August 13th, 2008 by Fiana de Guzman
| In June, Manager Magazin presented ethority’s reputation index. Next to “image” data, it also displays the overall buzz the CEOs’ names generated. The analysis of over 60,000 contributions in forums and blogs yielded the following ranking: |
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| Furthermore, we conducted a topic oriented analysis of those blog postings. The following graph shows what topics bloggers addressed in combination with the different CEOs: |
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| The findings of this study clearly show that the “commanders” of German corporations are discussed intensely in consumer generated media. Therefore, the question for corporate communication should no longer be if those channels should be integrated but rather how soon the monitoring of social media can be started. Whether you choose to listen to it or not – the buzz concerning companies and their leaders will not stop. And to bury your head in the sand is certainly not the right strategy to achieve new goals. Weblogs, forums, twitter and social networks with their online conversations have long surpassed the state of being marginal phenomena. Today and in the future, public is created and happening online. Therefore, being aware of such channels and monitoring them can only be the first step in this context. Corporate communication departments and PR agencies have to go even further: only the ones that “listen” to discussions in social media and actively communicate online will be able to participate in building the image of their company in this rapidly growing part of society. |
