The impact of social media on corporate reputation

The likes of Twitter, the micro-blogging site, Facebook, the social networking tool,and YouTube, the video sharing platform, are a socio-cultural phenomenon. Made possible by the advent of Web 2.0, a suite of technologies that allow web-users to congregate, interact and share information online, and known by the collective noun social media, they have transformed the media landscape for corporate communicators. But in reputational terms, what value does social media offer to organisations? Via interviews with leaders in the fields of social media and corporate communication, this paper seeks to answer that question. It concludes by suggesting that social media has heralded a new dawn for the concept of reputation management, one where organisations can for the first time begin to manage their reputations directly