Social Media Competence Research Articles

Employees' Company Reputation-related Social Media Competence: Scale Development and Validation

Cases in which employees' uses of social media harm their company's reputation highlight the need for a measure to evaluate employees' company reputation-related social media competence (RSMC). Drawing on reputation and human capital theory and data from four occupationally diverse samples of employees, this study develops and validates a new, multidimensional measure of RSMC, or an employee's ability to use social media without causing harm to the employer's reputation. Exploratory factor analyses, first- and second-order confirmatory factor analyses, and structural equation modeling all provide strong evidence of the convergent, discriminant, known-group, and nomological validities of the proposed RSMC scale. The higher-order RSMC construct also relates to job demands and resources and to two behavioral outcomes: bad mouthing and positive word of mouth. The RSMC scale also exhibits test–retest reliability and ecological validity. Thus, the new scale offers both research directions and managerial implications.

How do small firms learn to develop a social media competence?

Social media can be leveraged to improve the firm's business activities to create value. Because small firms have a lower portfolio of financial resources to compete more effectively in the market, social media capabilities can become more important for small than large firms. However, prior research has failed in explaining the variables through which small firms can learn to adopt social media. Our study is a first effort to address this research gap. We propose a conceptual model in which social competitor pressure, IT infrastructure capability, two organizational capabilities (marketing management and innovation management) and firm size enable small firms to learn to develop a social media competence. The model is tested using the partial least squares-based structural equation modeling technique employing a unique secondary dataset on a sample composed of the 100 small U.S. firms included in the 2013 Forbes America's Best Small Companies ranking. The empirical analysis suggests that IT infrastructure capability, social competitor pressure, marketing management and innovation management are key mechanisms through which small firms learn to develop a social media competence. The empirical analysis also suggests that social media competence is more important for the smallest manufacturing firms even among a sample of small firms.

In a Disaster, Social Media Has the Power to Save Lives

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social NetworkingVol. 16, No. 11 EditorialIn a Disaster, Social Media Has the Power to Save LivesBrenda K. WiederholdBrenda K. WiederholdSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:14 Nov 2013https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2013.1532AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB ToolsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail View article"In a Disaster, Social Media Has the Power to Save Lives." , 16(11), pp. 781–782FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsCited ByLack of Alignment in Emergency Response by Systems and the Public: A Dutch Disaster Health Literacy Case Study22 September 2020 | Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, Vol. 16, No. 1#4645Boricuas: Twitter reactions to the estimates of deaths by Hurricane María in Puerto Rico16 January 2020 | Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 49, No. 3Adoption of E-Government Applications for Public Health Risk Communication: Government Trust and Social Media Competence as Primary Drivers29 August 2018 | Journal of Health Communication, Vol. 23, No. 8The social role of social media: the case of Chennai rains-201525 October 2016 | Social Network Analysis and Mining, Vol. 6, No. 1 Volume 16Issue 11Nov 2013 InformationCopyright 2013, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.To cite this article:Brenda K. Wiederhold.In a Disaster, Social Media Has the Power to Save Lives.Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.Nov 2013.781-782.http://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2013.1532Published in Volume: 16 Issue 11: November 14, 2013PDF download

Unsubscribe, pleeezz!!!: management and training of media competence in computer-mediated communication.

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has created a new communication divide. Mostly, this division is due to technical and access problems. Overlooked is yet another divide in terms of user communication competence. This contribution focuses on media competence based on theories about communication competence and theories about CMC. Two field studies are presented: an analysis of a virtual seminar chat communication (22 participants, 3 weeks' duration) and an analysis of unsubscribe-failures within 2 years of a German mailing list (average of 1,000 subscriptions). Data from both studies reveal that help-seeking CMC users with low media-specific competence experience setbacks in terms of interpersonal relations and information gathering. There is a spiral of neutral to negative reactions and an increase in stress and aggression-related language in the reaction of the addressed peers. From the perspective of external raters, we found a contraintuitive result: The style, content, and wording of the message of the respondent is considered as an indicator for a less competent and socially attractive person behind the follow-up message than those of the initial message. On the one hand, media experts are needed and appreciated as technical problem-solvers; on the other hand, they might be perceived as socially narrow-minded freaks who are less interested in the task itself than in CMC-based task completion. This leads to the question of how sensibility for the social context, task orientation, and media competence can be combined (and trained for) in one person. Two competence trainings for text-based synchronous and asynchronous communication are introduced as interventions.