Reputation management

A good reputation is the basis of corporate success: When an organization has a good reputation, economic goals are easier to achieve. What sounds simple, however, is only feasible if companies keep a constant eye on all relevant stakeholder interests and know the issues that move them. Reputation management is about exploring both positive and negative issues. Which topics can be used to differentiate and position oneself as an opinion leader? In contrast, which topics have a negative impact or even crisis potential? The earlier a company becomes aware of its issues, the better it can engage communicatively with these and avoid reducing its own room for maneuver.

We proceed systematically: Topics from the corporate environment are identified, analyzed and prioritized. Megatrends are broken down to the individual corporate context. Individual action strategies are then derived and concrete issue management with proactive agenda setting is established:

Topic analysis

Media, whether traditional or social web, have the power to set themes and form opinions. Media monitoring serves as an early warning system for emerging topic trends and crises, but also to control the success of self-initiated themes. Furthermore, blogs and social networks play an increasingly important role in the opinion-forming process of users. Therefore, social media audits provide an overview of which blogs, social media channels and opinion leaders are relevant for a company.

Stakeholder management

Who do companies need to enter into dialogue with to draw attention to important issues or to convey their own messages? Today, countless people are engaging in discussion across a variety of channels. So it’s good to know who is important and who has influence. Stakeholder mapping that visualizes important players and their respective topics provides a clear overview. A profile is developed for key stakeholders that provides starting points for further discussion in everyday communications. In stakeholder management, we focus on capturing all these points of view and communicating or building relationships with these people.

Agenda setting

Based on media monitoring and social media audits, topics can be weighted using visual topic mapping. After selection and detailed analysis, concrete communication strategies are derived. The agenda setting occupies, controls and scatters topics in such a way that media pick them up and relevant stakeholders become aware of them – ideally leading to discussion. This requires the development of concise messages and a meaningful storyline. One variant of agenda setting is CEO positioning: Because corporate leaders are responsible for their company’s good reputation. For them, it is important to avoid the defensive, and to actively leverage topics for their own benefit. To enable this, the right “stages” must be found and the right script written.