Broadcasting, reacting, engaging – three strategies for CSR communication in Twitter

Abstract

Purpose – Symmetric communication and relationship building are core principles of public relations, which have been highlighted for CSR communication. The purpose of this paper is to develop three different communication strategies for CSR communication in Twitter, of which each contributes differently to the ideals of symmetric communication and relationship building. The framework is then applied to analyze how companies use the micro-blogging service Twitter for CSR communication. Design/methodology/approach – Social network analysis is used to identify the 30 most central corporate accounts in a CSR Twitter network. Findings – From the social network analysis 40,000 tweets are extracted and manually coded. Anova is applied to investigate differences in the weighting of CSR topics between the different strategies. Originality/value – So far not much is known about how social media, such as Twitter, contribute to the core principles of public relations, if companies use social media to foster symmetric communication and relationship management, or which CSR topics they address.