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The Logic of Social Media Orientation : an exploratory study on social media orientations of communication professionals working in profit and non-profit organizations

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The Logic of Social Media Orientation

An exploratory study on social media orientations of communication professionals working in profit and non-profit organizations

Rianne Poelstra - 12072591 Master’s Thesis

Graduate School of Communication

Master’s programme Communication Science Supervisor: mw. dr. A. Wonneberger

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Abstract

Research so far has either focused on mass media orientation and the comparison of external communication strategies of communication professionals working in for -profit, public, and non-profit organizations, or on media orientation (including social media) for communication managers working in the public sector. However, social media was hereby not extensively reflected, as these communication managers underlined that mass media was still more important for them. Since social media follow a completely different logic than mass media, the aim of this study was, firstly, to contribute to this research area by exploring the underlying dimensions of social media orientation, and secondly, by comparing the strategic use of social media (and social media orientations) of for-profit organizations and non-profit organizations. This was established by conducting 11 semi-structured, qualitative interviews with 14 communication professionals from both sectors. Three underlying dimensions of social media orientation emerged from this study: perceived function of social media, perceived relevance of online connectedness, and perceived evaluation of the social media environment. The interplay among these three dimensions constitute a person’s social media orientation. Moreover, the strategic use of social media differed between corporate and non-profit organizations for the information and dialogue strategy. For future research, it would be interesting to also explore the social media orientations of other organizational actors, as well as a comparison between different types of corporate or non-profit organizations. Moreover, communication managers should be more aware of the fact that social media is not controllable, only boundaries can be set and strategies can be developed.

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Keywords: social media orientation, social media logic, communication managers, communication strategies

The Logic of Social Media Orientation

An exploratory study on social media orientations of communication professionals working in profit and non-profit organizations.

Social media is increasingly changing the media landscape. While some believed that the rise of the mass media was the end of conversation, many heralded social media for its “rediscovery of conversation” (Macnamara, 2010, p. 11). Through social media, news can be shared, reaching millions of people without the intervention of journalists (Colley & Collier, 2009). Online word of mouth is excessively influential and is perceived more trustworthy than traditional media (Colley & Collier, 2009; Thackeray, Neiger, Hanson, & McKenzie, 2008). Trustworthiness contains organizational openness and transparency (Albu & Flyverbom, 2019; Schnackenberg & Tomlinson, 2016). It includes sharing information, being open and allowing stakeholders to participate in decisions (Rawlins, 2007).

According to the European Communication Monitor (ECM) of 2019, communication professionals currently perceive the building and maintaining of trust as their biggest challenge, followed by the dilemma of dealing with the speed and volume of the flow of information. Interesting hereby is that these perceived challenges only appeared this year for the first time. Thus, assumed is that the erosion of trust and the changing media landscape are experienced as increasingly pressing by communication professionals (ECM, 2019).

Moreover, there appears to be a discrepancy between the social media knowledge that communication professionals claim to have and their actual knowledge about social media. Thus, the strategic use of these tools is one of the main challenges for PR

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practitioners (Moreno, Navarro, Tench & Zerfass, 2015). Therefore, social media practices are regularly executed by millennials, so-called ‘digital natives’, who can emphasize with bloggers, vloggers and the online world (Fournier & Avery, 2011). For managers, it is hereby important that employees embrace developments in order to avoid losing control (Elving & Postma, 2017).

However, managers need to understand that controlling social media is an illusion (Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thimpkins & Wiertz, 2013; Grunig, 2009; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010), and they will have to learn how to deal with this lack of control by integrating social media into their corporate strategy (Elving & Postma, 2017). This might be difficult, as social media follow a completely different logic compared to traditional media: media usage, production, and distribution occur differently (Klinger & Svensson, 2014).

Thus, we are interested in the attitudes of strategic communication managers towards social media. Media orientation can serve as a means to analyse media-related attitudes of individuals (Kohring, Marcinkowski, Lindner & Karis, 2013; Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2016; Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2019). Research so far has either focused on mass media orientation and the comparison of external communication strategies of communication professionals working in for-profit, public, and non-profit organizations (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2016), or on media orientation (including social media) for communication managers working in the public sector. However, social media was hereby not extensively reflected, as these communication managers underlined that mass media was still more important for them.

However, an organization’s institutional environment matters for PR, as there can be different budgets, public pressure, media coverage frequency, and media coverage evaluation (Liu & Horsley, 2007; Liu, Horsley, & Levenshus, 2010). Thus, different

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organization types could be affected differently in the same media environment, which makes a comparison relevant (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2016). Moreover, Wonneberger and Jacobs (2019) state that it is therefore important to extend the research on media orientations and their consequences, by comparing different types of organizations.

Hence, the aim of this research is twofold: on the one hand, the underlying dimensions of social media orientation of communication managers are explored. On the other, the strategic use of social media of profit and non-profit organizations is compared in relation to their social media orientations. The paper develops as follows. First, the theory section explores stakeholder theory with a particular focus on the changing media landscape and a forthcoming way of examining the attitudes of communication professionals towards media: media orientation. Then the underlying dimensions of media orientation and social media logic will be discussed. Moreover, the institutional differences between for-profit and non-profit organizations will be outlined, as well as the different communication strategies that they apply. Next, the interview study is introduced, and the method of analysis is described. The findings are then presented, followed by a discussion of the results and the theoretical and practical implications.

Theoretical framework

Managing stakeholder relationships in the online environment

Communication managers have a boundary-spanning function between the organization and its environment whereby a core practice is to maintain relations with stakeholders through media (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2019). All organizations have different stakeholders to whom they should respond and on whom they rely (Elving & Postma, 2017). Stakeholders are hereby defined as “any group or individual that can affect or is affected by the achievement of an organisation’s objectives” (Freeman, 1984, p. 46).

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The first stakeholder theory model, developed by Freeman (1984), gained popularity due to its powerful visual scheme and simplicity (Fassin, 2009). Central to this theory was the organization. However, reality is far more complex than such a simple graphical representation (Fassin, 2009) and the traditional view is outdated due to ongoing developments in technology and social media (Luoma-aho, Trikkonen & Vos, 2013).

In recent years, stakeholder theory has developed an emphasis on the engagement of stakeholders in long-term value creation. Instead of stakeholders being managed by organizations, the focus has shifted towards the interaction that organizations have with their stakeholders (Andriof & Waddock, 2002). This has also increased interest in understanding how managers can manage the relationships with stakeholders, rather than stakeholders themselves (Morsing & Schultz, 2006). The stakeholder relationship is presumed to consist of “interactive, mutually engaged and responsive relationships that establish the very context of doing modern business, and create the groundwork for transparency and accountability” (Andriof, Waddock, Husted & Rahman, 2002, p. 9). Thus, participation, dialogue and involvement are becoming central to stakeholder theory (Morsing & Schultz, 2006).

As modern-day consumers are more empowered to share their brand stories on social networks, they have gained a more important voice (Gensler et al., 2013). Consumer-generated brand stories can be positive or negative, as they refer to past or anticipated brand experiences. Moreover, they can have more impact than offline consumer stories, as they have the ability to spread more easily and brands do not necessarily need to be active on social media themselves in order to be affected by these stories (Gensler et al., 2013).

Furthermore, user-generated content has been found to have a greater effect on influencing the attitudes and behaviours of other users, compared to traditional

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marketing communication efforts as these messages are perceived as real and authentic (Thackeray et al., 2008). However, most public relations practitioners do not believe social media are as credible or as accurate as mainstream media (Wright & Hinson, 2009; Fjeld & Molesworth, 2006). Due to this discrepancy it is interesting to understand communication managers’ attitudes towards social media. The present study is aiming to achieve this by exploring the underlying dimensions of social media orientation of communication managers. In the following, therefore, research on media orientation will be discussed in relation to (social) media logic.

Media orientation

Media orientation can serve as a means to analyse media-related attitudes of individuals. It is a specific manifestation of mediatization (Kohring et al., 2013; Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2016; Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2019), which refers to the adaptation of actors, such as organizations or managers, to the logic of the media (Couldry & Hepp, 2013; Hjarvard, 2008; Mazzoleni & Schulz, 1999; Strömback, 2008). Media logic is incorporated in the functioning of organizations (Hjarvard, 2008; Klinger & Svensson, 2014), which means that organizations adapt their processes and structures to media pressure (Hjarvard, 2008; Pallas & Fredriksson, 2013; Schillemans, 2012) (e.g. professionalization of strategies to deal with the media) (Hallahan, Holtzhausen, Van Ruler, Verčič, & Sriramesh, 2007).

Mediatization effects are often studied on the organizational level (Fredriksson, Schillemans & Pallas, 2015; Verhoeven, 2016). The role of actors in the underlying processes has received less theoretical scrutiny (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2019). However, a key aspect for understanding and explaining online communication is rooted in understanding the micro level, that is communication practitioners’ social media usage and their general attitudes towards social media (Moreno et al., 2015).

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Previous research on media orientation at the level of the actors was either linked to external communication strategies of communication professionals (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2016), or aimed at exploring the consequences of media orientations for strategic considerations concerning stakeholder relationships (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2019). Moreover, Wonneberger and Jacobs (2016) compared the mass media orientation of strategic communication professionals working in profit, non-profit and public organizations. They found that organizations generally applied a mix of communication strategies, whereby one-way symmetric communication was most relevant (e.g. getting the message across). This indicates that despite the widely acknowledged advantages of bridging activities and engaging in dialogue with your audience, the main task of communication professionals seems to still only send information, instead of listening (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2016).

Additionally, a later study of Wonneberger and Jacobs (2019) expanded this perspective by exploring the consequences of media orientations for strategic considerations concerning stakeholder relationships. This study focused on communication managers working in the public sector and explored the underlying dimensions of media orientation as a whole; including social media. They developed a new conceptualization of media orientation and empirically explored how its dimensions are reflected in the manager’s understandings of stakeholder relations.

Dimensions of media orientation. There are three dimensions that refer to different aspects of individually perceived relevance of the media for organizations. The interplay of these dimensions constitute a person’s media orientation (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2019). The first dimension is the perceived function of media attention for the organization and refers the extent to which communication managers perceive media coverage to be relevant for their organization.

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The second dimension concerns the evaluation of organizational media coverage and the organization’s media environment. This dimension consists of three sub dimensions: (1) perceived presence of the organization in media coverage; (2) perceived valence (e.g. perceptions of the tone and level of criticism of media reports); (3) perceived quality of journalism (refers to the actor’s perceptions of the current profession of journalism).

The final dimension refers to the perceived relevance of specific medium types for the organization (e.g. online or offline, national or regional, generic or niche). Interesting hereby was that the use of social media was regarded as challenging by many organizations. They found that only a few larger organizations started to actively position themselves on social media. Others indicated that social media were less relevant, because of limited resources. However, social media were mentioned as relevant for public debates when monitoring was needed or as a means of fast distribution of information (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2019).

Moreover, even though this research explored media orientation in general, social media was not perceived as very relevant and thus not really incorporated in the dimensions of media orientation in public-sector organizations. Media orientation appeared to be centred around traditional channels and sector-specific media platforms. However, social media follow a completely different media logic than mass media, as media usage, production, and distribution occur differently (Klinger & Svensson, 2014). Social media logic

Social media has generated a new type of communicative logic; social media logic, which concerns the norms, strategies, mechanisms, and economies underpinning its dynamics (Van Dijck & Poell, 2013). According to Van Dijck and Poell (2013) this concept is centred around four characteristics: programmability, popularity,

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connectivity, and datafication. Olsson and Eriksson (2016) only used the first three concepts in relation to the logic of public organizations’ social media use, as they argued that the concept of datafication was grounded in the other three characteristics. Nevertheless, the present study will also discuss datafication, as all the characteristics are systematically interdependent (Van Dijck & Poell, 2013).

Programmability. The concept of programmability refers to the ability of social media to “trigger and steer users’ creative or communicative contributions, while users, through their interaction with these coded environments, may in turn influence the flow of communication and information activated by such a platform” (Van Dijck & Poell, 2013, p. 5). On the one hand, thus, programmability relates to the technical aspects of a platform, such as computer code, data, algorithms, and platform interfaces. On the other hand, it relates to human agency: users gained significant agency in the process of steering their own contributions, but perhaps more importantly, they can resist coded instructions or defy protocols (Van Dijck & Poell, 2013). A common phenomenon of this is the hijacking of branded hashtags, whereby its original meaning is modified by non-organizational members. A new and often activist meaning is allocated to the hashtag as it is massively shared (Albu and Etter, 2016).

Moreover, Olsson and Eriksson (2016) found that most communication managers were trying to minimize misunderstandings and situations in which users can alter the content’s meaning, by using social media for the distribution of information. This is also in line with findings of Wonneberger and Jacobs (2019). Moreover, the public agencies indicated that through social media and this information sharing component, they became less dependent on traditional media. Whereas they used to send press releases that were not used by media, the current situation appeared to be opposite. Journalists carefully monitored the agents and spread the news provided via social media. However,

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they indicated that finding a balance between neutrality and promoting the agencies’ issues remains a challenge (Olsson & Eriksson, 2016).

Connectivity. The second characteristic of social media logic is connectivity. When social media platforms emerged, their primary pursuit seemed to be human connectedness, and they still promote their networked services as enablers of human connections. However, connectivity also refers to “the socio-technical affordance of networked platforms to connect content to user activities and advertisers” (Van Dijck & Poell, 2013, p. 8), which means that social media platforms always mediate users’ activities and define how connections are established (e.g. automated personalization through likes and friends; diminishment of control; false impression of interaction on equal terms). Van Dijck and Poell (2013) thus underline that connectivity has a bipolar element: human connectedness is enabled on the one hand, while automated connectivity is similarly pushed. Hereby, the boundaries between these two categories of connectivity are increasingly blurred.

The study of Olsson and Eriksson (2016) did not emphasize these blurred boundaries. Their findings reflect only human connectedness, as they concluded that public agencies’ social media communication is determined by their ability to engage and attract with the online public. They indicated the need of followers who receive and engage with their messages in order to make communication through social media impactful. The main challenge hereby appeared to be reaching those who do not want to be reached, as followers tend to be people who are already associated with or interested in the agency. This aspect also comes back in the third characteristic of popularity.

Popularity. In line with programmability and connectivity, popularity is also conditioned by socio-economic, as well as algorithmic elements (Van Dijck & Poell, 2013). Each platform has different strategies for prioritizing particular contributions and

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people (e.g. ‘Trending topics’ on Twitter, ‘Most viewed’ on YouTube, ‘Explore’ on Instagram), but all the algorithms automatically assign differentiated values to contributions and people. Meanwhile, users themselves may also engage in efforts to lift their visibility. Based on one’s popularity, advertisers or employers may pay influencers to perform promotional tasks or jobs. Interesting about this characteristic is that social media platforms are able to measure popularity (e.g. through number of likes or comments), meanwhile, they also try to manipulate these rankings (Van Dijck & Poell, 2013).

Olsson and Eriksson (2016) argue that public agencies feel the need to participate and be visible on social media. Image-building through visibility was hereby found to be of particular importance. To gain popularity, public agencies tried to move from the traditional bureaucratic attitude and tone, towards a friendlier tone of voice. They hereby indicated that it was a challenge to maintain the correctness that is important for public agencies. Moreover, some public organizations also indicated potential security problems associated with personification, as this might pose a risk to individual employees who have to take a public role on social media.

Datafication. The final element of social media logic is datafication, which refers to “the ability of networked platforms to render into data many aspects of the world that have never been quantified before: not just demographic or profiling data yielded by customers in (online) surveys, but automatically derived metadata from smart phones such as time stamps and GPS-inferred locations” (Van Dijck & Poell, 2013, p. 9). This characteristic makes real-time analytics possible and can be used to predict user taste and insert personalized ads. The first three characteristics – programmability, connectivity, popularity – are all grounded in the condition of datafication (Van Dijck & Poell, 2013).

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Following from the foregoing, it can be concluded that there is a need to understand the underlying dimensions of social media orientation, as social media follow a completely different media logic than other media. Thus, the first research question central to this study is:

RQ1: To what extent are programmability, connectivity, popularity and datafication reflected in the social media orientation of strategic communication professionals?

Organizational differences

A wide range of social media strategy research has been established. However, research on the attitudes of communication professionals towards social media has only been conducted for professionals working in the public sector (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2019; Olsson & Eriksson, 2016) and non-profit sector (Greenleaf, 2016). Meanwhile, the organization’s institutional environment matters for PR, as there can be different budgets, public pressure, media coverage frequency, and media coverage evaluation (Liu & Horsley, 2007; Liu, Horsley, & Levenshus, 2010). Different organization types could thus be affected differently in the same media environment, which makes a comparison relevant (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2016). In the following, a discussion of institutional differences for for-profit and non-profit organizations will be discussed, as well as the different strategic use of social media.

There are some important institutional differences between for-profit and non-profit organizations that could influence this degree of affectedness. For corporations, the development of long-term, mutual relationships is becoming more and more central, instead of immediate profit (Andriof et al., 2002). This does not simply mean that profit has become less important. On the contrary, it underlines that company’s need to engage

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frequently with a variety of stakeholders upon whom dependence is vital (Morsing & Schultz, 2006). Good stakeholder relationships even have been suggested as a source of competitive advantage (Dyer & Singh, 1998).

Whereas a company’s main goal is to make profit, the main goals a non-profit organization are raising public awareness, initiating social change, and collecting funds. Therefore, media attention is very relevant (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2012). Moreover, non-profit organizations are independent organizations, who’s directors do not get profits returned (Schwartz & Fritsch, 2014). For their existence they are thus dependent on volunteers, members and contributors (Andreasen, 2012). They have more accountability and diverse stakeholders with different and sometimes conflicting needs and expectations (Parry & Proctor-Thompson, 2003). Therefore, it is more difficult for these organizations to obtain and maintain a good reputation, compared to for-profit organizations (Andreasen, 2012). It has been argued that their legitimacy is even more dependent on their interaction with the public and media visibility (Amenta, Caren, Olasky, & Stobaugh, 2009; Cress & Snow, 2000; Yoon, 2005). Social media could hereby significantly increase their ability to engage in dialogue with clients, regulators, volunteers, the media, and general public (Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012).

Strategic use of social media

There have been contradictory findings on the communication strategies applied by non-profit organizations online. Research on their perceptions has shown that engagement is central on social media platforms (Greenleaf, 2016). However, in a content analysis Lovejoy and Saxton (2012) found that most organizations were using social media primarily for information distribution. This is also supported by other studies (Greenberg & MacAulay, 2009; Waters, Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas, 2009; Waters & Jamal, 2011).

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Moreover, Lovejoy and Saxton (2012) found three basic functions of social media usage of Twitter for non-profit organizations, whereby its main function was informing followers (e.g. by spreading information about the organization and its activities). The second function was community, which refers to fostering relationships, creating networks, and building communities through tweets that promote interactivity and dialogue. The dialogic nature of this function was hereby found to be central. Finally, action was indicated as function of social media use. This refers to promotional activities and the mobilization of followers (e.g. donate, buy a product, attend an event, join a movement). This last function is especially interesting, since it may be what non -profit organizations ultimately want to achieve: from informed individuals, to members of a community, to activists and donors (Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012). This main function of informing followers is striking, as Saxton and Waters (2014) found that stakeholders prefer messages that stimulate open dialogue between them and the non-profit organizations in question.

The previously mentioned research suggests that social media is not used to its full potential. However, Greenleaf (2016) underlines that these findings are based on observations, instead of capturing the thoughts and perspectives of the practitioners who engage in the social media design. He thus investigated how social media specialists perceived and strategized about social media for their organization.

Whereas Lovejoy and Saxton (2012) found that informing stakeholders was social media’s most important function, Greenleaf (2016) found that engagement, and the establishment of personal relationships with stakeholders, was the the main goal. Moreover, he states that non-profit organizations intentionally created personal relationships with their audiences “for the purpose of making progress on topics of

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shared passion that would likely not be possible or desired for corporate and government organizations” (p. 14).

However, research on corporate organizations reveals overlapping findings with the three categories indicated for non-profit organizations by Lovejoy and Saxton (2012). Cornelissen (2011) distinguished three communication strategies for corporate organizations: informational, dialogue and persuasive strategy. The first two strategies can be compared to the information and community strategies as indicated by Lovejoy and Saxton (2012), whereby the former refers to informing stakeholders and the latter to actively involving stakeholders by organizational decision making. The persuasive strategy as indicated by Cornelissen (2011) is different from previously mentioned strategies, as it attempts to change stakeholders’ knowledge, attitudes or behaviours in such a way that it is only advantageous for the company and its overall performance. Moreover, the final strategy of Lovejoy & Saxton (2012) of action, could also be true for for-profit organizations, as their ultimate goal is still to make profit.

In sum, a wide range of social media strategy research has been established. However, research on the attitudes of communication professionals towards social media has only been conducted for professionals working in the public sector (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2019; Olsson & Eriksson, 2016) and non-profit sector (Greenleaf, 2016). Therefore, the present study also aims to gain a deeper understanding of the attitudes of communication professionals towards the strategic use of social media for both profit and non-profit organizations. Thus, the second research question is as follows:

RQ2: To what extent is there a difference in strategic use of social media between for -profit and non--profit organizations and how is this related to social media orientations?

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Method

To answer the research questions, the study opted for in-depth, semi-structured, and qualitative interviews with Dutch strategic communication managers. The aim hereby was to acquire a sample that consisted of companies (N=6) and non-profit organizations (N=5) operating in diverse sectors, with a diverging number of followers on social media channels in order to gain a broad understanding of the findings. The organization with the highest accumulative reach on Facebook and Instagram had respectively 79 million and 90.2 thousand followers. The organization that had the lowest accumulative reach had 771 followers on Facebook and 552 followers on Instagram.

Participants

Respondents were contacted via different mutual contacts of the researcher and participants. When they showed interest to participate in the research, an official invitation was sent via e-mail (see Appendix A). The invitation provided more insights in the topic and purpose of the study, indicated the amount of time to be allocated for the interview and the advantage for the participants.

Ultimately, 11 organizations participated in the study. The operational sectors, and nature of the organizations were various. For companies this also included different organizational structures. Two parent companies with subsidiary brands were included, one of them was related to entertainment, the other one to the nutrition sector. Two other companies were also related to nutrition, meanwhile different in other respects. The first concerned a global restaurant, whereas the second was a smaller (also international) food distributor. Furthermore, an insurance company and a global B2B company were participating in the study. The non-profit organizations were active in the fields of disability care, disease control and prevention. Even though these fields app ear to be quite homogeneous, the organizations differed greatly in size and executional scope.

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Even though 11 organizations participated, the interviews were conducted with 14 communication professionals, of which 9 were working at companies and 5 at non-profit organizations. This is due to the fact that at request of three corporate organizations, the interviews were conducted with two employees instead of one. This second person had a more executive role and was more involved with social media during his/her daily tasks. The other participants were all strategic communication managers, except for one content specialist. In short, this means that there were eleven participants with a strategic function and four participants with a more executive function. Participants hereby had an average of 18 years of work experience with a minimum of 2.5 to a maximum of 43 years.

Interview procedure

Before the first actual interviews took place, the topic list and the interview procedure were pre-tested by interviewing an interviewee who was working at a communication consulting firm. Most of the actual interviews (N=7) were established face-to-face in familiar surroundings for the participant (in his/her office or a quiet coffee corner), the other 4 interviews were conducted via telephone. Each face-to-face participant signed an informed-consent form before the start of the interview (see Appendix B). The other participants agreed upon the informed-consent by phone. In the form the interview topic was briefly explained, as well as the procedure. Confidentially was guaranteed to ensure that participants felt free to discuss sensitive information.

The general focus throughout the interviews was on the role that social media played for the organization and by what means communication managers transit their views into the organization and its communication with stakeholders. The interviews were semi-structured and conducted based on a topic list with predefined questions (see Appendix C). At the introduction of the interviews, the structure and type of questions

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were clarified (introduction of the participant, goals and strategies used for different social media platforms, importance of monitoring and web care, (employee) policies, and personal use of social media). The topics were based on the discussed literature, as well as the topic list that Wonneberger and Jacobs (2019) used for media orientation, whereby questions were adjusted to social media orientation. Moreover, some additional questions relevant to the present study were added (e.g. personal use of social media). There was also opportunity for spontaneous, response-driven questions to personalize the interviews. Thus close listening was required and space for respondents to expand and distress was provided.

During the interviews the main language was Dutch. Except for one interview, as one of the two participants’ native language was English, the main language was English. All the interviews were transcribed in the language of the interview. The interviews lasted around 35 minutes (range 24-58 min), were recorded with an audio recorder, and finally transcribed. Based on these transcripts, the analysis was conducted. Analysis

The analysis in Atlas.ti was established by using the grounded theory of Corbin and Strauss (1990). This approach uses three levels of coding: open, axial and selective. Open coding refers to “the process of breaking down, examining, comparing, conceptualizing and categorizing data” (Corbin & Strauss, 1990, p. 61). This phase was conducted soon after the collection of initial data. During axial coding connections between categories were uncovered. Important hereby was to constantly go back and forth between the categories and the data (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). By selective coding the core categories were selected and systematically related to other categories. These core categories are related to theory by making use of the memos that were written during the interviews and throughout the coding process (Corbin & Strauss, 1990).

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Results

In the following, the results of the interviews will be examined. First a general discussion of social media orientations will be provided by considering the characteristics of social media logic. Secondly, a comparative discussion of the results of both for-profit and non-profit will follow. This comparison is established by means of comparing the different communication strategies used in conjunction with social media orientations.

Social media logic

Programmability. From the interviews, it became apparent that people are increasingly empowered by social media. This empowerment became evident in different ways, such as activism among stakeholders and complaining consumers. This combined with the (unexpected) swiftness of social media may cause problems whereby communication managers do not fully control the situation anymore. Most managers of corporate organizations thus indicated that there was a need for control, which often involved the close monitoring of online content (there will be elaborated on this under ‘connectivity’).

Communication managers indicated that social media platforms, and especially Twitter, became more activist over the last few years. One of the participants, who was working at an insurance company, indicated that certain important organizational stakeholders gather on Twitter and reinforce each other’s opinions there. This often leads to political attention as well. His colleague emphasized that this gives the organization, politicians, and other involved parties a lot of extra work. However, at the same time, he underlined the positive side of this online activism:

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And it's good, too, right? It is also the public debate that has to go this way and wrong decisions have to be raised accordingly.

However, some managers did not appreciate this online public debate as much. One manager of a global nutrition company emphasized that consumers nowadays post everything online, instead of going back to the source of the product(s). Moreover, she indicated that she had to experience the possible consequences of social media before she saw its potential, due to underestimating, or simply not understanding the swiftness of social media:

I was being controlled by a medium that I did not fully understand. […] I was called by RTL news before I even had contact with the customer, and I only just knew about the situation. That is really bad, you know. Your worst nightmare.

Moreover, she indicated that her younger colleagues had to convince her of the power of social media, and explain how it could be used strategically.

Another manager of a food distribution company indicated that they had to adjust their marketing and communications strategy after a crisis emerged online. An unsatisfied consumer posted a complain, which went viral and triggered a lot of offline media attention as well. This resulted in a loss of sales and a damaged reputation. Thus, the organization had to develop a new strategy and a crisis plan to be more able to anticipate on future situations. Monitoring hereby appeared to be very important for most corporate organizations, as a means of quickly reacting to (negative) messages of stakeholders.

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Connectivity. This emphasis on controlling the situation also became apparent for the characteristic of connectivity. The communication manager of an international B2B company, indicated for example that they only started with Facebook and Instagram for defensive purposes after an online issue emerged. At the time, they could not connect with the affected people, since they did not have an official Facebook account to anticipate on the matter:

We saw an opportunity there. Whereas if we would have a Facebook page at the time, we could have corrected some of the incorrect information. And interact with this community. So that was a really good wake up call for us to think okay, we need to implement Facebook for crisis communication or these type of things.

She continued that they now also see “how its connecting employees from around the world. […] It is really nice to post content on there from all the different regions that we are in, and then have your colleagues share and like and tag people.”

For others, the engaging part of connectivity was central. One manager, who was working at a non-profit organization for mental disabled persons, put it this way: “social media has the ability to spread like oil when it is shared by followers.” Hereby the organization’s followers base mostly consisted of employees. The flip side of thi s was that their employees shared all the organizations contributions blindly. Therefore, they had to emphasize to their employees that they should only share what they thought was relevant for them personally, and explicitly refer to this personal connection in the post that they shared with their followers.

Moreover, especially for the parent companies with subsidiary brands, employee branding on social media was very important. Much of their pro-active communications

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were directed towards new employees. One of these organizations stated that they did not pro-actively used social media otherwise, but rather provided input for local social media problems (e.g. for difficult questions that were not included in standard Q&A’s for a locally employed web care team).

The manager of the insurance company indicated that co-creation was a central element in their social media strategy. The most important goal hereby was to improve products and policies together with stakeholders to gain trust of society. They stated that initially dialogue was central to the strategy, but as social media became more and more incorporated in the company, they shifted towards a more co-creation oriented view. Interesting hereby was that the general social media posts were now becoming more a means of sharing information, whereas they emphasized the co-creation on their own secluded social platform. Stakeholders would here be more able to speak freely about their ideas and concerns, without having to worry about other, non-relevant visitors that could comment on their input.

The information sharing component was also emphasized by other organizations. Especially Twitter was seen as a platform to stay in contact with journalists and to ensure news is noticed by them. One participant noted the fact that Twitter became much more of a news platform:

So contacting a certain newspaper is no longer always possible via a standard editorial staff. Or that you always contact the same journalist when you have a press release or something. It just doesn't work that way anymore. It is much more via social media. So I get in touch with a lot of journalists via Twitter, for example.

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In this way, news about organizations is easily picked up by journalists. Another manager indicated that sometimes they consciously choose to not post certain information on Twitter in order to fly under the radar.

The informative purpose of social media was also underlined by most organizations, as they wanted to create more awareness for their brand. Some of these organizations used social media for its ability to reach specific target groups. This was either established by human actors on specific media platforms or through the advanced strategy of algorithmically connections. One global B2B organization for example stated that through LinkedIn they were able to reach specific “bubbles of employees” in different countries. Others indicated that they started with Instagram to reach the millennial target group. Moreover, on campaign level this was also established by paid personalized advertisements. Some organizations noted the use of influencers to reach specific groups. Occasionally this was also established by pushing these messages, and thus paying for promotional advertisements (for an elaboration, please see “datafication”).

Popularity. According to the interviews, popularity of the organization was important. Most organizations stated that one of the main goals of social media was generating brand awareness. This was established by different means. As identified before, organizations are able to buy their popularity with personalized advertisements and/or influencers. Others already have a very loyal fan base or apply a combination of both. Interesting hereby is that some organizations indicated that their fans are even loyal to the extent that they will respond to negative comments online to defend the organization.

Moreover, the organization that was most popular on social media (i.e. largest accumulative reach of Facebook and Instagram) underlined the importance of good web

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care for positive sentiment. Since they devoted more attention to this, the overall sentiment was uplifted. As the manager indicated:

What we can see very clearly is that since we have professionalised, and greatly extended opening hours [of web care], but also very much directed towards a little more creative moderation, that sentiment has also increased enormously. When people give negative reactions, or ask difficult questions, we now see that the way in which we answer this – and that is to be very transparent and honest on the one hand, but also by putting it lightly – has really given us a much more positive sentiment as a result.

This indicates that, besides being available, the tone of voice of communication is also very important. Most employees of the organizations were instructed about this, but the extent to which this was established differed per organization.

One of the participants also underlined the risk of personification. This non-profit organization once had a crisis, whereby the sentiment of online comments was very negative. This continued for a while and resulted in threats to the organization and its employees. Thus, from that moment onwards the web care team has been signing messages under false names.

Whereas the previously mentioned policies were regarded for online employee behaviour during working hours, some organizations also had employee guidelines regarding personal social media use. The level of strictness very much differed per organization. Some indicated that it was “common sense” or that their employees “would never hurt the organization, as they are so passionate about their jobs ”, others

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had stricter guidelines. The communication manager of a global B2B organization underlined that outsiders were more often considered an issue than employees:

When it all started many years ago, we were all very afraid. In general, it is not so much our own employees, it is more that everyone else can harm the organization. Also someone who has no knowledge about something, and if that person is there, they can act like a journalist as well. That is more a challenge than our own employees.

The organizations with the strictest guidelines were concerned with patients and were all non-profit organizations. One of the organizations indicated that nothing could be shared about the organization, except for the employee’s experience of working there. Another manager underlined the fact that employees must know what the actual status of a patient is, before something can be shared on social networks.

Datafication. Datafication was mostly important on campaign level, not on corporate level. On campaign level posts are often pushed with advertising budget. Organizations are thus directly targeting a large part of the desired audience. However, these pushed advertisements, or “dark posts”, do not appear on the social channels of the organization (i.e. corporate level). Thus, a different, and often more specific message can be conceived on campaign level to encourage followers to do something (e.g. buy a product or make a donation). Moreover, this also means that organizations do not need to have an account on the social channel they wish to use for advertised marketing. Some corporate organizations indicated for example to use Snapchat on campaign level, meanwhile not owning an account. Besides targeting consumers on campaign level, one

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of the corporate managers also pointed out geo-targeting for its ability to reach a specific audience in times of crisis.

Organizational strategies: profit vs. non-profit organizations

In the light of the previously discussed characteristics of social media logic and the different communication strategies as indicated in the literature review, we will now discuss the differences between for-profit and non-profit organizations concerning their strategic use of social media and the reflections of their social media orientations.

Information. From the interviews became apparent that all organizations were informing their stakeholders through social media. Both for-profit and non-profit organizations indicated that social media was used for its ability to connect with (future) employees, journalists, and specific or larger audiences. However, there was also a striking difference between the two type of organizations. Whereas being able to provide information to control the programmability of social media was greatly reflected in the findings of the corporate organizations, this was not found for non-profit organizations. This was especially important to “correct incorrect information” and maintain control over (issue/crisis) situations.

Non-profit organizations tended to focus more on increasing popularity by generating brand awareness. Some indicated that it was important to lower the threshold for contacting the organization, by providing information about the accessibility of their services and breaking taboos around the involved topic. This was mainly important for two organizations that dealt with patients. They stated that there were some misperceptions that they tried to counter by means of social media (e.g. there is only help for very sick or disabled people). Both organizations aimed to establish this by informing the public on a positive manner and a not too heavy tone of voice.

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However, there was also one corporate organization that explicitly stated that the main goal for social media for her organization was to generate awareness. This was especially pursued by using Instagram, to reach the millennial target group and the “trendsetter segment”, as they are in favour of new products, and new ways of communicating.

Dialogue. The strategy of dialogue reflected connectivity and control, and was used more often by companies. Here again, there were different levels of dialogue and different objectives involved. For companies the spectrum of connectivity was really broad: from involving stakeholders in co-creation, to emphasizing listening, to no dialogue at all. For non-profit organizations the outcomes were more homogeneous.

The manager of an insurance company indicated that dialogue with stakeholders was at core of their social media strategy. They noted that they always received loads of complaints and questions from stakeholders. Thus, they actively involved stakeholders in the co-creation of better products and policies. This was mainly established on their protected online environment, to ensure freedom of speech. Moreover, they also indicated that this co-creation was established in offline environments too, whereby the experiences of the online dialogue were implemented in the offline dialogue. Thus, the learnings of the web care team are implemented in an “offline spin off.”

Another company indicated that social media was “a very important thermometer for how our consumers feel. How our fans feel. What happens in the community.” Thus, the listening component of dialogue was hereby emphasized to increase connectivity. Two other for-profit organizations also indicated that dialogue was important, but it was not a priority. Their approach is more focused on keeping the consumer pleased by posting engaging content and be able to quickly respond to questions when needed. The

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remaining two holdings with subsidiary brands did not really take dialogue or co-creation into account.

As indicated before, the outcomes for non-profit organizations did not differ to such a great extent. All organizations tried to create engaging content, but they all indicated that social media could be challenging and most stated that some platforms were still in its infancy. Two organizations argued hereby that they were planning on increasing dialogue in the nearby future. These were the same organizations that were emphasizing awareness and trying to make their organization more accessible for potential patients.

Persuasion. Persuasion was not a recurrent phenomenon during the interviews. One corporate organization applied this strategy to maintain control, and one non -profit organization to increase popularity. The insurance company stated to occasionally consciously not post certain things on Twitter, as they knew it would steer the online conversation and thus possibly reach politicians. Therefore, the organization usefully applied this strategy, by sometimes showing only the good news. Moreover, there was one non-profit organization that indicated that involvement was its most important goal to increase popularity. They established involvement among their audiences by telling real patient stories. These stories were aiming at the stimulation, or activation, of personal memories. Thus, there can be stated that this organization also applied a persuasive strategy.

Action. The action strategy was often applied by datafication, mostly on campaign level by targeting specific audiences. Several organizations of both sectors indicated to apply this. The for-profit organization ranged from being not sales driven, to having a small sales element, to having conversion as main priority. Non-profit

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organizations either recruited donors and/or donations through social media, or they did not.

The two corporate parent brands indicated that only their subsidiary brands were sales driven. Thus, they did not focus on the action strategy themselves. Another organization argued that their strategy was threefold: increasing awareness, engagement, and sales. However, they underlined that sales must hereby be interpreted as a reward for loyal followers (e.g. coupon or discount for certain products). The manager explained:

So we have that awareness level, an engagement level and sometimes we do a bit of sales on top of that. But that is certainly not a primary objective. That is more just a little reward for our fans as a result of engagement. So that they sometimes have nice discounts with Valentine's Day or something like that. [...]. But really from the engagement point of view.

Striking hereby was that only one corporate organization pointed out that conversion was social media’s main function:

We are a little schizophrenic about that [the goal]. Because on the one hand it is just conversion. Of course you want to get as much sales out of it as possible. So that is why we really have the paid social activities, the advertisements. And for the organic posts we actually have more as a goal to get traffic to the website. To convert in the end. So in the end the goal is to make as much money as possible.

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Moreover, two out of five non-profit organizations indicated to actively recruit donors via social media. One of the managers stated that the largest part of the target audience was active on Facebook. Thus, she underlined that it was important to have an on-going high reach on this platform, to have a “healthy platform during campaigns”. The other organizations did not elaborate on recruiting donors via social media. These were again the two organizations that had increasing accessibility and awareness as their main goal. Moreover, one of them argued that they “just did not have the chance to do this yet, as we have not been that active on social media.”

Discussion

Although there is some research established on the media orientations of communication professionals (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2016; 2019), social media was hereby not extensively reflected. The aim of this study was firstly to contribute to this research area by exploring the underlying dimensions of social media orientation, and secondly, by comparing the strategic use of social media of for-profit organizations and non-profit organizations. This was established by conducting 11 semi-structured, qualitative interviews with communication professionals from both sectors.

Social media orientation

As a starting point, the dimensions of media orientation were used: perceived function of media attention, perceived relevance of medium types, and the evaluation of media coverage and the media environment (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2019). These dimensions refer to different aspects of individually perceived relevance of media for the organization. Moreover, the interplay of these dimensions constitute one’s media orientation (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2019). However, since social media follow a completely different media logic as compared to mass media (Klinger & Svensson, 2014), the analyses considered the different characteristics of social media logic

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(programmability, connectivity, popularity, and datafication), to understand whether the dimensions of media orientation were holding true for social media orientations and/or there was a need for other dimensions. This resulted in three underlying dimensions of social media orientation: perceived function of social media, perceived relevance of online connectedness, and perceived evaluation of the social media environment. In the following, each dimension will be discussed in relation to media orientation and social media logic.

Perceived function of social media. Wonneberger and Jacobs (2019) named this dimension “perceived function of media attention”, which refers to the extent to which communication managers perceive media coverage to be relevant for their organization. They hereby indicated that media attention was not an organizational goal in itself, rather, it was seen as an intermediate for other goals, such as communication with stakeholders, policy goals, and gaining legitimacy. This was also reflected in the findings of the present study, thus the dimension was refined to perceived function of social media, which refers to the underlying goals of social media that communication mangers are pursuing. So instead of seeing this dimension as a means to establish a goal, it refers to the goal itself.

The perceived functions that became apparent were generating awareness, being in control, engagement with stakeholders, image building, and generating sales/donations. Interesting hereby is that generating brand awareness, and thus increasing “popularity”, appeared to be the most important goal of social media use for organizations. This was often established by an informational strategy and datafication aspects, such as personalized advertisements, geo-targeting, or the use of influencers. This indicates that one-way communication is still the most important way of communicating on social media, which is also in line with the findings of Wonneberger

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and Jacobs (2019) for this dimension and with other previous studies concerning social media communication strategies (Elving & Postma, 2017; Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012). Another important function of social media was being in control. This became most apparent in the social media characteristic of programmability and connectivity.

Perceived relevance of online connectedness. Wonneberger and Jacobs (2019) called this dimension “perceived relevance of media types” for media orientation. However, when comparing the different social media platforms, it became apparent that connectivity was central for every platform. The only difference between the platforms were the stakeholders that were reached (i.e. LinkedIn for (future) employees, Instagram for millennials, Facebook for stakeholders in general, Facebook messenger as part of web care, Twitter for journalists/activists). Thus, for social media orientation we refined the dimension to perceived relevance of online connectedness, which refers to the extent to which communication professionals find it important to be connected with stakeholders, such as employees, journalists, and consumers.

Interesting for this dimension was that Twitter appeared to be an odd one out, as it was considered both a news and activist platform. Communication managers argued that Twitter was more a means to stay in contact with journalists, and knowing where and how to find them. Whereas Olsson and Eriksson (2016) found that journalists would use most content that appears on organizations’ social media, the current study did not reflect this to such a great extent. This could be due to the fact that the research of Olsson and Eriksson (2016) was focused on public organizations that have an inherent political nature and obligatory responsibilities with regard to citizens and other social institutions. Thus, they are more interesting for journalists who want to keep an eye on power (Liu, Horsley, & Levenshus, 2010; Wæraas & Byrkjeflot, 2012). Moreover, Twitter was also indicated to be an activist platform, whereby empowerment of

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stakeholders and consumers was central. Managers of corporate organizations feared to lose control, due to the programmability of social media logic, whereby users can easily steer their own contributions and resist coded instructions or defy protocols (Van Dijck & Poell, 2013). The programmability of social media, became even more feasible in the following dimension.

Perceived evaluation of social media environment. Whereas Wonneberger and Jacobs (2019) ascribed three sub dimensions of perceived evaluation of media coverage and media environment, the findings of the present study reflected only two of these sub dimensions: perceived presence and perceived valence (i.e. level of criticism). The third sub dimension of perceived quality of journalism did not appear to be relevant for the present study, as social media has more to do with the empowerment of stakeholders in general (Gensler et al., 2013). The perceived presence and perceived valence dimensions were often executed by carefully monitoring online content from and about the organization, as well as the general social environment. This is also in line with the findings of Wonneberger and Jacobs (2019) as they found that social media were regarded relevant for monitoring public debates. Moreover, the need for control and the swift nature of social media were hereby underlined. This is also reflected in the findings of Gensler et al. (2013) who state that whereas stakeholders are gaining control, communication managers are losing control by social media. Managers that experienced the quickness of social media (in a negative sense), indicated that monitoring was more important. Thus, concluded is that perceived need for control is the third sub dimension of perceived evaluation of the social media environment.

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Figure 1. Three interacting dimensions of social media orientation.

Figure 1 summarizes the three interacting dimensions of social media orientation. Following Wonneberger and Jacobs (2019), the interplay among these three dimensions – perceived function of social media, perceived relevance of online connectedness, and perceived evaluation of the social media environment – constitute a person’s social media orientation.

Organizational strategies: profit vs. non-profit organizations

The second aim of this study was to compare the strategic use of social media of for -profit and non--profit organizations. There were some striking differences between the two organizations. First of all, the organizations differed in their perceived main function of social media. For communication managers of corporate organizations, the perceived function of social media was mostly control by using an information strategy (e.g. to correct incorrect information and maintain control over the situation). This

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finding did not hold true for managers of non-profit organizations. This might be due to the fact that non-profit organizations indicated to a lesser extent to be involved in crisis situations. Their perceived function of social media was more often awareness by distributing information to ultimately lower the threshold for contacting the organization and breaking taboos around the involved topic. This finding is also in line with Lovejoy and Saxton (2012), who state that informing was still a main function of social media use for non-profit organizations.

Moreover, the extent to which the dialogue strategy was applied, also differed per type of organization. Corporate and non-profit organizations thus differed in their perceived relevance of online connectedness. The extent to which companies applied this strategy was greatly divergent: from co-creation, to emphasizing listening, to no dialogue at all. Non-profit organizations were more homogeneous. They tried to create engaging content, but some organizations indicated that social media was still in its infancy. These findings contradict the study of Greenleaf (2016) who found that social media use of non-profit organizations was mostly used to engage with the public. A possible explanation for these conflicting findings is that Greenleaf (2016) conducted interviews with social media strategists, instead of communication managers. Thus, this could implicate that there is a discrepancy between the social media orientations of these different organizational actors.

The action strategy was used to a different extent in both corporate and non-profit organizations. Often this was established by means of datafication (i.e. paid targeting of stakeholders). This socio-technical affordance of social media was not reflected in the findings of Olsson and Eriksson (2016) for public organizations. This could be due to their political nature, whereby commercially targeting could be less relevant. Moreover, the corporate organizations in the present study also differed in their organizational

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nature, and their perceived functions of social media. This could be an explanation for the varying degree to which the action strategy was implemented.

Moreover, another interesting finding for the action strategy was that the non-profit organizations that indicated that they needed to improve their social media strategy, were also not yet applying the action strategy (i.e. asking followers to do something concrete to help the organization meet its objectives). Lovejoy and Saxton (2012, p. 345) indicated that non-profit organizations “want to move their followers from informed individuals, to members of a community, to activists and donors.” Thus, it could be the case that the organizations that were not actively using action strategy, felt not secure enough in the social media environment.

Finally, the persuasion strategy was not a recurrent phenomenon. There were no striking differences found between companies and non-profit organizations for this matter. A possible explanation for this finding could be that participants are unaware of applying this strategy, or that they could not elaborate on this matter without refraining from their own strategy.

Limitations and implications

The main focus of the present study was to unravel the underlying dimensions of social media orientations of communication professionals. As these reflect personal perceptions and interpretations, it is important to emphasize that the findings cannot be equated to actual organizational conduct (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2019).

Additionally, the present research was conducted by means of interviewing communication managers, and four professionals with a more executive role. For future research, it would be interesting to explore other type of organizational actors, such as content specialists. As our findings contradict the findings Greenleaf (2016) who investigated the attitudes of social media strategists in non-profit organizations, it would

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