Preserving corporate reputation in the social media era

This study examines the importance of financial institutions\u27 (banks\u27) use of social networking sites to cater to their customers and stakeholders\u27 inquiries to protect their corporate reputation online. Three top U.S. banks\u27 publicly-accessible Twitter feeds were used to analyze how the banks use Twitter to build customer relationships and provide quality service for a more positive outlook of their reputation. A content analysis of the banks\u27 Twitter feeds was conducted to determine the most common usage of Twitter in relation to the quality of service provided online. The findings show that customers use Twitter to find answers to their banking questions and as a source of expressing their thoughts and emotions about a product or service offered by the bank. Overall, Twitter is serving as a hub for real-time communication between banks and their customers, performing similar tasks as traditional communication media. The results suggest that companies should invest the time to reach out via this online stream to their customers in order to preserve their reputations from negative publicity online. A method of accomplishing this is through building and maintaining positive relationships with their customers