Rethinking the use of social blogs for corporate reputation management in emerging markets post COVID-19

Abstract

The study aimed to ascertain how social blogging usage shaped social capital in the new strategy for corporate reputation management, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe’s telecoms sector. This was dictated by the more general goal of learning how the telecoms sector reacted to the transition from conventional to modern corporate reputation strategies driven by social capital in the era of social blogs. The study positions Twitter between the traditional corporate reputation guides (top-level managers, operation managers, general employees, and customers) and the contemporary methods (boundary theory, social cognitive, social blogs, and social exchange) (Yang, 2020; Mhlophe & Chinjova, 2022; Moyo et al., 2022). A mixed-method approach was employed in the study. The results show that social blogs, specifically Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, have a direct impact on the management of positive corporate reputation in the telecommunications industry as they contribute to the social capital of the organisation leading to the contemporary management of reputation, which is critical in building organisational resilience post-pandemic. This led to the development of an adapted framework that the industry and practitioners can adopt post the COVID-19 pandemic in emerging markets like Zimbabwe.