Social Media for Progressive Public Relations

This edited book presents a comprehensive, research-led coverage of the progressive ways public relations (PR) and social media is utilised today. It offers innovative research approaches to explore PR and social media initiatives, and in so doing, provides guidance on how to direct PR communication across the complex canvas of social media where some of the communication can be highly emotional varying from overt expressions of loyalty to brandjacking. Progressive organisations are carefully engaging with their audiences in multiple social media channels with organisational goals including commercial success, sustainability or employee morale. The analytics offered by social media channels help organisations to learn about their audiences as well as design highly personalised content. This book extends our understanding of the ways PR and social media can be utilised for communication that resonates with target audiences in varying context. Through the academic research presented, readers can also learn innovative ways to investigate and improve their own PR and social media practice. The book’s main themes include the power of engagement, progressive management use of social media channels, business influence, social-influencing for non-profit causes and political impacts of targeted social media communications. Social Media for Progressive Public Relations is for scholars, researchers and students of PR and communications.

1 Introduction to Social Media for Progressive Public Relations SECTION 1 The power of engagement 2 Content relevance and credibility, assumed or proven triggers to consumer brand engagement in a mixed business model 3 Hateholders and brandjacking: negative engagement of customers and stakeholders 4 Simultaneous support for and opposition to brands: a study on brand love and hate—the two poles of brand polarisation SECTION 2 Progressive management use of social media channels 5 Engaging employees via digital technologies: an integrative model of change management and communication via internal social media 6 CSR communication in corporate social media: an empirical investigation of European companies’ use of social media between 2012 and 2020 7 Fashionable millennial women: sustainable consumer behaviours of fashion-oriented social media users and implications for public relations SECTION 3 Influential business 8 Leveraging sport sponsorship with digital marketing communication: a conceptual model 9 Organisational legitimation strategies in social media: how business schools address declining rankings 10 Investigating the impact of rewarded social media engagement, trust, perceived switching cost and loyalty on loyalty programme members in the sports industry SECTION 4 Social influencing for non-profit cause 11 Conquering the liminal space: strategic social media influencer communication in the Finnish public sector during the COVID-19 pandemic 12 Fridays for Future wants to save the world—but what do people think about the movement? SECTION 5 Progressively political 13 The roles of the internet and social media in political marketing and voter behaviour: a study of Finnish parliamentary elections 14 Brexit: public relations campaign with integrated social media changed political world SECTION 6 Future trends and conclusion 15 Future trends in social media and public relations 16 Conclusions on Social Media for Progressive Public Relations

Outi Niininen (Ph.D., M.C.I.M. Chartered Marketer) teaches Digital Marketing at the University of Jyvaskyla School of Business and Economics. Her research explores the use of digital technology across the Expanded Marketing Mix to understand how people interact with surrounding environment. Outi’s research has been published in journals such as Industrial Marketing Management, the Journal of Business Research, Tourism Management, Tourism Analysis, the Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing and the Journal of Services Marketing, and she is the Co-editor-in-Chief for Evolving Pedagogy. Outi edited the Contemporary Issues in Digital Marketing (Routledge, 2022) and she has also won the Education Publishing Awards Australia (EPAA) in the category: Tertiary (Adaptations): Teaching and Learning Resource for her Marketing Principles book in 2015.