ABSTRACT
Purpose This study aims to investigate how New Zealand companies use Twitter to communicate and engage effectively with stakeholders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach This study proposes a conceptual framework for effective stakeholder engagement by using social media to analyse the themes and emotion of company tweets during the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand. The engagement of stakeholders with these tweets is also examined. This study argues that companies use selected themes and emotive language to connect with their stakeholders. Findings The findings show that selective themes and emotions are useful in company COVID-19 tweets to engage with the stakeholders. COVID-19 tweets contained significantly more emotion than non-COVID tweets, with emotions that can convey empathy being the most common. By presenting themselves as real, personable and empathetic towards others through emotive language, companies can engage in more meaningful and ethical way with their stakeholders. Practical implications The paper has implications for managing company communications by providing empirical evidence that both the themes and emotion expressed in the messages are important for effective stakeholder engagement in social media. Originality/value The conceptual framework for effective stakeholder engagement using social media is novel and can be used to evaluate and investigate stakeholder engagement during a global crisis.