Stakeholder relationship management on Facebook

Social media play an increasingly large role in corporate communication and stakeholder relationship management. Whereas previous research has focused on different communication strategies used by Fortune 500 companies on Facebook, none have analysed and mapped stakeholder engagement and response within a social network. This study used a mixed method approach to find out how fifteen Fortune Global 500 companies communicate on Facebook and in what ways stakeholders engage with corporate Facebook posts. First, a qualitative content analysis was conducted to determine how fifteen Fortune Global 500 companies use the information dissemination and interactivity strategy and message frames to engage their Facebook fans. Stakeholder engagement and response types were measured to find out which strategies and frames were most effective in terms of generating activity from stakeholders. The results showed that stakeholders interact most with social and interactive posts, and posts that contain various media types including photos, videos and links. Posts that invited stakeholders to participate in contests and games were consistently popular, as well as the product promotion message frame. For the second part of the study, a network analysis was conducted in order to find out how users interact with corporate Facebook messages and how information flows within page networks. This showed that user communities based on one-time interactions form around the most popular posts within the network. However, communities consisting of multiple interactions did not form around particular communication strategies, but rather around certain topics and hashtags. This type of community formation can be useful for companies, as it helps information to spread faster within and outside the network. Overall, companies were using Facebook’s features to engage their fans. However, only a few companies were using the social network to its fullest extent to manage stakeholder relationships, by posting interactive and social messages, and including hashtags and key words in posts.