The development of innovative strategic public relations via online social media of the private sectors in Thailand

Abstract

The research on The development of Innovative Strategic Public Relations via Online Social Media of the Private Sectors in Thailand aimed to study the status of the use of online social media as an innovation of strategic PR of the private sectors in Thailand, to study the status of strategic PR operations through online social media of the private sectors in Thailand, to study the platforms of the use of online social media, the objectives of the use of online social media, the platforms of PR and the PR content on both websites and online social media site of the private sectors in Thailand, to determine a pattern of innovative strategic PR operations through online social media of the private sectors in Thailand, and to achieve acceptance the pattern of innovative strategic PR operations through online social media of the private sectors in Thailand in the viewpoint of PR scholars and professionals.

The research had been organized mixed methods as follows: Firstly, qualitative research, the researcher gathered data by 10 purposive samplings technic and interviewed Director of Corporate Communication, PR Manager, PR Head of business services organizations in Thailand. Secondly, quantitative research, the researcher used the questionnaire to collect data by multi-stage samplings of PR executive, PR practitioner, marketer and/or marketing communication practitioner of the private sectors registered in The Stock Exchange of Thailand in 2014 in Bangkok area. There were 40 corporates, each corporate was elected 10 samplings, the total samplings were collected 400 . The researcher also gathered data on the corporate website and online social media site of the private sectors in Thailand by content analysis the platform of online social media, the objectives of the use of online social media, PR platforms and PR content. The researcher used multi-stage sample to select the 40 corporate business samplings. Thirdly, qualitative research, the researcher gathered data by purposive samplings of 5 PR scholars and 5 PR professionals and used focus group interview to gather data.

The research findings was found that the status of the use of online social media as an innovation of strategic PR of the private sectors in Thailand begins with as follows: to study the impact of change, to determine of the objective of change management, to define the factor of change management, to proceed the process of change management and to define the strategy of change management, setting a policy of the use of online social media as PR innovation, to determine of the objective of the use of online social media, to determine PR jobs and PR practitioner’ roles and to define PR strategy through online social media.

The status of strategic PR operations through online social media of the private sectors in Thailand was found that the samples were PR practitioners, aged 26-30 years with Bachelors’ Degree. They had 10 years working experiences and their income was 20,001-40,000 baht. They aimed to use online social media as information technology for PR. Facebook was ranked as highest. PR jobs ranked as high respectively were announcements, issue management, PR media production. PR daily operation were ranked as high respectively: to update information/ the companies’ news and announcements (4.07), to follow up on news and issues related to the company, to disseminate of news and information related to the company’s products and services. PR practitioners’ roles were ranked as high: corporate communication practitioners, change management, management situation, and creating interactions and relationships.

The researcher focused on 10 highlight research variables and used as the main factors to create the pattern of innovative PR strategy through online social media of the private sectors in Thailand. They consisted of context, situation analysis, corporate business plan, communication strategy, PR daily operations, online social media strategy, PR contents strategy, engagement strategy, and measurement strategy.