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

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.

A quantitative content analysis was used to examine a total of 1,486 corporate FB postings.

–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.

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.