The use of social media as an effective medium for stakeholder engagement by South African-listed entities

Abstract

This research examines how South African companies are using social media to engage effectively with stakeholders. Stakeholders now play an important role in corporate reporting and so stakeholder engagement is necessary for companies to comply with regulations and manage stakeholder interests. Social media area tool which is becoming more popularly used for stakeholder engagement and can be used by South African companies to improve stakeholder engagement and comply with regulations. Through this study, a content analysis of the posts made by South African listed companies on social media were analysed and coded based on categories and features of effective engagement as determined by prior literature. Only stakeholder engagement posts, as determined by prior literature, were analysed and interpreted. The results show that companies are primarily using social media to communicate information with stakeholders to reduce the information asymmetry gap as opposed to engaging with stakeholders using dialogue. The study also finds that while companies are active on social media, not all the features present on the platforms are being used effectively to engage with stakeholders