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1. Introduction
Social media is categorized as a group of online platforms, websites or applications that permit users to interact, interconnect, cooperate and discuss point of views and information (Doyle, 2010; Holotescu and Grosseck, 2013; Zeng et al., 2012). It can also be regarded as a two-way platform where users can share and discuss information (Johnston, 2011). Social networking websites have developed into a source of information, as people can post real-time posts concerning their opinions on topics and present issues or display negative comments or complaints (Agarwal et al., 2011). It has unraveled innovative capacities for businesses to connect with their customers and employees by providing them with the option of sending messages quickly and obtaining real-time responses (Lovejoy et al., 2012). This has enabled users to connect and to expand their marketing opportunities through a growth of communication. The democratization of information has permitted companies to communicate with customers and for customers to communicate with each other making this model a “two-way” communication model (Markos-Kujbus and Gati, 2013).
Some studies have focused on the use of Twitter in businesses. A study has shown that the Twitter account for an organization was used for a mixture of client testaments, dissatisfaction, replies to any enquiries or complaints and questions and answers (Jansen et al., 2009). It was also seen that firms were unlikely to post any type of “me now” tweets on their Twitter accounts but were more likely to post informative posts that encourage followers to be involved with online conversation. Therefore, this study showed that Twitter can be considered a good means for client relationship administration even if the firms were not using Twitter for this reason (Jansen et al., 2009).
Another research was also done on 500 Fortune companies but only took 93 active companies as a sample for comprehending the interaction characteristics of Twitter and the public groups targeted (Rybalko and Seltzer, 2010). The research result from examining their tweets showed that the percentage of replies to posts from users was 60.2%, the percentage of sharing important data about the company was 58.1%, and the percentage of making enquiries was 30.1%. The results also showed that the tweets targeted for all followers in general was 74.5%...