Influence of Job-Dedicated Social Media on Employer Reputation

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The popularity and value of social media sites have stretched beyond their initial social connection purposes; today, they represent critical tools for individual and firm visibility. This paper compares and contrasts institutional theory and signaling theory to investigate (1) whether having a job-dedicated page on social media sites (i.e., Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter) is related to an organization’s employer reputation, and (2) whether it is merely the fact of having a job-dedicated social media page, or actually communicating (i.e., posting, tweeting, etc.) on that page that is related to an organization’s employer reputation. We used data collected from three major social media sites and found that having a job-dedicated LinkedIn page was positively related to employer reputation, whereas having a job-dedicated Facebook or Twitter page was not related to employer reputation. Furthermore, we did not find social media activity to be related to employer reputation.