TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose A growing amount of German and Austrian utilities create own Facebook accounts to communicate with their stakeholders. Whereas existing studies describe how utility companies are currently using Facebook, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there exists no study which focuses on the actual expectations of Facebook users. Nevertheless, as the occurrence of social media redefined stakeholders’ expectations, research on the expectations of Facebook users become crucial. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the existing social media literature by investigating the expectations of Facebook users towards a virtual stakeholder dialogue with their public utility companies on Facebook.Design/methodology/approach Eight German and six Austrian public utilities supported the empirical study by posting a link to an online survey on their Facebook account. In total, 258 Facebook users followed that link and completed the survey.Findings The broad majority of participants expect public utility companies to use Facebook as a communication channel. They request to regularly receive a variety of information on different topics. In addition, participants want to have the opportunity to post general queries, complaints or criticism, suggestions for improvement, positive feedback or queries in a crisis situation. Moreover, the empirical data reveal that user-specific characteristics such as gender, age, country of residence, length of Facebook membership or number of Facebook friends impact the expectations towards a Facebook conversation.Originality/value The findings enable scholars and practitioners to gain in-depth insights into Facebook conversations from the actual user perspective.
VL  - 12
IS  - 3
SN  - 1750-6220
DO  - 10.1108/IJESM-11-2017-0013
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/IJESM-11-2017-0013
AU  - Martin Sebastian
AU  - Greiling Dorothea
AU  - Wetzelhütter Daniela
PY  - 2018
Y1  - 2018/01/01
TI  - Expectations of Facebook users towards a virtual dialogue with their public utility
T2  - International Journal of Energy Sector Management
PB  - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP  - 408
EP  - 425
Y2  - 2024/04/20
ER  -