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The omnipresence of social media has created unprecedented possibilities for consumers to publicly criticize organizational behaviour, as they see fit. For corporations, this represents a formidable challenge to image and earnings, requiring vigilance in online communication (Gretry et al. 2017; Van Noort and Willemsen 2012). One of the sectors to have felt consumers’ discontentment most acutely is the financial sector. Since the 2008 financial crisis, which ushered in a period of severe economic instability worldwide, financial institutions have fought to retain legitimacy. However, this has been no easy task when stories of questionable conduct continue to surface, resulting in a disgruntled public which seek to hold the institutions accountable by sharing criticism online (Holmgreen 2020).This situation forms the background of the presentation, which discusses the case of a bank that used to be among the top three of Danish finance. In the ten years that have passed since the crisis, the bank has, however, been under continuous attack in the media (social and news), because of its poor moral judgement, among other things exemplified by the involvement in a historic case of money laundering.Drawing on critical approaches to discourse and legitimation on social media (Gretry et al. 2017; Fairclough 1994; Khosravinik 2017), I will analyse how the bank negotiates its position and makes legitimacy claims on Facebook in light of its continuous downfall. The analysis reveals that despite attempts to present itself as a good corporate citizen in the aftermath of the crisis, the bank continues to be met with strong and relentless criticism that goes back to its active part in the crisis. Thus, a strategy of proactive webcare appears only to have partial effect (cf. Van Noort and Willemsen 2012).This suggests that despite decades of sound and respected business conduct, corporations may suffer the long-term consequences of a few, but bad business decisions if they imply underlying values of greed and immorality. Furthermore, the opportunities that social media offer for voicing criticism are instrumental in maintaining the pressure to change corporate behaviour. ReferencesHolmgreen, L. 2020.Fairclough, Norman. 1994. Conversationalization of public discourse and the authority of the consumer. In Russel Keat, Nigel Whitely, and Nicholas Abercrombie (eds) The Authority of the Consumer, 235-249. London: Routledge.Gretry, Anaïs, Csilla Horváth, Nina Belei, Allard C. R. van Riel. “Don’t pretend to be my friend!” When an informal brand communication style backfires on social media. Journal of Business Research. 74. 77-89.Holmgreen, L. 2020.Khosravinik, Majid. 2017. Social media critical discourse studies (SM-CDS). In John Flowerdew, and John E. Richardson (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies, 752-769. London: Routledge.Van Noort, Guda, and Lotte M. Willemsen. 2012. Online damage control: The effects of proactive versus reactive webcare interventions in consumer-generated and brand-generated platforms. Journal of Interactive Marketing. 26(3). 131-140.

The increasing volume of firm-related conversations on social media has made it considerably more difficult for marketers to track and analyse electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) about brands, products or services. Firms often use sentiment analysis to identify relevant eWOM that requires a response to consequently engage in webcare. In this paper, we show that sentiment analysis of any kind might not be ideal for this purpose, because it relies on the questionable assumption that only negative eWOM is response-worthy and it is not able to infer meaning from text. We propose and test an approach based on supervised machine learning that first decides whether eWOM is relevant for the brand to respond, and then—based on a categorization of seven different types of eWOM (e.g., question, complaint)—classifies three customer satisfaction dimensions. Using a dataset of approximately 60,000 Facebook comments and 11,000 tweets about 16 different brands in eight different industries, we test and compare the efficacy of various sentiment analysis, dictionary-based and machine learning techniques to detect relevant eWOM. In doing so, this study identifies response-worthy eWOM based on the content instead of its expressed sentiment. The results indicate that these machine learning techniques achieve considerably higher accuracy in detecting relevant eWOM on social media compared to any kind of sentiment analysis. Moreover, it is shown that industry-specific classifiers can further improve this process and that algorithms are applicable across different social networks.

Het gebruik van Social media is in de loop der jarentoegenomen in haar gebruikers. De mogelijkheden om online te communiceren en daarbij inhoudonline plaatsen, bewerken en delen heeft hierbij aan bijgedragen. Zo wordt Social media ook ingezet door organisaties om relaties met klanten te onderhouden en eventueel te anticiperen op hun negatieve ervaringen.Dit heeft geleid tot het ontstaan van webcare. In deze thesis wordt onderzocht wat de gevolgen zijn voor een uitvoeringsorganisatie van de rijksoverheid bij het gebruik van Social mediain de communicatie met burgers en bedrijven. Omtot de beantwoording te komen van deze onderzoeksvraag, zijn naast literatuuronderzoek ook interviews afgenomen en is deskresearch gedaan. Vanuit de wetenschappelijke literatuur is een kader vastgesteld. Hier zijn diverse thema’s uitgekomen waarin de uitvoering onderzoek naar is gedaan. De resultaten laten zien dat toepassing van webcare overeenkomt met dehuidige wetenschappelijke literatuur, echter worden er ook nieuwe inzichten opgedaan. Een van deze nieuwe inzichten is dat de mate van interne communicatie een effect heeft op fysieke samenwerking. Deze bevinding iseen toevoeging op de bestaande body of knowledge.

I samband med att dagens konsumenter blir allt mer medvetna om de globala, sociala och miljömässiga konsekvenser som vår konsumtion medför, har det på senare år ställt större krav ett på företagens arbetssätt mot ett mer hållbart och etiskt verksamhetsutövande. Av denna anledning har företagens ansvarstagande för miljön och samhället blivit en central fråga i företagsekonomiska diskussioner, även känt som Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Syftet med CSR- strategier är att ett företag, på eget bevåg integrerar sociala, miljömässiga, ekonomiska eller/och etiska hänsyn i sin affärsmodell, samt i relation till intressenter, utöver vad lagen kräver. CSR blir allt vanligare bland företag att använda som ett verktyg för att kommunicera sitt CSR-arbete är via sociala medier. Den ökade användningen av sociala medier har förändrat kommunikationen för både företag och konsumenter, då det har skapat nya möjligheter att integrera med varandra. Användningen av sociala medier kan därmed vara ett effektivt verktyg inom marknadskommunikation, då det kan användas som en direkt kommunikation till sina målgrupper, samt användas för att bygga, bevara och vårda relationen till sina konsumenter. Vidare har sociala mediers användning också ökat transparensen, då det skapar en tillgänglighet till information om företag, som konsumenter tidigare inte fått tillgång till. Detta ställer därmed krav på att företagens marknadskommunikation, inte minst inom CSR hanteras effektivt, då CSR är ett starkt debatterat ämne bland dagens konsumenter. Många företag ser möjligheterna med att använda sociala medier, däremot om det inte används eller hanteras rätt, kan det likväl visa sig vara ett hinder som det är en fördel. Eftersom sociala medier skapar en möjlighet för konsumenter att lämna feedback, som i många fall inom CSR kan vara negativt, skapar det också möjligheten till att enkelt sprida Negative Word of Mouth (NWOM), dvs negativa budskap om ett företag. Att kommunicera CSR på sociala medier kan således upplevas som en utmaning för företag. Kan företag hantera sociala medier kan det användas som ett effektivt marknadskommunikationsverktyg. Därför är det betydelsefullt att använda tydliga strategier som kan hantera möjliga konflikter som kan uppstå i samband med diskussioner om CSR på sociala medier. Behandlar företag inte konflikterna kan det påverka konsumenters attityder och köpintentioner, och slutligen deras relationer till ett varumärke. Syftet med studien är att undersöka och observera strategier inom marknadskommunikation med CSR-inriktning på sociala mediet Facebook [Facebooksidor]. Vidare kartlägger studien möjliga utmaningar som de observerade strategierna medför inom kosmetikabranschen, i syfte med att få en ökad förståelse för strategihanteringar inom marknadskommunikation. För att undersöka CSR-kommunikation på sociala medier har studien avgränsats till kosmetikabranschen som en empirisk kontext, då det i dagsläget pågår stora diskussioner om CSR inom branschen. Studien resulterade i en CSR-integrerad relationshanteringsmodell och som observerade två huvudkategorier: Verbala och Icke-verbala relationshanteringsstrategier. Dessa innefattar fyra olika hanteringsstrategier; tillmötesgående, defensiv, censurerande och oengagerade. Studien resulterade även i vilka utmaningar, dvs svårigheter företag har när de använder sociala medier [Facebooksidor] inom CSR. Det observerade tre omfattade utmaningar; (1), det är svårt att kompensera en missnöjd konsument ämnen inom CSR går bortom transaktionen och är mer baserat på en individs emotioner. Då CSR är ett komplext ämne, blir det utmanande för företaget att kompensera en missnöjd kund då CSR handlar om att integrera socialt och miljömässigt ansvarstagande i hela företagets affärsmodell. (2) CSR-diskussioner är svåra att hantera för företag med traditionella kundservice-strategier inom social media marketing och webcare. (3) Företag som inte har CSR integrerat i sin affärsmodell från grunden har svårt att skapa, bevara och vårda relationen till sina konsumenter inom CSR-diskussioner. As today's consumers become increasingly aware of the global, social and environmental consequences that our consumption brings, has in recent years influenced companies' way towards business ethics and sustainability. Therefore, corporate responsibility for the environment and society has become a central subject in business decisions, also known as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The purpose of CSR is to encourage and integrate the work of ethical, financial, social and environmental aspects of business processes, and in relation to stakeholders, in addition to what the law requires. One tool that is becoming more common among companies when communicating their CSR work, is via social media. The increased use of social media has changed the communication for both companies and consumers, as it has created new opportunities to integrate with one another. The use of social media can thus be an effective tool in market communication, as it can be used as a direct communication tool to its target groups, as well as be used to build, maintain and nurture the relationship with its consumers. In addition, social media has increased the transparency, as it creates accessibility to information, whereas the consumers have more information and insight about companies today. Which demands on companies' marketing communications to be handled effectively, not least in the field of CSR, since social responsibility is a highly debated topic among today's consumers. Companies are becoming more aware of the possibilities of using social media, however, if it is not used or handled properly, it can also prove to be an obstacle as it is an advantage. Since social media creates an opportunity for consumers to provide feedback, which in many cases within CSR can be negative, it can also create the opportunity to easily spread Negative Word of Mouth (NWOM). Thus, communicating CSR on social media can therefore be a challenge for companies. If companies can manage social media, it can be used as an effective marketing communication tool. Therefore, it is important to use strategies that can handle possible conflicts that may arise in discussions of CSR on social media. If it is not handled, it can affect consumers' attitudes and purchase intentions, and ultimately their relationships with a brand. The purpose of this study is to investigate and observe strategies in market communication with CSR discussions on the social media platform, Facebook [Facebook pages]. Furthermore, identify possible challenges that the observed strategies pose, with the aim of gaining an increased understanding of strategy management in market communication. To study CSR communication on social media, the study has delimited to the cosmetics industry, as an empirical context, due to currently great discussions about CSR among consumers. The study resulted in a CSR-integrated relationship management model and observed two main categories: Verbal and non-verbal relationship management strategies. which includes four different management strategies; accommodating, defensive, censorship and non-engaging. The study also resulted in different difficulties companies have when using social media [Facebook pages] within the field of CSR. It observed three major difficulties/challenges; (1) It is difficult to satisfy a displeased consumer within the concept of CSR, due to the concept of CSR goes beyond the transaction and it is more based on an individual's emotions. As CSR is a complex subject, the difficulty of compensating a dissatisfied customer becomes challenging as CSR is about integrating social and environmental responsibility into the entire business model. (2) CSR discussions are difficult to manage for companies with traditional customer service strategies in social media marketing and webcare. (3) Companies that do not have integrated CSR into their business model from start, finds it difficult to create, maintain and nurture the relationship with their consumers within CSR discussions.

Purpose This paper aims to demonstrate that online complainants’ reactions to a company’s service recovery attempts (webcare) can significantly vary across two different types of dissatisfied customers (“vindictives” vs “constructives”), who have dramatically diverging complaint goal orientations. Design/methodology/approach Online multi-country survey among 812 adult consumers who recently had a dissatisfying brand experience and turned to a marketer-generated social media site to voice an online complaint for achieving their ultimate complaining goals. Scenario-based online experiment for cross-validating the survey findings. Findings Results suggest that “vindictive complainants” – driven dominantly by brand-adverse motives – are immune to any form of webcare, while “constructive complainants” – interested in restoring the customer-brand relationship – react more sensitively. For the latter, “no-responses” often trigger detrimental brand-related reactions (e.g. unfavorable brand image), whereas “defensive responses” are likely to stimulate post-webcare negative word-of-mouth. Research limitations/implications This research identifies the gains and harms of (un-)desired webcare. By doing so, it not only sheds light on the circumstances when marketers have to fear negative effects (e.g. negative word-of-mouth) but also provides insights into the conditions when such effects are unlikely. While the findings of the cross-sectional survey are validated with an online experiment, findings should be interpreted with care as other complaining contexts should be further investigated. Practical implications Marketers have to expect a serious “backfiring effect” from an unexpected source, namely, consumers who were initially benevolent toward the involved brand but who received an inappropriate response. Originality/value This research is one of the first research studies that enables marketers to identify situations when webcare is likely to backfire on the brand after a service failure.

The concept of conversational human voice (CHV) was introduced in 2006 by Kelleher and Miller indicating a personal, conversational style in online organizational communication. The CHV measurement scale they presented consists of eleven items, like ‘the brand treats me and others as human beings’ and ‘tries to be interesting in communication’. Various studies showed positive effects of this style on organizational outcomes. In this paper we examine the clearness of the notion of CHV. First, we tried to identify for each strategy specific linguistic characteristics as found in the literature on conversations and computer mediated communication. We succeeded for only eight of the eleven strategies. For example, ‘tries to be interesting’ is not directly translatable in linguistics characteristics. Next, we coded the linguistic characteristics in a corpus of 540 webcare interactions. The coding showed that the remaining eight strategies were partly overlapping, and were lacking some essential characteristics of organizational conversational style as well. We conclude that the current operationalization is not sufficient in capturing CHV: On the one hand it is too restrictive because CHV seems to be more than the eleven strategies; on the other hand it is too broad, because relations cannot be determined unambiguously between these strategies and linguistic characteristics.

The concept of conversational human voice (CHV) was introduced in 2006 by Kelleher and Miller indicating a personal, conversational style in online organizational communication. The CHV measurement scale they presented consists of eleven items, like ‘the brand treats me and others as human beings’ and ‘tries to be interesting in communication’. Various studies showed positive effects of this style on organizational outcomes. In this paper we examine the clearness of the notion of CHV. First, we tried to identify for each strategy specific linguistic characteristics as found in the literature on conversations and computer mediated communication. We succeeded for only eight of the eleven strategies. For example, ‘tries to be interesting’ is not directly translatable in linguistics characteristics. Next, we coded the linguistic characteristics in a corpus of 540 webcare interactions. The coding showed that the remaining eight strategies were partly overlapping, and were lacking some essential characteristics of organizational conversational style as well. We conclude that the current operationalization is not sufficient in capturing CHV: On the one hand it is too restrictive because CHV seems to be more than the eleven strategies; on the other hand it is too broad, because relations cannot be determined unambiguously between these strategies and linguistic characteristics.