The use of social media to establish stakeholder relationships through dialogue at revenue services Lesotho (RSL)

Abstract

Social media has facilitated interactive communication, paving the way for instant communication. Organisations have embraced the use of social media as a communication tool for better engagement with their stakeholders. This study sought to establish how social media could be used to create relationships with external stakeholders through dialogue, and to suggest practical implementable recommendations on how social media could be used for external organisational communication at the Revenue Services Lesotho (RSL). The RSL staff responsible for communication in the departments of Marketing and Client Education (MCE) and Strategic Partnerships and Public Relations (SPPR) were interviewed to determine how RSL uses social media, and taxpayers’ perceptions on RSL’s use of social media were obtained through self-administered questionnaires to taxpayers who visited the Maseru Service Centres. This study therefore adopted a mixed method research design and the convergent parallel research design. Descriptive statistics were used for the quantitative data analysis from RSL taxpayers, and thematic analysis was used for the qualitative data from RSL staff. The findings mainly suggest that RSL should capitalise on platforms where most of their stakeholders can be reached easily through tailored content that is compatible with their mobile phones. For the RSL to be perceived as inclusive in its communication with stakeholders, it is recommended that the two main languages spoken in Lesotho, namely Sesotho and English, be used. Based on the findings, the study proposes a seven step social media communication process that could guide government agencies on the use of social media communication for dialogue with external stakeholders to establish relationships.