Social Media and Online Reputation Management as Practice: First Steps Towards Social CRM?

Introduction

We will help your brands to belong to the daily conversations which occur every day between members, promised Mark Zuckerberg¹. With such a promising announcement, the eagerness to be aware of (if not to manage) online conversations has been increasing for those brands and companies who historically have always been concerned by their visibility and reputation. Since the advent of Facebook, Twitter and numerous platforms, both practitioners and academics have been aware of the tremendous potential of an online presence on social media (e.g. Bernoff & Li, 2008; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010; Andzulis et al., 2012). However, it should also be acknowledged that social media conversations can lead to new risks and challenges in terms of brand and corporate reputation (Bernoff & Li, 2008; Jones, Temperley & Lima, 2009; Manara & Roquilly, 2011; Laroche et al., 2013).

The issue of ‘reputation’ in management literature (Fombrun, 1996) and its current variations (online or e-reputation) has attracted an increasing interest amongst scholars (Jones, Temperley & Lima, 2009; Alloing, 2013; Castellano & Dutot, 2013). Since the advent of social media, academic literature has focused on the concept itself (relations between reputation and e-reputation in particular), the potential interests and risks with regard to social media. However, online reputation management as practice remains comparatively disregarded; a better understanding therefore is required.

This research article intends to examine online reputation management in practice, from the practitioners’ point of view, especially when facing the challenges posed by intensive customer participation on social media. It is not simply a case of stating what online reputation management could be, as is often the case in managerial literature, but of identifying what it actually is from within, from the field analysis of the discourse and practices of professionals (i.e. social media and/or community managers).

This research work is part of a broader research project dedicated to social media management and customer participation. The results presented and discussed in this article are focused on the specific concept of ‘online reputation’, which emerged as a core issue.

Commencing with the first indications of the issue of online reputation and social media found in academic literature (mainly in marketing), in the second section this article presents the two phases of a qualitative research methodology based largely on online observation and in-depth interviews with social media (SM) managers. In the third section, the main results provide a better understanding of online reputation management in practice, and the five main activities, from monitoring to crisis communication management, which are all involved in the core mission of brand visibility and reputation management. In the final section, the research findings encourage us to examine the modalities of online reputation management in the specific context of the merging of social media and customer relationship management (i.e. social CRM).