of these proceedings are focused on: digital transformation; business model innovation; blockchain and social media; big data, data science, and decision support systems; ehealth, digital wellness and wellbeing; new applications and organizational models; and novel approaches and cases in education in digital economy.

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