Added Value Model: Model of the Corporate Communication in Social Media

Abstract

 Abstract—Social media are used in corporate communication more and more actively. Companies are fighting for the audience attention and that's when social media become valuable for them. However, the popular corporate communication theories and models were created at the time, when social media did not exist and could not fully reflect the special nature of the communication that is typical for the social media environment. This generates the need for a new corporate communication model. The aim of this paper is to develop the new corporate communication model for social media field. As methods the analysis of the existing corporate communication theories and models, semi-structured interviews and the questionnaire between social media users, experts and companies representatives were used. For the data processing the Grounded Theory and Multi-Grounded Theory were used. As a result of analysing the habits employed by users and brands in social media, as well as the existing models of corporate communication, the author proposes an Added value which illustrates the process of corporate communication in social media. According to this model, the process of corporate communication in social media is ongoing taking into account both the company's and users' goals, selecting particular social media on the basis of their message and enriching communication with a communicative added value. The element of added value indicates that social media have a potential to become not only a communication channel, but also a platform, which provides a limited or full range of services, service support and satisfies users' needs. Thus, the proposed model could serve as a point of reference and evaluation, which is crucial for starting or improving corporate communication in social media.