Another tool for the toolbox? How strategists are adopting social media for sensemaking

Social media has democratised strategic communication. Strategists are adopting social media in their (digital) work as they evolve from the being discreet decision-makers operating behind the scenes to becoming prominent communicators at the forefront of strategic discourse. With this practice change, strategists must possess language skills to help others make sense of strategic issues, subsequently influencing stakeholder sensemaking in a desired direction. This paper asks how strategists are adopting social media for sensemaking on strategic issues. Our netnography research is conducted using the social media posts of strategists in FTSE 100 companies. The preliminary finding shows linguistic features such as expressed emotion and rhetoric are prominent in our data. We conclude with some emerging contributions where this work-in-progress intends to extend prior research by advancing understanding of specific discursive forms of strategic sensemaking afforded by social media.