Towards the final frontier: using strategic communication activities to engage the latent public as a key stakeholder in a corporate mission

Private corporations that do not normally interact with, nor regularly communicate with, the public often do not perceive the public as a relevant or active stakeholder. The public may not view themselves as a stakeholder, particularly when they are unaware of, have no direct dealings with, or do not have any problems associated with such a corporation. The current study, utilizing a national survey of the United States public (N = 424) found that through directed strategic communication activities of a private spaceflight corporation, utilizing social and new media tools, a latent public can perceive a corporation and its mission in a positive manner, and transition it towards a status of an aware public and possible active public. Positive perceptions were found regarding corporate credibility, brand awareness, public engagement, communicating a corporate mission, educating the public, and influencing public opinion.     

Exploring the Perceptual and Behavioral Outcomes of Public Engagement on Mobile Phones and Social Media

Mobile technology and social media exert a substantial impact on our society and daily lives. Employing a survey of 633 college students in the United States, this study examined the effects of college students’ public engagement on mobile phones and social media on their organizational identification and attachment and positive electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) communication. Findings suggested that college students’ public engagement with mobile phones and social media significantly impacted their attachment toward and identification with the university. Moreover, this study found that students’ public engagement and university identification strongly predicted their positive e-WOM communication about their university. Furthermore, students’ mobile phone engagement indirectly influenced positive e-WOM communication through organizational identification. The theoretical and practical implications of this study were also discussed.     

News Media and Corporate Representation of CSR in India

Applying stakeholder theory in an international context, this study examined how Indian news media and corporations communicatively define corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the relationship between their narratives. Content analysis of 242 news articles and 200 corporate websites shows that although there are signs of a progressive CSR attitude, the news media and corporate discourse are still ignoring current issues and challenges relevant to Indian society. However, there were also indicators of tensions between moral and strategic intent, as well as intrinsic and extrinsic motivations that previous studies have argued should define CSR in the Indian context. Implications for international CSR research and practice in the context of sociocultural and media environment are discussed.     

Using Social Media to Engage Employees: Insights from Internal Communication Managers

The growth of social media in organizations is reshaping internal communication strategy. This article explores the value of internal social media with a focus on employee engagement, which is defined as employees who are connected to the values and mission of the company, feel empowered, bring energy, passion, and discretionary effort to their jobs, and serve as advocates. Interviews were conducted with 27 senior-level internal communication practitioners working for global companies. Practitioners said they use a variety of communication channels, including social media, to drive employee engagement. The findings revealed best practices in using internal social media to engage employees, including providing clear social media policies and employee training; empowering employee social advocates; involving leadership and securing endorsement; social media listening; sharable, relevant, and practical content strategies; and, authenticity and consistency. Future trends and evolvement of internal communication around social media are also discussed.     

Mobile Corporate Social Responsibility (mCSR): Examining Publics’ Responses to CSR-Based Initiatives in Natural Disasters

As social media use on mobile devices has been integrated in people’s daily lives, corporations began to target the publics on corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities on mobile devices. In the context of a natural disaster, this study examines how publics respond to CSR-based initiatives by way of mobile corporate social responsibility (mCSR), including gratifications, social media engagement, perceived CSR motives, and the relationship outcomes as associated with mCSR practice. An online survey was conducted by sampling with 1,433 nationally representative adults in the United States. Findings indicated that four broad types of gratification, such as technological convenience, social interaction, recreation, and information exchange, significantly influenced relationship outcomes such as satisfaction, commitment, distrust, trust, and control mutuality. Results also demonstrated that perceived CSR motives and social media engagement on mobile devices were significantly related to relationship outcomes, providing empirical evidence for the important role that potential mCSR communications can play in engaging publics and cultivating relationships during natural disasters.     

Motivations,Consumption Emotions,and Temporal Orientations in Social Media Use: A Strategic Approach to Engaging Stakeholders Across Platforms

How to engage stakeholders effectively with different social media platforms is an important topic in strategic communication research. Grounded in uses and gratifications theory, consumption emotion theory, and temporal orientation framework, this study conducted an online survey among social media users in the United States (N = 940) to examine how individuals’ motivations, emotions, and temporal orientations in social media use might differ by multi-platform usage groups (i.e., Facebook+Instagram users vs. Facebook+Pinterset users). Our findings indicate that Facebook+Instagram users focus more on self-status seeking and entertainment, while Facebook+Pinterest users are more information-seeking driven and future-oriented. In addition, more optimism is detected among Facebook+Pinterest users. Implications for strategic communication theory development as well as insights for organization-stakeholder engagement on social media are discussed.     

Examining the Impact of Public Engagement and Presidential Leadership Communication on Social Media in China: Implications for Government-Public Relationship Cultivation

This study examined how public positive and negative social media (i.e., WeChat) discussion about President Xi Jinping in China, along with Xi’s leadership communication styles of assertiveness, responsiveness, and authenticity on social media influence publics’ evaluation of his leadership effectiveness, which in turn, influences public trust and satisfaction with the government. Through a quantitative online survey of 396 WeChat users in China, randomly selected via an international sampling firm and a structural equation modeling analysis, the results show that publics’ political discussion about Xi on social media in China significantly influences the perceived leadership effectiveness of the president. Specifically, the more the publics engage in positive discussion about the president on social media, the more they perceive him to be a better political leader, and vice-versa. The president’s leadership communication attributes of responsiveness and authenticity strongly and positively influenced perceived leadership effectiveness and the quality of government-public relationships. Publics’ evaluation of the president’s leadership effectiveness directly contributed to public trust and satisfaction toward the government. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.     

An Integrated Approach to Public Diplomacy and Public Relations: A Five-Year Analysis of the Information Subsidies of the United States,China, and Singapore

This study contributes to the growing research on government-issued information subsidies in mediated public diplomacy in a new media environment. It examines the online information subsidies issued by the foreign ministries of three countries—the United States, China, and Singapore—to address a gap in the literature that has given scant attention to how governments use news releases through online newsrooms for public diplomacy. The study is significant for its conceptual explication of public relations and public diplomacy through an integrative strategic communication framework grounded in relationship building as an end goal of public diplomacy. A Leximancer textual analysis of 13,714 public diplomacy texts published through the three countries’ online press rooms over 5 years (2008–2012) found limited congruence in themes and concepts between and among the three countries, even on the issue of human rights, a major diplomatic point of contention. The weak congruence suggests a modelling of public diplomacy on one-way communication, and reveals a fundamental obstacle to grounding engagement, dialogue and collaboration strategically in a context of co-existence, understanding, mutual interdependence and relationship building. Through a three-country analysis, this study conceptually extends the view of public diplomacy beyond the dyadic construction of public diplomacy that dominates the existing literature.     

Empowering Engagement: Understanding Social Media User Sense of Influence

For all the hope and hype hailing the democratizing effect of social media, few studies have explained public influence as an element of social media engagement. Insight into how and why individuals attempt to exert influence over organizations online is particularly underdeveloped. This study takes the first step in understanding sense of influence online through in-depth interviews with social media users. Findings call into question assumptions in research about the motives and meanings underlying individual efforts to exert influence via social media. The data from 19 in-depth interviews with active social media users suggest that sense of influence is enacted for social relationships rather than to influence organizations or society, and information is the driving force of that effort. Findings also place the imperative on strategic communication to emphasize the value of the organization’s role on social interaction toward a fully functioning society.     

Paid,Earned, Shared and Owned Media From the Perspective of Advertising and Public Relations Agencies: Comparing China and the United States

Despite the existence of the “great firewall,” advertising and public relations practitioners in China, much like in the United States, are embracing and enacting social media and digital strategies on behalf of their clients. In this study, we conducted 42 in-depth interviews with advertising and public relations practitioners in the United States and mainland China to explore how emerging media and integrated marketing communication (IMC) are impacting advertising and public relations agencies in the two countries. This cross-cultural comparison revealed several critical insights, which were examined through the lenses of IMC and dimensions of culture. We found that emerging media lead to converging trends in various aspects of agency performance. The blurring of paid, earned, shared, and owned media (PESO) was evidentially observed in how executives of both countries defined and used media. Chinese agencies were media agnostic, concerned more with effectiveness of media practices. The U.S. agencies embraced collaboration and information technology better compared to their Chinese peers. This research contributes to the body of knowledge in strategic communication via providing empirical evidence of how Chinese and U.S. agencies coordinate IMC and perceive PESO media relative and in response to emerging media practices.     

Social Media as a Communication Strategy: Content Analysis of Top Nonprofit Foundations’ Micro-blogs in China

As Web 2.0 has become a trend, an increasing number of nonprofit foundations in China have started to utilize social media for strategic communication. Based on a quantitative content analysis, this study examines how social media, more specifically Sina Weibo, was used by the top 300 nonprofit public-fundraising foundations in China to advance their missions. Message strategy and dialogic communication strategy used to build and maintain organization-public relationships were identified. The result shows that top nonprofit foundations in China mainly relied on Sina Weibo to disseminate information, promoting issues and activities as well as calling for help. Two-way communication process and dialogic loops between foundations and audience were revealed. Audio, video, emotional appeals, dialogic, and interactive features have not been fully utilized, although micro-blog posts with certain multimedia and dialogic/interactive features were significantly more likely to be commented, shared, and liked. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

Social Media Influencers in Strategic Communication: A Conceptual Framework for Strategic Social Media Influencer Communication

ABSTRACT

Strategic social media influencer communication has become a major topic in strategic communication. However, despite the growing relevance of this new strategic communication instrument, research has paid only limited attention to elaborating its basic concepts. In this article, we adopt a strategic communication perspective to develop a conceptual framework for strategic social media influencer communication. Particularly, we draw on research findings that identify the external resources social media influencers contribute to organization-influencer cooperation. We use these findings to systematically develop functional definitions of social media influencers and of strategic social media influencer communication. We define social media influencers as third-party actors who have established a significant number of relevant relationships with a specific quality to and influence on organizational stakeholders through content production, content distribution, interaction, and personal appearance on the social web. Subsequently, we define strategic social media communication as the purposeful use of communication by organizations or social media influencers in which social media influencers are addressed or perform activities with strategic significance to organizational goals. We then situate these definitions within the broader framework of strategic communication by discussing related concepts and by describing the strategic action field that has emerged around strategic social media influencer communication.     

Interaktion und Dialog? Eine quantitative Inhaltsanalyse der Aktivitäten deutscher Parteien bei Twitter und Facebook während der Landtagswahlkämpfe 2011

The present study examines post-2009 developments on political social media communication in Germany. 2011 presented itself as an ideal period of investigation, as seven new state parliaments were elected in this year – both in largely agricultural and rural states with comparatively low population density (e.g. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), heavily populated city states with a modern, urban electorate (e.g. Hamburg and Berlin), and states with several regional and local centres (such as Rhineland-Palatinate or Baden-Württemberg). The total of seven cases provided sufficient variance for a cross-sectional study. In all seven state election campaigns, the social media communication of six parties was examined. In spite of the heterogeneous results of the study, clear trends are evident: All political parties are especially active immediately prior to the election. A connection between a party’s political orientation and its activity on social media could not be shown. A tendency towards mobilization is seen at for all parties. In some cases they can actually promote participation and interaction, but never achieve a sustainable dialogue with interested citizens.     

Strategic Social Media Use in Public Relations: Professionals’ Perceived Social Media Impact,Leadership Behaviors,and Work-Life Conflict

Using the E-leadership theory as the conceptual framework, the study examined strategic communicators’ perceptions of the impact of social media use on their work, leadership behaviors, and work-life conflict. Through a national sample of communication professionals (N = 458), this study revealed the following key findings. The use of YouTube in professionals’ work, social media use in media relations, employee communications, and cause-related marketing/social marketing were significantly, positively associated with participants’ perceptions of the enhancing impact of social media use. Social media use in crisis management and employee communications significantly, positively predicted professionals’ perceptions of social media’s aggravating impact (e.g., extended work hours, increased workload) on their work. The use of Facebook and YouTube in strategic communication, the use of social media in environmental scanning, as well as the positive and negative impact of social media use all significantly and positively predicted communication professionals’ leadership behaviors. When the unintended negative effects of social media use happened, professionals perceived a low control over their work and thereby experienced a high level of time-based and strain-based work-life conflict. Finally, public affairs/governmental relations professionals who were frequent users of social media for their work reported a high level of strain-based work-life conflict.     

Casting Roles to Stakeholders – A Narrative Analysis of Reputational Storytelling in the Digital Public Sphere

This article presents a narrative study of stakeholder positions, storytelling agency, and power in the digital public sphere as seen by organizational actors. According to the institutional approach, corporations and their reputations are enacted, sustained, and altered by their external stakeholders. This article posits that, in the online public sphere, corporate reputations are formed by narratives, in which stakeholders take different positions on intended actions. Using a qualitative data set derived from seventeen interviews with communication and risk management professionals, these positions were analyzed using a Burkean pentadic analysis combined with the Stakeholder Saliency Model. Using pentadic ratios, seven different narrative stakeholder positions were identified: Information seeker, Influencer, Pressurer, Communicator, Mender, Monitor, and Intermediator. These positions were taken by different actors, such as individual users, communities, online media and the organization itself. Analyzing the attributes of power, legitimacy and urgency related to these positions three transformations were identified: mobilizing crowds, issue recognition, and scene transformation. The proposed model helps to identify the different stakeholders in the digital communication sphere and to understand their agency through their narrative positions.     

Dialogue and Relationship Building in Online Financial Communications

The use of social media in investor communications is a fairly new phenomenon. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States announced that corporations may use social media to disclose mandatory key information required by law. With that ruling, social media communications leaves the sometimes fancy world of creativity and image creation and enters the core of strategic communication linked to corporate viability and success. Investor relations in general are essentially about engaging in dialogues with shareholders. Whereas disseminating information online is quite established, online dialogues offer a greater challenge. Dialogue-oriented and dialogic communication processes are not the same according to speech philosophy; and dialogic communication serves only as one possibility for corporations to build relationships with stakeholders. The research presented here analyzes how listed corporations deal with the highly participatory and fragmented communication environment on the web. The prevalence and intensity of social media dialogues was analyzed in an empirical study that focused on the 150 largest global corporations listed on DJIA (United States), FTSE (United Kingdom), CAC (France), DAX (Germany), and NIKKEI (Japan). A framework has been constructed to analyze dialogue-oriented and dialogic financial communications on the Internet and social web.     

Revisiting a Social Constructionist Approach to Crisis Communication– Investigating Contemporary Crises in China

ABSTRACT

The current study provides a social constructionist approach to crisis communication in the Chinese context. Crisis communication is viewed as a form of strategic communication, involving multiple stakeholders in situations that are dependent on context, space and time. This approach provides a much-needed path for investigating and understanding crisis communication practices in contemporary China. The distinct Chinese context for crisis communication, with both an authoritarian government structure and a digital transformation of society, challenges theories originally developed in the Western countries. To address this issue, this study proposes a three-theme analytical framework to examine crisis communication practices in the Chinese context: (1) an audience (or stakeholder) orientation—focusing sense-making, (2) a proactive and interactive approach—focusing communication, and (3) a community—focused approach—focusing a long-range precrisis perspective.     

Strategy and Tactics in Strategic Communication: Examining their Intersection with Social Media Use

While public relations industry leaders have proposed a strategic approach to social media, industry research has found that social media practices may be more tactical than strategic. Likewise, scholarly research has focused more on specific parts of strategic planning, such as message—and channel-level communication in social media, but little research has been done to understand program-level communication planning. The purpose of this study was to examine the confluence of current trends in social media use with strategic communication processes through in-depth interviews and a national survey of public relations practitioners. The in-depth interviews revealed two overarching themes: (1) social media use should be guided by strategic planning and (2) social media tactics should revolve around conversations. The survey results showed that practitioners are involved in social media strategy development and tactical implementation, yet see their involvement as linked mostly to their organizations’ strategic rather than tactical social media activities. In addition, practitioners delineate social media strategies and tactics differently than theoretical conceptualizations.     

Primed Authenticity: How Priming Impacts Authenticity Perception of Social Media Influencers

ABSTRACT

Though organizations increasingly collaborate with social media influencers, such as bloggers and videobloggers, little is known as to how the contextual cues related to sponsored content affect the authenticity perception of the social media influencers among audience members. This study explores how positive and negative priming of sponsored content shapes the authenticity perception of the vlogger among its audience members. Four different manipulation conditions were constructed to study a U.S. based travel vlog on Qualtrics, with data collected via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. A theory-guided content analysis of 211 open viewer responses was conducted to compare perceptions of authenticity between the manipulation groups. The results verified the significance of priming: the same sponsored content can result in opposite reactions among the audience members depending on the positive/negative valence of the introductory text attached, highlighting the central importance of strategic communication related to the perception of sponsored content. The results also point out the importance of audience member engagement for experienced authenticity: The manipulation of audience participation with the vlog had a stronger effect on the perception of authenticity of the vlogger than the positive/negative valence of the introductory text.