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The Internet has provided a revolutionary space for PR practitioners to build and maintain relationships with their publics because it allows dialogic, two-way communication to take place between the two parties. The interactive and empowering nature of online communication has given audiences the power and accessibility to engage easily in symmetrical communication with organisations. This ability to engage easily has helped balance organisations and publics’ interests like no other medium has before, thus enhancing the relationship management paradigm’s core concept of mutually balanced relationships between organisations and publics.

Kent and Taylor’s (1998) research on how dialogue can serve to build relationships on the Internet pioneered the theorising of how organisations can effectively build relationships with their publics online. Their research focused on the advantages of dialogic communication and found that principles such as using the dialogic feedback loop, providing useful information, an easy-to-use interface, and generating return visits through active communication were the best ways to build relationships with publics online (Kent & Taylor, 1998). The dialogic feedback loop allows two-way communication to take place, and effective dialogic communication in online spaces not only

requires organisations to provide useful information for their publics, but also to provide a means by which publics can seek (and receive) further information (Kent & Taylor, 1998). The dialogic

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significant positive effects on publics’ perceptions of OPR (Jo & Kim, 2003). Despite this, studies have found that interactive elements on organisational Web pages are underutilised (Ingenhoff & Koelling, 2009; Kang & Norton, 2004; Ki & Hon, 2006).

Ease of interface means sites should be well-structured, easy to understand and reflect the brand of the organisation. Kent and Taylor (1998) recommend that content should take precedence over aesthetical “fluff” (p. 330), and this, along with keeping a website dynamic and up-to-date, will retain the generation of return visits. Subsequent research using these principles to measure relational strategies and outcomes include Taylor’s, Kent’s and White’s (2001) study on activist organisations, whose websites were found to contain dialogic principles that built relationships more with their member publics than the media; Ingenhoff’s and Koelling’s (2009) study on non- profit organisation’s websites, which found the use of dialogic principles were not used to the Web’s fullest potential to build relationships with donors and the media; and Park’s and Reber’s (2008) study which found the top Fortune 500 companies were utilising dialogic principles well on their websites to develop strong relationships with their publics.

In addition to the effectiveness of measuring OPRs using dialogic principles, traditional OPR measures drawn from the relational perspective can also be effectively applied to online

environments (e.g. - Bruning & Ledingham, 1999; Hon & Grunig, 1999; Ledingham & Bruning, 1998). According to Hallahan (2008), five relationship management indicators successfully measure OPRs specifically in online spaces. These indicators are outlined in Table 3 below.

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Table 3: Hallahan's (2008) five online relationship development measures Online OPR

Indicator

How organisations achieve online OPR Indicator measures

Commitment Invest time, resources and funding towards up-to-date technology that is relevant to publics. Organisations must commit to using online spaces to communicate.

Control Mutuality

Engage in conversational interpersonal communication, and include interactive design elements such as surveys, quizzes, online photo albums and other multimedia to increase two-way symmetrical communication and empower the publics.

Communality Foster a community based on shared values, interests or ideas, either by interpersonally communicating with publics, or fostering a space for publics to communicate based on their shared interest.

Trust Make online spaces credible by ensuring there are security measures in place on a website, having genuine, truthful and accurate information available including contact details, and branding online spaces according to the organisation’s official image.

Satisfaction Ensure online spaces are easy to use, have relevant and useful information and satisfy publics’ needs for that online space.

Studies have continued to use relationship building measures from dialogic and relationship management theory to measure online OPRs (Ki & Hon, 2006; Ki & Hon, 2007; McAllister-Spooner, 2009; O'Neil, 2009; Waters, 2011). However, more recently, research has moved emphasis from observing Web 1.0 spaces such as websites and email, to examining relationships in Web 2.0 platforms such as blogging, micro blogging and SNS.

2.5.1Relationship management within social media and social networking sites

Despite finding that Kent and Taylor’s (1998) study, designed to measure dialogic relationships on websites, was subsequently found to be a particularly useful framework to measure relationships in social media spaces, little has been done in this area. Seltzer and Mitrook (2007) applied dialogic

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principles to compare environmental websites and Blogs, and found that Blogs have more potential for relationship building than websites (2007). Briones, Kuch, Liu and Jin (2011) discovered Red Cross individuals were effectively using social media such as Twitter and Facebook to engage interactively with their publics, while Rybalko and Seltzer’s (2010) research found Twitter accounts were more effective when they were interactive. Additionally, Utz’s (2009) study revealed publics favoured politicians who interacted interpersonally in SNS spaces. Despite research finding these positive levels of interactivity, other studies have found organisations are not using interactive elements in social media effectively (McCorkindale, 2010; Waters & Williams, 2011).

Studies around how SNS can help to cultivate, maintain and develop relationships online are beginning to gain momentum in the PR field. Men and Tsai (2011) compare relationship cultivation strategies employed by organisations on Facebook and popular Chinese SNS Renren, and find that relationship cultivation strategies are used differently in the different networks, suggesting differences in cultural practices within the SNS.

Despite this research developing a range of empirical studies, there is currently no coherent or unified theory to confidently frame effective SNS use in organisational communication. Ironically, there are many practitioner and practice-based books on SNS and how organisations can effectively use them, but there is little academic groundwork in this area that proves or disproves that

organisations’ use of SNS to engage with publics is effective. One study that explored PR perspectives of SNS found PR practitioners perceive SNS to be an important communication channel, with 83% of PR practitioners regularly accessing Facebook for personal reasons (Wright & Hinson, 2010); however, another study found only 24% of PR practitioners surveyed were actually using social networks for work purposes (Eyrich et al., 2008).

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The knowledge gap surrounding organisations and PR practitioner’s use of SNS poses significant ramifications regarding the time and resources spent in SNS. Additionally, there is little knowledge about how commercial organisations are engaging with publics in SNS, and it is important that these knowledge gaps are addressed.