Engaging Social Media Users with Corporate Social Responsibility Messages: An Integrated Theoretical Approach in the Automotive Industry during Social Media Era

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) messaging on social media has become an essential tool for companies to engage with the public. Despite its growing importance, little research has explored how specific CSR communication strategies influence public engagement online, particularly within the Chinese context. This study examined the impact of three key factors: (1) CSR message themes (based on ISO 26000 standards), (2) relationship cultivation strategies (including Openness, Information Dissemination, Interactivity and Involvement, and Sharing Tasks), and (3) multimodal message formats (text with emoticons, images, and videos) on social media engagement behaviors, such as likes, shares, and comments. A quantitative content analysis of 421 CSR-related posts from the Weibo accounts of China’s top ten automotive brands was conducted. Negative Binomial Regression (NB2) was used to analyze the relationships between these CSR factors and user engagement. The results showed that consumer-related CSR themes significantly increased likes, shares, and comments. Relationship cultivation strategies, particularly Interactivity and Involvement, had a strong positive effect on engagement, especially in posts that encouraged user participation through commenting or sharing. Furthermore, posts featuring text with emoticons significantly boosted the number of comments. Theoretically, this study integrates the Stimulus-Response Theory’s emphasis on external stimuli with Uses and Gratifications Theory’s focus on users’ active motivations, providing a more comprehensive approach to understanding user engagement. On a practical level, the findings offer actionable insights for automotive companies: focus on consumer-oriented CSR messaging, employ interactive communication strategies, simplify complex content, and leverage multimedia formats like text with emoticons to enhance engagement.