Social Listening als Werkzeug für das Reputationsmanagement

Abstract

The steadily growing amount of internet and social media data offers valuable information about a company's reputation, provided that this data is also analyzed by companies. Users make statements about companies, praise or criticize them, and sometimes attack a company's reputation. Considering online discussions about companies and using the obtained insights offers an innovative approach to reputation management known as social listening. However, the problem arises that a measurement model for social listening as well as a semi-automatic measurement is lacking, which would increase the use of social listening for reputation management in companies. Since a good reputation is one of the central success factors for the economic success of companies, monitoring and measuring it on online channels is highly relevant. At the beginning of this work, the term social listening is defined and distinguished from related concepts and an ideal social listening process is established. Next, the formation and measurement of a company's reputation is examined. A reputation model for social listening and helpful collection and analysis methods that social listening tools can cover are also explained. To determine the contribution of social listening to corporate reputation management, a comprehensive literature review and analysis will first be conducted. Subsequently, the applicability of social listening for reputation management in practice is examined. For this purpose, a reputation measurement and analysis were carried out using a selected social listening tool for a specific company and its competitors. The central result of the work is the determination of the contribution social listening can make to reputation management. It was found that social listening can identify problems in the areas used to assess reputation. This allows companies to stay informed about current developments and respond appropriately. Moreover, strengths and weaknesses compared to competitors can be uncovered when they are subjected to a reputation comparison. Here, the calculation of reputation-related key indicators has proven helpful. For example, the reputation score can be used for a ranking among the analyzed companies. In addition to the calculation of quantitative key indicators, the qualitative evaluation of the data is essential to better understand the reasons that led to the results. Furthermore, an ideal social listening process was defined, which also proved helpful in testing the applicability of social listening in practice for reputation management. As an optimal period for reputation measurement, a timeframe of 90 to a maximum of 120 days can be recommended if the data collection is based on the Boolean Search method. During this period, a sufficiently large data base is available to calculate meaningful key indicators, without the manual work in the social listening process becoming excessively time-consuming.

Date of Award	2024
Original language	German (Austria)
Supervisor	Dietmar Nedbal (Supervisor)