Investigating social media conversations : towards designing an online reputation management framework for NGO's

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study is to investigate whether a proposed online reputation management framework can be implemented for an NPO to determine whether content and conversations on social media have an influence on stakeholder engagement and whether such reputation can be managed. The study also assesses whether an NPO can afford greater control of the social web by tracking critical comments and negative publicity and by using it to manage the reputation of the organisation. The latter was achieved by exploring the Facebook page of a well-known South African trade union, Solidarity, to determine what the impact of online conversations on the reputation of the trade union is, regardless of the content. A case study was used in this research. This study departs from the phenomenology/interpretivist tradition and is aimed to study the interactions or behaviour of human beings and organisations in the social media world and what impact these have on the reputation of the organisation. During this case study, content analysis of texts and interviewing were used as methods for collecting data during the testing of the social media reputation framework. This research might assist NPOs in reputation management by implementing the online reputation management framework as a tool to manage and control their online content and conversations for the sake of reputation.