Corporate Communicative Engagement in Micro-Blogging
Micro-blogging platforms have emerged as marketing tools that multinational companies increasingly utilize to establish and promote their brands. The question is whether they use these platforms strategically, localizing the content and the structure for their target population. This chapter uses case study content analysis to begin answering this question. Social media updates posted by Starbucks over a one-month period on Twitter in the U.S. and on Sina Weibo in China were analyzed using three existing validated frameworks. The results indicate that Starbucks somewhat localizes its posts to its Chinese consumers, in terms of content, symbols, values, and offerings. However, it underutilizes its Sina Weibo page compared to its Twitter counterpart. This chapter goes on to suggest micro-blogging strategies for multinational companies in the Managerial Implications section and concludes with a discussion on the direction of future research for scholars in this field.