Leveraging Social Media for Stakeholder Engagement: A Case on the Ship Management Industry

Abstract

Social media is an important driver of firm success by providing an avenue for stakeholder engagement. Operating in a highly complex and competitive environment, firms in the ship management industry can utilise social media platforms to engage with their stakeholders, which can enhance stakeholder satisfaction and loyalty. However, stakeholder engagement rates can vary, with some posts generating more engagement than others. Drawing on the perceived value and word-of-mouth psychological motivation theories, this study introduces a theoretical model to identify and examine factors influencing stakeholder engagement on LinkedIn in the ship management industry. A hierarchical regression analysis is conducted on the posts of ten ship management firms to study the influence of content type and message characteristics variables on engagement rates. The results revealed nine variables that can significantly influence stakeholder engagement. They are links, corporate brand names, call-to-actions, message length, tangible resources, social content, emotional content, first-person texts, and emojis. The findings provide recommendations for firms in the ship management industry in terms of the message strategies to incorporate into their posts to encourage higher engagement rates. This study also enriches literature for stakeholder engagement on social media.