Social Media as a strategic tool for Corporate Communication/ Los Medios Sociales como una herramienta estratégica para la Comunicación Corporativa

Companies around the globe are embracing and adapting social media for many differentintentions: customer service, marketing, internal communications, public relations orcorporate social responsibility, etc. It is now a reality that social media is channging the waystakeholders and companies communicate daily, providing opportunities for collaboration,participation, interactivity, and engagement. Therefore, social media is conceived today inthe corporate world as a strategic communication partner, driving new and uniquepossibilities for organizations to engage stakeholders in conversations. We are witnesses of anew digital era where consumers are becoming active users rather than passive individuals,changing dramatically how society operates. But these useful technological tools areemployed widely and precisely by corporations in order to facilitate and improvecommunications? This research aims to discover the usage of different social mediaplatforms by Puerto Rican companies. A content analysis was performed to the Facebookand Twitter official profiles of the top 400 locally owned Puerto Rican companies of 2009.The principal objective was to find if social media sites were mainly used as a strategic toolfor corporate communication that can enhance stakeholder participation and engagement.Results showed that Puerto Rican companies are not employing social media platforms forimproving communications with different stakeholders, failing to take advantage of theenormous possibilities that social media has for communication./Compa ías alrededor del mundo están utilizando los medios sociales para diferentespropósitos: servicio al cliente, mercadeo, comunicaciones internas, relaciones públicas oresponsabilidad social corporativa, etc. Hoy en día es una realidad que los medios socialesestán cambiando la manera en que se comunican las compa ías con los distintos públicos deinterés, trayendo consigo oportunidades para la colaboración, el intercambio de ideas, laparticipación y el compromiso. En la actualidad los medios sociales son concebidos en elmundo corporativo como un socio estratégico comunicativo, brindando oportunidadesnuevas y únicas para el fomento de un diálogo efectivo con diferentes públicos. Somostestigos de una nueva era digital donde los consumidores se están convirtiendo en usuariosactivos en vez de permanecer como individuos pasivos, cambiando así dramáticamentecómo la sociedad opera. Pero, son los medios sociales utilizados ampliamente por lasempresas con el fin de facilitar y mejorar las comunicaciones? Esta investigación pretendedescubrir e