An investigation into post crisis online reputation restoration strategies : a South African perspective

M.A. (Strategic Communication)Abstract: This study investigated post-crisis online reputation restoration strategies from a South African perspective, particularly on the micro-blogging site Twitter. Over eight million South Africans currently use Twitter. The site dominates as a preferred social platform for engaging in public discourse. Twitter has created opportunities for strategic communication professionals but a new kind of reputational risk has emerged. Due to crisis erupting on Twitter and impacting companies’ reputation through a decline in public trust, negative brand attitude and diminished brand commitment – it has become increasingly important to study reputation restoration strategies. A qualitative explorative research approach was employed for this study. Data collection was conducted through semi-structured interviews with eight social media experts. The data was analysed using thematic analysis of the interview transcripts whereby 16 themes emerged from the analysis and where grouped into three categories, namely; strategic communication, social media crisis and reputation repair. The study found that Twitter does not work in a silo and an integrated approach should be implemented. Furthermore, a lot of importance was placed on pre-crisis preparation strategies as these impact reputation repair. Lastly, understanding the audience and sentiment has a huge impact on developing the right messages and measuring if there is a shift in perceptions