Fortune 100 companies’ Facebook strategies: corporate ability versus social responsibility

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how Fortune 100 companies are using Facebook (FB) in terms of employing corporate ability (CA), corporate social responsibility (CSR), and hybrid communication strategies, meeting different stakeholders’ expectations, and incorporating interactivity components into social media. Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative content analysis was used to examine a total of 1,486 corporate FB postings. Findings –Fortune 100 companies predominantly employed a CA strategy over a CSR strategy or a hybrid strategy. They prioritize customers’ needs over other stakeholders’ (e.g. stockholders and community members) on FB. FB fans are more likely to post “like” when companies personalize their FB messages. Seeking specific action-oriented participation on FB increased the frequencies of “like” and “comment,” whereas using the generic terms like “try” or “learn” decreased such frequencies. Finally, the frequencies of fans posting “like” and “comment” are affected by how often companies responded to fans’ postings and not influenced by how often companies feed new FB updates to fans. Originality/value – This study provides a benchmark case of how corporations are using a mainstream social media outlet to engage different stakeholders. It helps to assess the current status of public relations communication strategies on the mainstream social networking site. Companies can increase public engagement and response on social media through more personalized messages and techniques to encourage active participation and dialogue.

Do Organizational Personification and Personality Matter? The Effect of Interaction and Conversational Tone on Relationship Quality in Social Media

“…In sum, past studies have shown that communication strategies with an interpersonal approach such as increased interaction or a conversational tone of communication are effective at improving organizations' evaluations on social networking sites (e.g., S. Kim et al, 2014;H. Lee & Park, 2013).…”

Assessing the applicability of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions for Global 500 corporations’ Facebook profiles and content

“…Instead, studies primarily focus on organizations from one specific region. For example, Kim, Kim, & Sung (2014) examined American organizations' social responsibility strategies on Facebook while Heaselgrave and Simmons (2016) examined social media more broadly in relation to limited dialogue in the space by Australian government agencies. Other scholars have compared social media usage by different sectors (e.g., nonprofit compared to for-profit), but they have largely been within the geographic boundaries of one nation (Sriramesh, Rivera-Sanchez, & Soriano, 2013).…”

Gestión interactiva de la comunicación de la RSE de las empresas de Argentina en Facebook

“…Pero los estudios indican que las empresas están centrando su comunicación en las redes sociales más en el rol económico (Cho, Furey, & Mohr, 2016;Haigh et al, 2013;Park & Lee, 2016;Torres, 2017), especialmente los temas comerciales (Macnamara, 2016), que en los temas sociales en redes sociales. Las investigaciones demuestran que menos del 20% de los contenidos difundidos por las empresas son de temas de RSE (Cho et al, 2016;Kim, Kim, & Hoon Sung, 2014). Así, como segundo objetivo específico se propone determinar qué tipo de contenidos de RSE están tratando las empresas en Facebook.…”