Group Type and Social Media Engagement Strategies in the EU: The Case of British Interest Groups on Facebook

Direnc Kanol,Muesser Nat

doi:10.20899/jpna.7.2.205-219

Direnc Kanol, Muesser Nat

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.20899/jpna.7.2.205-219

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Abstract

Although interest group strategies have been studied by a number of authors who compare different types of groups, our knowledge about how these different types of groups differ in the way they use social media as a strategy to realise their goals is limited. In this paper, we use the hierarchy of engagement model and investigate how British public interest groups and sectional groups, which are active at the European Union (EU) level, engage with the public on Facebook. Compared with information and community-type posts, action-type posts can attract more attention on social media. Public interest groups can use action-type messages as a tool for attracting public attention, thus, alleviating their relative disadvantage in attracting and maintaining members. Results show that the use of action-type messages are significantly higher for public interest groups.

Highlights

Interest groups have adopted social media as a strategy for success
We provide descriptive information about the posts in Table 1. 55.8% of these Facebook posts belong to the information category, whereas 16.5% belong to community, and 27.7% can be classified as action. 60.8% of sectional groups use the information strategy compared to 50.8% for public interest groups. 16.6% of sectional groups and 16.4% of public interest groups use the community strategy
Interest group theory argues that public interest groups are relatively disadvantageous in attracting and maintaining members compared to sectional groups

Summary

Introduction

Interest groups have adopted social media as a strategy for success. Traditional ways of outside lobbying by interest groups (e.g., contacting reporters, arranging protests) are being used together, complemented and sometimes even substituted by online activities on social media. Group Type and Social Media Engagement public interest groups’ and sectional groups’ public engagement strategies on Twitter by using Lovejoy and Saxton’s (2012) hierarchy of engagement model (Kanol & Nat, 2017). Our motivation stems from a lack of research in how different types of interest groups use public engagement strategies on social media. We are not aware of any study comparing how different types of interest groups (for example, public interest groups and sectional groups) engage with the public on social media via platforms other than Twitter. Auger (2013) demonstrates that nonprofit advocacy organizations use different social media platforms for different purposes; thanking and providing recognition on Twitter, engaging in two-way communication on Facebook, and communicating messages by using authority figures on YouTube. Studying public engagement strategies of different types of interest groups on social media platforms other than Twitter is of utmost importance to draw a complete picture of interest groups’ social media strategies

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Conclusion