مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Powered by the digital technologies for interactivity, connectivity and collaboration, social media has spearheaded the recent paradigm shift from public relations to public engagement (Taylor & Kent, 2014). As social media usage increases, so too does the potential for organizations to connect with stakeholders not conventionally accessible through traditional communication channels. With the direct, spontaneous, interactive, and relationship-centric features, social media has been advocated as a unique “social milieu that enables interpersonal communication” (Zhong, Hardin, & Sun, 2011, p. 1266), providing unprecedented opportunities for organizations to engage stakeholders in more personal and meaningful ways. Not surprisingly, an increasing number of organizations around the world have embraced social media to personify themselves and engage today’s digital-savvy publics (Men & Tsai, 2012).

The importance of interpersonal approaches to communication in building and enhancing organization-public relationships (OPRs) has been well documented in the public relations literature (e.g., Toth 2000). While the interpersonal approach is often studied in offline, face-to-face interactions (e.g., Hendriks, van den Putte, de Bruijn, & de Vreese, 2014; Zillich, 2014), recent research has stressed the importance of adopting this approach for organizational social media communications (Sung & Kim, 2014). Blurring the boundary between mass and personal media, social platforms provide an ideal environment for organizations to engage publics in a personal, intimate way. Interpersonal communication in online environments was found to positively impact organization evaluations (Kelleher, 2009). As an interpersonal communication tactic, an engaging corporate character on corporate SNS pages also enhances favorable organizational reputation and meaningful relationships with stakeholders (Men & Tsai, 2014; Verciˇ cˇ & Verciˇ c, ˇ ۲۰۰۷). Additionally, Sung and Kim’s (2014) experiment revealed that organizations’ interpersonal approaches to communication characterized by non-commercial, non-promotional messages and high degrees of interactivity leads to more favorable evaluations. As organizations strive to build and maintain relationship with stakeholders, it is important to develop theoretical frameworks for illuminating the dynamics influencing the effectiveness of interpersonal approach in social communication and relationship management. From the perspective of leadership branding, this study aims to advance the emerging literature on social media engagement by providing original insights on how the interpersonal approach of public relations may function in the social media environment. We focus on publics’ engagement with corporate leaders, specifically chief executive officers (CEOs), on CEOs’ personal pages on social networking sites (SNSs).

Recognizing the potential of social media to humanize organizations and cultivate meaningful relationships (Vidgen, Sims, & Powell, 2013), an increasing number of CEOs are embracing social media to change their images from distant and intimidating to personable and approachable, including such high-profile corporate executives as Burberry’s Angela Ahrendts and Virgin Group’s Richard Branson. Industry reports suggested that more than 80% of executives surveyed believe social media is an important gateway for CEOs to deepen connections with customers, employees, and investors (Brandfog, 2013), proclaiming that “social CEOs” who can engage their stakeholders in genuine conversations will become the new wave of corporate leaders (Weber Shandwick, 2012). Many CEOs themselves also believe their social media presence and engagement demonstrate innovativeness and improve their companies’ reputation (Weber Shandwick, 2012). However, despite the hypes and speculations in trade publications, there is little empirical evidence regarding why and how CEOs’ engagement with publics on social media is crucial for organizations.