Session 9 Blog Assignment


In this post, I will choose one of the questions I’ve received and answer it. This question is from Yanran:


What kind of ICT do you think would be of great help in corporate communication?

source: http://www.tmtpost.com/101821.html

According to an official survey, there were only 9 of the world’s TOP 500 companies do not use any social media platforms or tools in 2016. From my perspective, the companies that actively involve their audience in the creation of value are more likely to succeed in an ever more connected world. Therefore, the highly interactive social media is no doubt a significant tool that would be of great help in corporate communication—it is not only a marketing tool, but also an effective way to develop brand image and corporate reputation.

In the article that I critiqued, Infusing social media with humanity: Corporate character, public engagement, and relational outcomes, the authors tended to link the central factors of social media communications, including corporate character, parasocial interaction (PSI), and community identification, to public engagement and organization-public relationships (OPRs). As a result, they revealed that organizations should infuse social media with humanity via corporate character and public engagement on SNS to improve organization-public relationships.

Beyond this article, I’d like to talk about the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Communication through social media. In my opinion, a company that get CSR right should see it as an opportunity to build mutual value for the brands and its communities. As John Willshire puts, “Making things people want is more effective than making people want things”. Using social media, it is easier for companies to output both their products and corporate value in a more acceptable way. Comparing with the interruptive advertising that trying to sell things people neither want or need, it is obvious that humanity-minded corporate communication would get more positive feedback across different audiences.


Nowadays, more and more technology companies are using social media to conduct influential public-spirited activities. For example, Tencent conducted a donation activity called “Children’s Gallery” in WeChat Platform this September. In this online campaign, people spend ￥1 to buy digital paintings drawn by autistic children and this donation is expected to help autistic children live a better life. Nearly all the participants would like to share the painting they bought in their social media account—which made this public-spirited activity a phenomenal success and achieved the ￥15,000,000 donation goal in 9 hours. Utilizing social media, Tencent not only get the public easily engaged in this online activity, but also successfully make them forwardly create more social media content to add value to this campaign. This interactive process helps the company to develop positive character with social responsibility in mind, as well as improve the organization-public relationship.

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