Background

Social Media is a communication tool employed nowadays not only by multinational or middle-size and small companies, but also by non-profit organizations and governmental institutions. Today, more than 60% of the Swedish municipalities are participating on Social Media platforms with the purpose of engaging with the citizens. Online Engagement is not radically different from traditional Engagement, just as Citizen Engagement has close similarities with Customer Engagement. All of the Engagement facets are comparatively discussed in the current research paper, and four Dimensions, each including several factors that might differentiate Engaged and Unengaged users are described and used in the empirical study, in order to fulfill the purpose of the research.

Purpose

This research paper investigates the factors that differentiate the users from different stages of engagment on public institution’s social media profiles.

Method

The factors differentiating users from different stages of Engagement were identified by using relevant theories and previous research, and by conducting a quantitative study on Trafikverket, Swedish Transport Administration, Facebook profile followers.

Conclusion

Five factors were tested throughout the statistical data analysis. Three of them were found to be signifcantly different for users that are engaged within the profile and users that are not engaged. These factors are Usefulness, Privacy & Security and Communicaion & Relationship. Based on the findings and literature review, several suggestions for engaging with citizens, were proposed.