A new study by MIT Sloan School of Management Prof. Catherine Tucker and Prof. Amalia Miller of the University of Virginia suggests that a company's online social media presence is perpetuated more by employees than new customers – depending on what is posted.

The study looked at hospitals' social media management across the country. After management and maintenance, the organization pages showed more engagement, but only from employees who hopped on to “like” or share content.

However, this may have been the case because the posts were internally, rather than client-focused. The news that appeared encouraged those connected to the facility to add their insight, rather than invited outsiders to join the conversation. Posting client-facing content did encourage other organizations to post and share content – but there was not enough of these posts to really boost conversions.