Infusing social media with humanity: Corporate character, public engagement, and relational outcomes

•This study links perceived corporate character, parasocial interaction, and community identification, to public social media engagement and organization–public relationships.•We conducted a web survey with a random sample of 250 American Facebook users to test the proposed model.•The results underscore the effectiveness of a personification approach in social media communication to construct an agreeable corporate character for enhancing public engagement and organization-public relationships.•We provided significant recommendations for social media strategists and public relations professionals.

This study links the factors central to social media communications, including perceived corporate character, parasocial interaction, and community identification, to public engagement and organization–public relationships. Based on American users’ engagement behaviors on corporate Facebook pages, the study underscores the effectiveness of a personification approach in social media communication to construct an agreeable corporate character for enhancing public engagement and inducing intimate, interpersonal interactions and community identification, which in turn improves organization–public relationships.