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

Intensive consumer participation on social media has raised new challenges in terms of reputation management and CRM. This paper tackles the issue of online reputation management in the era of social media (SM). It explores the practices of SM managers using a qualitative research methodology based mainly on online observation and in-depth interviews with practitioners. It is not simply a case of stating what SM and online reputation management could or should be but of identifying what it is from within, from the field analysis of the discourse and practices of professionals. The analysis of the results reveals that online reputation management is organised around five main activities and SM managers have to play five roles relating to various issues and competences. It is also evident that online reputation management is at the interface of Internet monitoring, online communication and social CRM. Finally, companies are not considering social CRM as much as customers would like.