When Public Utilities Like to Talk on Facebook

As the leading social media tool, Facebook is increasingly becoming an important channel for two-sided stakeholder communication in the energy sector. Even though public utilities more and more all relying on such virtual communication, little is known regarding the communication-related factors and their interdependencies. This study aims to reduce this research gap by analysing correlations between a public utility’s specifications, communication interactivity, the resources spent and the outcome of the Facebook conversation. In 2016, an online questionnaire was sent to German, Austrian and Swiss utility companies. The empirical data of the 139 utilities that responded fully support relationships between the communication interactivity and the invested resources as well as the outcomes of a communication. In this way, the results provide new insights for scholars and practitioners into the Facebook conversations of public entities.