The Correlation Between Social Media Governance Indices and Online Audience in selected magazines of ABS-CBN Publishing Inc.

Abstract

Three main outputs of the study describe social media governance within ABS-CBN Publishing, Inc. (API). First is that the company’s ten selected active magazines, as presented by a survey of 18 social media managers, collectively present a weak regulatory framework, a medium level of expertise, the occasional presence of a social media strategy, and a medium level of activity using the four indices of social media governance and other pertinent variables as adapted from the Social Media Governance DELPHI study of Fink, Linke, and Zerfass (2012). Significant correlations include Online Audience (tally of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter followers) with Regulatory Framework; with Strategy; with Social Media Experience, and Regulatory Framework with Social Media Experience. Regression analysis (Online Audience or the tally of followers being the dependent variable) indicated Regulatory Framework as a significant predictor of the variance of Online Audience. Interviews with key personnel handling social media for the entire media company suggest that due to the nature of ABS-CBN as a media company with focus on cable channels, news, and film, the focus and investment for social media tends to stay with the accounts of these particular lines of businesses instead of Publishing. A content analysis of the top two API Facebook pages along with their theme counterparts from their main competitor aided the creation of dimension maps that revealed API’s content was focused on the promotion of partners (within ABS-CBN and externally) and content sharing which was personal in nature, respectively. Competitor accounts, on the other hand, were consistent in pulling in visitors from social media to their magazines’ websites through diverse and audience-centric content.