Patterns, Practices and Social Media Engagement of Public Relations: A Comparative Study between Government and Corporate Organizations of Bangladesh

The emerging and impactful nature of growing concern over public relations in Bangladesh is remarkable, still, a dearth of studies analyzing its methods and trends is evident. This study is designed to find the patterns and practices of public relations in the government and corporate organizations of Bangladesh. The study has followed both quantitative and qualitative approaches using content analysis and Key Informant Interview (KII) methods for data collection. Content has been collected from six months of social media data (Facebook page) of two public organizations which are Khulna University and Bangladesh Bank, and two private organizations Northern University of Business and Technology and City Bank. Subsequently, the acquired data underwent rigorous analysis employing the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The researcher interviewed three key persons who are responsible public relations professionals of prominent public and corporate organizations. The study revealed that the means of communication and patterns and practices are quite similar in both public and private organizations. However, with a significant difference, the corporate sector is performing better in social media engagement due to a major difference in feedback-giving and audience engagement evolution. In response to the comments made on social media pages, government organizations did not provide any feedback whereas corporate organizations replied to a significant number, almost one-third of the comments. This indicates that the corporate sector outperforms audience engagement. The discussions from the Key Informant Interview portrayed both organizations using email as a formal way to communicate internally and externally along with WhatsApp, Zoom, and Google Meet. Finally, an evident relationship observed between organizations and giving posts on their social media page is sustained.