Airbnb Corporate

Communication Strategy
in Social Media
Case Study Report

Evi Farsiah Utami | 0332987

 Airbnb Corporate Communication Strategy in Social Media | Evi Farsiah Utami

Table of Content

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………..2
Background of Case Study …………………………………………………………….. 3
Rationale for Theory and Application …………………………………………………. 4
Social Media Strategy of Airbnb ………………………………………………………. 5
Recommendations ………………………………………………………………………6
Conclusions ……………………………………………………………………………..7
References ………………………………………………………………………………8
Turnitin Report ………………………………………………………………………….9

1
 Airbnb Corporate Communication Strategy in Social Media | Evi Farsiah Utami

Airbnb Corporate Communication Strategy in Social Media

Case Study Report

Introduction

The new corporate communication mindset takes into consideration how corporate
communication extend beyond traditional media (Breakenridge, 2012). The change agent
inside corporation started utilizing and developing the potential of social media approach
because it is cooperative, flexible and equipped with data-gathering superiority (Argyris &
Monu, 2015), compare to the older version of media platform. Under the pressure of
maintaining immense communication with the external stakeholder and the competitive
business environment, the adoption of social media to elongate the reach and impact in terms
of corporate communication is almost inevitable.

The corporation across the world choose SNS with the capability of photo sharing like
Instagram, as well as video sharing site like You Tube, because information can be conveyed
in a creative manner (Macnamara & Zefrass, 2012) and visual content-sharing media possess
a considerable strength in transmitting impactful message, while Twitter and Facebook are
dominantly use to corroborate a strategic communication about a particular event and to
quickly respond to a particular issue.

Social media is portrayed as an augmentation of public sphere which refers to a place where
people from different background gather around and freely confer things with each other. In
regards to that, Cho, Furey & Mohr (2017) study proven that public easily express their
expectations and opinions regarding particular corporate or organization and its practices in
the social media platform. The appeal of social media in terms of corporate communication
comes from the fact that it offers a promising environment for reaching and interacting
benefits, a situation where the stakeholders are able to directly pitch in a reaction or
information and continuously contribute in the process of corporate image building
(Vernuccio, 2014).

The downside of social media use for corporate communication is because of its
uncontrollable trait (Cho, Furey & Mohr, 2017), which translates to how multi-facet and
multi-directional social media is. Information keeps going around without a filter; including
good and bad content regarding the corporation. Thus, Airbnb chosen as the case study
because the corporate equipped with heavy involvement of new media in their business

2
 Airbnb Corporate Communication Strategy in Social Media | Evi Farsiah Utami

practices and Airbnb also utilizing social media platform as a corporate communication effort
in hope of cultivating stakeholder’s attention and trust is worthy of further analysis.

Background of Case Study

Corporate Background

The rapid development of mobile technologies and new internet have an apparent impact
on the basic routine of a local renting lodging for potential tourist out there. Airbnb hosting
a website which facilitates and accommodate the experience of living like a local; a
considerably distinct experience value in tourism section. According to Boswijk (2017),
Airbnb is currently known as a market leader in peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation
business type due to its unique business proposition which integrated experience value and
economic benefits for both travelers and residents in the tourist area. Airbnb
accommodations mainly offers an entire home or a single private room in a residential area
where the host is also present and live in the same place (Guttentag et.al, 2018), thus
offering the tourist an opportunity to dip into the authentic lifestyle of the local residents.

Corporate Performance

Lee & Kim (2018) illustrate the success story of Airbnb reflected into how 40,000 people
rent rooms from different cities in 191 countries in daily time. Airbnb business value also
peaked at $24 billion in May 2016 (Winkler &MacMillian, 2015; Boswijk, 2017). Airbnb
founders, Chesky and Gebbia realized the existence of business opportunity where there
was an unmet demand for home-staying in an authentic home of local residents in tourist
destination and made Airbnb available to access for public in 2009 and since then become
the first website choice for potential tourist to book unique and authentic lodging across the
world.

Corporate’s Problem and Solution

Successful business brand always entailed by a variety of problems. Amaro, Andreu &
Huang (2017) stated that few issues have been raised due to the absence of firm regulatory
in Airbnb business model. In addition to that, Lee & Kim (2018) stated that Airbnb
currently operates with minimum regulation and lack of control, which has granted the host
and potential lodger lots of flexibility, but also the power to initiate unwanted incident. For
a while, Airbnb was under the racism accusation and the problem arising from a number of

3
 Airbnb Corporate Communication Strategy in Social Media | Evi Farsiah Utami

accommodation host in Europe and USA namely, rejecting lodgers with the black person’s
name and black person’s profile photo. The hashtag #airbnbwhileblack made by the victims
went viral in social media (Business Insider, 2016), first in Twitter, followed by Facebook
and other social networking sites, from June 2016 until the end of 2016.

At the end of 2016, Airbnb posted a corporate apology addressing the racism accusation in
their official website and promised to punished the particular host and blocked them from
Airbnb services to redeem the trust of publics (Daily Mail, 2016). As reported by NBC San
Diego (2017), Airbnb did not stop there, as they also showcased their community
conscience in their social media campaign of accepting people from different races, skin
color and religion as an attempt to brushed off the rumors. Airbnb launched their
commitment online with the hashtag #weaccept, a tactical corporate communication which
will be analyzed later in the social media strategy section.

Rationale for Theory and Application

The theory that will be used to define and analyze the corporate communication strategy of
Airbnb in this paper was developed by Olga Kazaka (2013), known as Added-Value Model
and this model attempt to explain the process and flow of corporate communication in
social media.

The Added-Value Model consists of eight elements; listening, message, social media
choice, personification level, interaction, added value community pressure and strategy
pressure (Kazaka, 2013). Based on the conceptual clarification of the model, listening
define the process where the agent inside the corporation analyze the social media content
to cultivate a particular stakeholders’ point-of-view regarding the corporate or a particular
event and depend on the result of the listening process, corporate plan their messages and
this message of the corporate serve as an impact factor regarding the social media choice.
Specific social media selection depends heavily on the capabilities offer by various social
media type and stakeholders’ preferences in relation to the use of the media. In the
personification level process, the corporate decided the manner on how information will be
delivered to the publics.

Continuing from personification process is the interaction process, which grant the
corporate a wider audience, but this interaction should never cross the stakeholders’
territory because they react negatively when corporate tailing them directly such as

4
 Airbnb Corporate Communication Strategy in Social Media | Evi Farsiah Utami

following their profile and involve in their discussion. Certain trait of two-way symmetrical
communication as best practices in excellence theory (Macnamara & Zefrass, 2012)
detected in this process, which illustrate the transformative, more symmetrical and fair
interaction between corporate and public share. After that, the added value process comes
in and considered as the crucial element of the model. Kazaka (2013) described that added
value refers to the hidden value of the corporate activity proposed in the social media realm,
which is necessary as the stakeholders indicate that they are looking for valuable
information which translates into interesting and positive social media content. The last
element is the pressure, which comes from internal and external factor.

The Added-Value Model helps breakdown every single process from the very beginning of
the planning stage until the execution stage in a detailed manner, thus simplify an array of
intricate process into an intact piece of information that can be very useful for corporate to
elevate the impact of their communication, detecting what went wrong with their overall
social media communication with the stakeholders and cultivating possibility for their
future communication strategy in social media

Social Media Strategy of Airbnb

Airbnb first release their social media campaign through a huge advertisement in USA’s
important football league event, Superbowl, back in February 2017 (Daily Dot, 2017). The
social media campaign was manifested in the hashtag #weaccept. The campaign full of
powerful acceptance message, complemented by a set of videos and pictures which
supported the idea of people open up their home for strangers who’s in urgent need of a
place to temporary settle down, no matter what their race, skin-color and religion are.
Airbnb launch their campaign #weaccept along with the campaign video in their official
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and You Tube account at the same time to gained a great
momentum where the message reached its highest potential in regards of impact and
effectiveness. The online campaign video only last for 30 seconds, but the campaign will
go down in history for a long time, considering many people posted appraisal for Airbnb
in online platform (USA Today, 2017) and help spread the hashtag in their personal social
media account.

Based on the early process of the Added Value Model proposed by Kazaka (2013) –
listening, message, social media choice and personification – Airbnb exhibit quick response

5
 Airbnb Corporate Communication Strategy in Social Media | Evi Farsiah Utami

by adequately listen to the opinion and rumor of racism in the social media addressed to
them and formulate a beautiful social acceptance message as their response, which then
will be communicated to the stakeholders in the form of corporate’s social campaign
#weaccept. Airbnb also promote the campaign through four different social media channel
(Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and You Tube) which has been identified by Argyris &
Monu (2015) as the most relevant social media sites, accompanied with huge number of
users, compare to other sites. The use of the corporate’s official social media account to
launch the campaign is crucial as Airbnb wanted the stakeholders to understand clearly that
the message belong to their corporate, it is part of their initiative and commitment in
building a better environment for everyone.

The use of hashtag in the wide-spread of the corporate’s social media campaign is tightly
related with how interaction process flow in the Added-Value Model. Corporate must
intrigue the stakeholders to participate in their own will as the social media users react
negatively when corporate crossing the line of their privacy. The online hashtag #weaccept
help Airbnb to accurately achieve that condition, as hashtag is not directly targeted the users
but act as a sharing tool to raise awareness of a particular issue. The Airbnb’s campaign
#weaccept pushing forward a social value in which became a huge deal in the wake of
President Trump’s travel and immigrant ban (Designindaba, 2017) and that is the added
value in the whole social campaign strategy of #weaccept because it showcased the
corporate’s sensitivity toward the country’s current social concern and their own issue. The
social media strategy successfully portrayed the corporate as a caring and responsible
corporation or brand, conceal the ignorant image resulted from racism accusation back
then. Their social media campaign’s message also suitable with the overall corporate
communication strategy internally and aligned with the social value of the publics.

The Airbnb #weaccept strategy accomplished a great impact in refining the corporate’s
image in the stakeholders’ mind and eventually elevate the corporate’s brand identity and
reputation as an immediate effect of the social media strategy.

Recommendations

Airbnb had shown a brilliant corporate communication strategy by launching a community

commitment which manifested into #weaccept social media campaign, and the strategy was
identified as authentic and original by the stakeholders. The strategy also echoed with the

6
 Airbnb Corporate Communication Strategy in Social Media | Evi Farsiah Utami

corporate’s business type (accommodation service website) and went hand-in-hand with
one of the core issue in USA’s social and political sphere at that time.

The next step is how to maintain the great impression stakeholders have upon the corporate
and avoiding the corporate image downfall. According to Cho, Furey and Mor (2017),
public cynicism of corporate community commitment is considerably strong due to their
suspicion that it might end up as an empty promise. Rim & Kim (2016) stated that
skepticism – a dangerous behavior by stakeholders – is developed when the public notices
the inconsistency in the corporate’s behavior, claim or promise. Thus, corporate need to
exhibit a form of consistency and coherency in their attitude and community commitment
to avoid mistrust from the stakeholders. For instance, they need to constantly update the
stakeholders in every social media channel they have regarding the #weaccept commitment
result and what kind of manifestation the commitment brings in the real world out there.

Conclusions

Airbnb showcased great sensitivity through #weaccept campaign. Corporate

communication in social media for Airbnb is crucial because their business depend heavily
on what kind of image the stakeholders project in their mind about them. Their website
works to offer tourist a chance to live in a lovely home and try the authentic lifestyle of the
local based from trust only and if the corporate lost control of that trust, that could be the
downfall of Airbnb.

7
 Airbnb Corporate Communication Strategy in Social Media | Evi Farsiah Utami

References
Amaro, S., Andreu, L., & Huang, S. (2018). Millenials’ intentions to book on Airbnb. Current Issues In
Tourism, 1-15. doi: 10.1080/13683500.2018.1448368
Argyris, Y., & Monu, K. (2015). Corporate Use of Social Media: Technology Affordance and External
Stakeholder Relations. Journal Of Organizational Computing And Electronic Commerce, 25(2), 140-168. doi:
10.1080/10919392.2015.1033940
Boswijk, A. (2017). Transforming Business Value through Digitalized Networks: A Case Study on the Value
Drivers of Airbnb. Journal Of Creating Value, 3(1), 104-114. doi: 10.1177/2394964317697736
Breakenridge, D. (2012). Social media and public relations. Harlow: Financial Times.
Business Insider. (2016). Airbnb users are complaining of racism: #AirbnbWhileBlack. Retrieved from
http://www.businessinsider.com/does-airbnb-have-a-racism-problem-2016-5/?IR=T
Cho, M., Furey, L., & Mohr, T. (2016). Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility on Social
Media. Business And Professional Communication Quarterly, 80(1), 52-69. doi: 10.1177/2329490616663708
Daily Dot (2017). Airbnb’s #WeAccept Campaign Pledges to Provide Housing for 100,000. Retrieved from
https://www.dailydot.com/irl/airbnb-we-accept-pledge-100k/
Daily Mail. (2016). Airbnb apologizes for racism complaints, outlines changes. Retrieved from
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-3780150/Airbnb-apologizes-racism-complaints-outlines-
changes.html
Design Indaba. (2017). #WeAccept: AirBnB Super Bowl ad calls out Trump with a celebration of diversity |
Design Indaba. Retrieved from http://www.designindaba.com/articles/creative-work/weaccept-airbnb-super-
bowl-ad-calls-out-trump-celebration-diversity
Guttentag, D., Smith, S., Potwarka, L., & Havitz, M. (2017). Why Tourists Choose Airbnb: A Motivation-
Based Segmentation Study. Journal Of Travel Research, 57(3), 342-359. doi: 10.1177/0047287517696980
Kazaka, O. (2013). Added Value Model: Model of the Corporate Communication in Social Media. Journal Of
Economics, Business And Management. doi: 10.7763/joebm.2013.v1.49
Lee, S., & Kim, D. (2017). Brand personality of Airbnb: application of user involvement and gender
differences. Journal Of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 35(1), 32-45. doi: 10.1080/10548408.2017.1284030
Macnamara, J., & Zerfass, A. (2012). Social Media Communication in Organizations: The Challenges of
Balancing Openness, Strategy, and Management. International Journal Of Strategic Communication, 6(4),
287-308. doi: 10.1080/1553118x.2012.711402
NBC San Diego (2017). #WeAccept: Airbnb Sends a Message with Super Bowl Ad. Retrieved from
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/california/WeAccept-San-Francisco-Airbnb-Super-Bowl-Ad-
412908763.html
Rim, H., & Kim, S. (2016). Dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) skepticism and their impacts
on public evaluations toward CSR. Journal Of Public Relations Research, 28(5-6), 248-267. doi:
10.1080/1062726x.2016.1261702
Vernuccio, M. (2014). Communicating Corporate Brands Through Social Media. International Journal Of
Business Communication, 51(3), 211-233. doi: 10.1177/2329488414525400
USA Today (2017). Airbnb aims #weaccept Superbowl Ad to Refugee, Immigrant. Retrieved from
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/02/05/airbnb-aims-weaccept-super-bowl-ad-refugees-
immigrants/97533188/

8
Airbnb Corporate Communication Strategy in Social Media | Evi Farsiah Utami