Show Us You Are Real: The Effect of Human-Versus-Organizational Presence on Online Relationship Building Through Social Networking Sites.

This study examined how creating a human presence in organizational online communication affects organization– public relationships and publics’ favorable behavioral intentions to engage in word-of-mouth (WOM) and dialogic communications. Four hypotheses were tested in the context of Twitter through a 2 × 2 (presence: human vs. organizational × organization type: nonprofit vs. for-profit) within-subjects design. The results revealed that conversational human voice was perceived to be higher for Twitter pages of organizations with a human presence than for those with an organizational presence. Providing a human presence on social media through the use of social media managers’ avatars and names appeared to promote favorable organization–public relationships and positive WOM communication. However, dialogic communication intentions did not significantly differ between organizations incorporating a human presence versus an organizational presence into their Twitter pages. The proposed dynamic role of human presence versus organizational presence adds a new perspective as to how organizations can take better advantage of interpersonal aspects of social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]