Writing’s On the Wall: Public Response to Corporate Facebook Ability and Responsibility Posts

• In Event: Best Student Papers in Public Relations

Abstract

This research presents a quantitative content analysis of Fortune 500 companies’ Facebook profiles, wall posts, and wall comments. It confirmed a three-part typology of message strategies – corporate ability (CA), corporate social responsibility (CSR) and hybrid – exists in corporate online social networking communication. As predicted, when corporations communicated in wall posts using CA strategies, related wall comments showed publics demonstrated greater CA associations and product evaluations than CSR associations and company evaluations. Likewise, when corporations communicated using CSR strategies, comments showed publics demonstrated greater CSR associations than CA associations. This study provides evidence of corporate strategies and consumer associations and evaluations as they exist in the digital market, topics thus far examined primarily in lab experiments or in the one-way communication of corporate websites. Corporate message strategy indeed appears to prompt indications of real-world related corporate associations in the minds (and written speech) of their publics on Facebook.

Authors

• Julia Daisy Fraustino, University of Maryland

• Colleen Connolly-Ahern, Pennsylvania State U