CSR communication strategies and stakeholder engagement of upscale hotels in social media

Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate how hotels practice corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication through social media, including which content type and media type receive the highest level of engagement. Two major aspects are considered, namely, CSR communication activity and stakeholder engagement. Design/methodology/approach - The analysis is conducted for Forbes four-star to five-star hotels in Hong Kong. Facebook data are extracted from the property pages of the sample hotels by Netvizz, which is a Facebook data extraction application. The data analysis includes three steps and combines qualitative and quantitative approaches. Findings - The results indicate that the type of information has a significant influence on engagement and has even more of an affect than the message strategy. Although the number of CSR-related posts is significantly lower than marketing-oriented posts, they achieve a comparable level of popularity and engagement. Posts encouraging CSR practices show the highest level of engagement among CSR-related posts. In terms of media and content types, video achieves the highest engagement, and posts related to discounts achieve the highest engagement. Originality/value - This study fills the gap in the current literature by conducting a comparison between marketing and CSR communication strategies on social media. It also provides insights on how to draft more effective CSR messages.