Company Facebook and crisis signal: the case of Malaysian Airline companies

Abstract

The rapid advancement of social media play a significant role in publicizing the corporate image and reputation of organizations. The type of information shared and method used by business corporations to disseminate information via social media have profound influence on the public’s perception towards particular organizations. A study on Facebook of airlines using content analysis done by Grancay (2014) revealed that Airline Facebook pages contained only limited information and are not substitutes for airline websites. Furthermore, only 84 percent of airlines with Facebook provide the link to the websites. As such the questions posed are; what is the content of Facebook of Malaysian airlines? What kind of posts and nature of interactions occurs in Malaysian airlines Facebook? This article is based on a study conducted to examine the content and interactions of posts from Facebook of five selected Malaysian airlines – Malaysia Airlines, Air Asia, Firefly, Malindo Air and MASWing. Content analysis was used to identify the content of the postings and interactions provided by airlines on their official Facebook pages over a period of one month in October 2016, and determine possible issues that may contribute to the crisis in the companies. The findings showed the trend of airline companies Facebook posting was positive in nature and contain information about promotion, travel tips, entertainment and safety information. It was found that airline companies did not to give any response or feedback to their customers’ negative comments which may contribute to the crisis in the companies and thus considered a crisis signal.