Social Media Governance: Regulatory Frameworks As Drivers of Success in Online Communications
This paper introduces the concept of Social Media Governance| as a means to accelerate the establishment of social media in communi cation practices. While previous studies have focused on single aspects of Social Media Gover nance, e. g. guidelines, very little research has been done on the overall concept. The data presented here stem from a quantitative survey that was carried out in Germany as a joint project between the University of Leipzig and Fink Fuchs Public Relations, supported b y Pressesprecher magazine. The results indicate that although many organizations clai m to have strategies for social media communications, nine out of 10 had no explicit regulatory f rameworks. Strategic pillars, such as managerial commitment and a participative corporate cultu re, were reported by one third of the organizations. This is crucial, because correlation ana lyses have revealed that the presence of such structures has a positive effect on skill level s, strategies and the level of activity. According to structuration theory, the actions of indiv i ual agents will only succeed if everyone involved can resort to structures in the sens e of a common stock of (informal) rules and resources. This research indicates that public rel ations (PR) practices should focus on developing basic structures for social media communications and should not be limited to communications activities. At the same time, in terms of theory, the concept of governance may be used in order to analyze the dynamics of introducing new modes of online communication.