Crisis Communication on Social Media: What Types of COVID-19 Messages Get the Attention?

Linchi Kwok · Jungwoo Lee · Spring H. Han

81 citations0/0 files storedCornell Hospitality Quarterly

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Public Relations and Crisis Communication Digital Marketing and Social Media Communication and COVID-19 Impact

Abstract

This study assessed internet users’ attention to hospitality companies’ COVID-19 messages on social media. We used 657 Facebook and 754 Twitter messages initiated by eight of the world’s largest hotel chains between January and mid-June 2020 for the exploratory analysis. Under the situational crisis communication theory, the analysis reveals that hotels shared five types of COVID-19 ( Prevention, Reminding, Ingratiation, Victimage, and Updates) versus Non-COVID-19 messages. Descriptive analysis and a series of t test, analysis of variance, and post hoc analyses reveal that hotels did not share any COVID-19 information until March 2020. Moreover, COVID-19 messages only accounted for about 20% of all messages, among which hotels shared Ingratiation and Updates messages most often. COVID-19 messages received more reactions, comments, and shares/retweets than Non-COVID-19 messages on both Facebook and Twitter, indicating the attention paid to the COVID-19 messages posted on a business’ social media page, which can help businesses spread the information in their networks. Specifically, Prevention, Reminding (although underused), Ingratiation, Updates, and messages with photos and videos received more attention. Such findings extend the crisis communication literature and help businesses develop effective communication strategies to engage their stakeholders on social media during the pandemic.

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References

1986Organizational Information Requirements, Media Richness and Structural Design 2020Pandemics, tourism and global change: a rapid assessment of COVID-19 2002Content Analysis in Mass Communication: Assessment and Reporting of Intercoder Reliability 2007Protecting Organization Reputations During a Crisis: The Development and Application of Situational Crisis Communication Theory 1999Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managing, and Responding 2020The impact of Covid-19 pandemic on corporate social responsibility and marketing philosophy 2016Crises and Crisis Management: Integration, Interpretation, and Research Development 2002Helping Crisis Managers Protect Reputational Assets

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2023Determinants of Digital Transformation in the Hospitality Industry: Technological, Organizational, and Environmental Drivers 2022Hotel guest satisfaction during COVID-19 outbreak: The moderating role of crisis response strategy 2022Beyond simple messaging: a review of crisis communication research in hospitality and tourism 2021Unpacking strategic corporate social responsibility in the time of crisis: a critical review

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