The strategic use of Twitter to manage personal public relations

Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 159–161

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Public Relations Review

Research in brief

The strategic use of Twitter to manage personal public relations

Sungwook Hwang∗

Department of Communication, Pusan National University, San 30, Jangjeon-dong, Geumjeong-gu, Busan 609-735, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 18 March 2011

Received in revised form 17 October 2011

Accepted 3 December 2011

Keywords:

Personal public relations

Social media

Twitter

CEO

Transformational leadership

Attitudes toward CEOs

Attitudes toward corporations

a b s t r a c t

This study examined the effect of personal public relations developed through Twitter

on cognitive and attitudinal aspects, particularly focusing on the use of Twitter by CEOs.

According to the responses of young consumers who participated in this study, their

attitudes toward the use of Twitter by CEOs positively influenced their perception of trans￾formational leadership (H1). Further, perceived transformational leadership was positively

associated with attitudes toward CEOs using Twitter; this in turn positively influenced

attitudes toward corporations (H2). The positive evaluation of the use of Twitter by CEOs

directly influenced attitudes toward such CEOs (H3), whereas attitudes toward such use

did not influence attitudes toward corporations. The results indicated that microblogging

is beneficial for the development of effective personal public relations by corporate leaders.

© 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

According to the 2010 statistical results published on WebBizideas.com, 26% of American corporations would pay for

business functionality on Twitter. In other words, many business users of Twitter in the US consider it appropriate to invest

in activating and maintaining Twitter communication with followers. While specialized Twitter communication teams can

operate corporate Twitter accounts, some CEOs directly post brief updates and closely communicate with their followers

using microblogging techniques. Jack Welch (GE), Jonathan Schwartz (Sun Microsystems), and Tony Hsieh (Zappos) are

famousWestern corporate CEOs in the Twitter world; Masayoshi Son (Softbank), Yongmaan Park (Doosan Corp.), and Yongjin

Jeong (Shinsegae) are successful CEOs of large Asian corporations who actively use microblogging services. Although Twitter

is used as a tool for personal PR (public relations), few studies have examined the empirical effects of using these tools for

this purpose. Using a structural equation model, this study investigated the extent to which microblogging services are

useful in forming perceptions about a CEOs’ leadership abilities, attitudes toward CEOs using Twitter, and attitudes toward

corporations.

Considering the usefulness of Twitter for personal public relations, this study proposed the following hypotheses:

H1. Attitudes toward the use of Twitter by CEOs positively influence the respondents’ perception of transformational

leadership.

H2. Perceived transformational leadership positively influences attitudes toward CEOs using Twitter;this in turn positively

influences attitudes toward organizations.

This manuscript has not been published previously. It is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Its publication is approved by the author

and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out. If accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in

English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

∗ Tel.: +82 51 510 2158; fax: +82 51 512 0945; mobile: +82 10 4939 1238.

E-mail address: [email protected]

0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2011.12.004