A conceptual stages-of-growth model for managing a social media business profile

There is little understanding of how organisations manage social media. Stage-of-growth (SoG) models represent a picture of evolution, where the current stage can be understood in terms of history and future, providing an opportunity to identify the stages, paths of evolution, benchmark variables, and dominant problems experienced by organisations at each stage. Following a review of 4 decades of SoG model research, as well as a review of existing social media research and practitioner insight across multiple domains, the authors adopt Gottschalk and Solli-Sæther’s (2010) five-step stage modelling process as a research methodology to develop a SoG model for managing a social media business profile (SMBP). The paper develops and validates Step 1 (suggested stage model) and Step 2 (conceptual stage model) of the stage modelling process. A number of key contributions to theory and practice are identified, and ongoing research to further refine the model is outlined.