Understanding Stakeholder Engagement: Faith-holders, Hateholders & Fakeholders

Abstract

Stakeholder engagement has risen on the agenda of public relations recently mostly due to the introduction of real-time media and new hybrid forms of marketing, advertising and public relations. Engaging stakeholders is not a simple task in the information rich environment, and can be compared to a pinball match; organizational messages now have direct access, but often bounce randomly around in the online environment. To simplify measurement of public relations in this complex, unpredictable environment, this article distinguishes between three different types of stakeholder relationships: the positively engaged faith-holders, the negatively engaged hateholders, and fakeholders the unauthentic persona produced by astroturf and algorithms. The paper suggests that it is the future task of public relations professionals to support the faithholders, engage the hateholders and reveal the fakeholders. This mostly conceptual article introduces these three emerging groups, gives examples of all three and ponders their significance and their implications for public relations in the future.