Social media engagement in the maritime industry during the pandemic

Le Yi Koh; Chloe Ng; Xueqin Wang; Kum Fai Yuen

doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122553

Social media engagement in the maritime industry during the pandemic

Technol Forecast Soc Change. 2023 Jul:192:122553. doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122553. Epub 2023 Apr 6.

Authors

Le Yi Koh¹, Chloe Ng¹, Xueqin Wang², Kum Fai Yuen¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
² Department of International Logistics, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

The maritime sectors are suffering severe disruptions as a result of COVID-19. Maritime companies have turned to social media to interact with partners and clear up confusion. However, not every social media post receives the same engagement levels especially during a pandemic. For a more holistic analysis of social media engagement during a pandemic, the Protection Motivation Theory and classical theories such as user gratification and media richness theories were included. The research uses hierarchical regression analysis on information gathered from Facebook posts about COVID-19 made by eighteen different companies from four distinct maritime sectors. It was found that the rate of stakeholder engagement is highly influenced by informational, relational, and entertaining content as well as content that fosters self-efficacy, severity, and vulnerability. Additionally, the stakeholder engagement rate is greatly influenced by posts with greater vividness and fluency, which are characterized by providing external links. This is the first study to look into why stakeholders interact with posts linked to COVID-19 on social media. The findings will help maritime organisations use social media as a management and communication instrument.

Keywords: Engagement; Protection Motivation Theory; Social media; Users Gratification Theory.