Exploring Social Media as a Tool for Corporate Reputation Management using Newmont Ghana as a Case Study

Abstract

Communication is an essential component to every organization. However, in recent times, communication within organizations have moved from hard interfaces to soft ones. Therefore, this study was primarily focused on exploring the role of social media in corporate reputation management at Newmont Ghana. A cross-sectional study using a descriptive approach is used where a sample size of one hundred and thirty-eight (138) employees of the firm was used for the entire study. With the aim of choosing respondents for the study, a simple random sampling technique was used. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire and quantitatively analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 software. It was then identified that the possession of a social media account by the company do not guarantee the frequent use of the account by employees and this trend is likely to be repeated among the public as well. However, the minimal patronage of the social media account have the tendencies of having positive influence on the management of corporate reputation within the company. For instance, the interest of the public in doing business is being heightened, interaction with the public is also enhanced and effective management is possible via the feedbacks obtained from the public on social media handles. Interestingly, these positive roles of social media on the management of the corporate reputation of the firm are likely to be jeopardized due to challenges such as distribution of fake news, possible hacking of the handle and non-interactive nature of the social media handles. Therefore, management of the firm is supposed to put in the necessary measures so as to instill some level of affective commitment among the employees toward the patronage of the social media handles of the company.