Messages on CSR-dedicated Facebook pages: What works and what doesn't

The present study examines how companies can strategically use corporate social responsibility (CSR)-dedicated pages on Facebook to engage stakeholders. Specifically, we look at the effectiveness of different message strategies that companies use on their corporate CSR-dedicated Facebook pages to elicit stakeholder engagement. We content analyzed 533 posts on the CSR-dedicated Facebook pages of 16 companies from the 2014 Fortune 500 list. Drawing from the company-cause fit literature and dialogic theory, we examined the effects of two types of message strategies-topics and dialogic strategies-on eliciting stakeholder engagement as measured by the number of likes, shares, and comments. The results showed that topics were effective in engaging stakeholders when they were congruent with a company's core business. Two dialogic strategies-incorporating multimedia components and using interactive language in the messages-were effective in engaging stakeholders. In terms of theory, this study advances company-cause fit studies and dialogic theory by applying them to CSR communication via social media. In terms of practice, the results highlight the importance of topics and dialogic strategies when utilizing CSR-dedicated Facebook pages to engage stakeholders.