Robin Effing

The social strategy cone: Towards a framework for evaluating social media strategies

Social media is growing rapidly. Providing both risks and opportunities for organizations as it does. The social strategy cone is developed for evaluating social media strategies. This framework comprises of seven key elements of social media strategies as based on a systematic literature review and case studies. The results of 21 interviews have contributed to the construction of the social media strategy cone for analyzing social media strategies. Three levels of maturity of social media strategy are proposed: initiation, diffusion and maturity. Initiation includes the key elements: ‘target audience’ and ‘channel choice’ while all case organizations studied payed attention to these elements. Diffusion includes the elements: ‘goals’, ‘resources’ and ‘policies’. Maturity adds the elements of ‘monitoring’ and ‘content activities’. Only 3 of the 9 organizations studied are in this phase of maturity. Although, theory suggests the importance of the element of ‘monitoring’ our research shows the need for more attention in practice.

Social Media Participation and Local Politics: A Case Study of the Enschede Council in the Netherlands

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are often seen as political game changers. Yet little is known of the effects of social media on local politics. In this paper the Social Media Participation Model (SMPM) is introduced for studying the effects of social media on local political communities. The SMPM aims to explore the relationship between Social Media Participation and Community Participation. The model comprises four constructs: Social Media Choice, Social Media Use, Sense of Community and Community Engagement. The design of the case study was based on the SMPM and took place among the members and parties of the Enschede council, from a large municipality in the Netherlands. Social media participation levels were measured and compared with the Social Media Indicator (SMI). A negative correlation between Social Media Use and Sense of Community has been discovered. However, we could not find a causal effect that explains this correlation. To analyze the effects in more detail, we show directions for further improvement of the model.

Social Smart City: Introducing Digital and Social Strategies for Participatory Governance in Smart Cities

Cities increasingly face challenges regarding participatory governance in order to become a “smart city”. The world’s best cities to live in are not the ones with the most advanced technological layers but cities that create an atmosphere where citizens, companies and government together build a vital and sustainable city. This study compares various definitions of smart cities and integrates current insights from the field of e-participation. Five best-practice examples from over the world illustrate the various ways participation can be developed from various leadership perspectives. A new conceptual framework, the Social Smart City framework, is derived from both e-participation theory and these best-practice examples. The framework comprises of a set of digital strategies for participatory governance in smart cities.

Social Media Indicator and Local Elections in the Netherlands: Towards a Framework for Evaluating the Influence of Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook

Social media has become a popular tool in the political landscape. As a result, it is of increased importance to evaluate social media campaigns of politicians. However, there is currently little knowledge how to measure and evaluate the influence of social media in political campaigns, especially at the local scale. This chapter is a step further towards the development of a theoretical framework and an algorithm that contributes to more reliable impact measurement of social media campaigns by politicians. The Social Media Indicator-2 framework and a related scoring algorithm are introduced to evaluate the influence of individual political candidates via social media on their social environment. The framework is tested by applying it in an empirical pilot study based on the local 2014 municipal elections in the Netherlands. We collected data for the political candidates and their parties in a pre-defined period and were able to relate scores to voting outcome. Positive correlations were revealed between social media contribution scores of politicians and their preference votes within the province of Overijssel in the Netherlands.

Measuring the effects of social media participation on political party communities

Political parties can potentially benefit from Social Media to shape interactions between their members. This chapter presents the Social Media Participation Model (SMPM), which measures the effects of Social Media Participation on political party communities. As people and politicians increasingly adopt Social Media, measuring the effects of Social Media participation on party communities has become more important. However, a literature review revealed that currently there are few measurement methods. Furthermore, most politicians do not know how to use Social Media effectively. Therefore, we propose the Social Media Participation Model that reflects two concepts: Social Media Participation and Community Participation. To measure Social Media Participation, we developed the Social Media Indicator to assess the Social Media use by politicians. Additionally, we integrate media choice theory to evaluate appropriateness of Social Media for certain tasks and strategies. For measuring Community Participation, we deploy the following two constructs: Community Engagement and Sense of Community. By obtaining results from the Social Media Participation Model, it will be clear which use of Social Media positively influence member participation within political communities. This model is the first step in developing a standardized instrument to explore the impact of Social Media Participation on Community Participation.

Enable, Engage and Evaluate: Introducing the 3E Social Media Strategy Canvas Based on the European Airline Industry

The strategic use of social media has increased in importance. However, there is a lack of theory to design and evaluate social media strategies. In a competitive environment, airlines need to excel on service, customer satisfaction and marketing. Social media could support those areas of business. This paper comprises the results of both a systematic literature review and case studies at European airlines. The literature study was based on 85 academic articles, regarding the prevalent approaches to social media strategies. The case studies were conducted within three North-western-European airlines in Germany, France and the Netherlands. As a result, a new conceptual framework and tool for creating social media strategies is created. Engagement, Evaluation and Enabling are its main concepts. The new theoretical framework is more complete and was derived from existing literature and case studies. The 3E Social Media Strategy Canvas can serve both as a decision-making tool and as a theoretical framework for comparison.

Urban Media Trends for Enabling Citizen Participation in Urban Planning: Old Wine in New Barrels?

In recent years, a plethora of new possibilities for interactive urban planning emerged, fuelled by the rise of smart cities. This paper studies the potential of urban media for reshaping the role of citizens in urban planning. Both the historical role that citizens have played in the development of neighbourhoods and the process of urban planning are presented from a literature review. Furthermore, present visions on urban planning and citizen participation in smart cities are reviewed. Lessons learned from this literature study, are confronted with six main trends in urban media from expert interviews. As a result, we deliver an overview that helps urban planners in neighbourhoods in order to profit from advantages of urban media while avoiding their risks. We found that the development of urban media could have both positive and negative effects with regard to citizen participation in urban planning in neighbourhoods.

Smart City Participation: Dream or Reality? A Comparison of Participatory Strategies from Hamburg, Berlin & Enschede

Urbanization is forcing local government to revisit their way of communicating with citizens. By using Information Technology, cities can become smarter, more livable and more sustainable. The purpose of this study is to identify critical success factors for local government regarding smart city strategy and participation. The literature study consists of concepts such as smart city, participation and digital strategy. The qualitative study shows that the city of Hamburg defined a digital vision while the other two cities lacked setting such strategies. Bottom-up planning was their primary approach for smart city activities. Regarding the topic of participation we recognize that Hamburg can be recognized as a best practice example. Although the participatory practices were still in its infancy, they showed promising results. Remarkably, all three cities stress the importance of collaboration of different types of stakeholders. The quadruple helix structure ensures effective participation of citizens, companies, universities and government.

The social media participation framework: Studying the effects of social media on nonprofit communities

Social media could help nonprofit communities to organize their communication with their members in new and innovative ways. This could contribute to sustaining or improving the participation of members within these communities. Yet little is known of how to measure and understand the offline community effects of social media use. Therefore, the main question of this study is: “How does the use of social media by members of nonprofit communities affect their offline participation?” The Social Media Participation Framework was developed to address this question. It is an initial theoretical framework that aims to contribute to discovering the effects of Social Media Participation on Offline Community Participation. A new measure was created to capture social media participation levels: The Social Media Indicator (SMI) which divides the intensity of use of social media into two aspects: Contribution (e-enabling) and Interaction (e-engagement), following the e-participation theory of Macintosh. In order to test the theoretical framework, it was employed in three longitudinal, multi-method, case studies. The 1st case study was regarding a City Council and its elected political party members in Enschede, The Netherlands. The 2nd case was a Roman Catholic Church community around Oldenzaal in The Netherlands. The 3rd case was based on the Apostolic Society in Enschede, the Netherlands. The church communities who had defined social media strategies were experiencing added value from social media. However, in the case of the council, members who had higher scores for Social Media Use showed significantly lower scores for their Sense of Community. The evidence in this study does not support the idea that social media is ‘the cure’ for the decline in member participation in nonprofit communities. Based on the experiences of the framework in these case studies a revised framework is proposed which addresses the limitations of its predecessor. This study contributed to reducing the void of theories and frameworks for studying social media and its effects on communities.