E-reputation management: The contribution of verification badges on reputation

The public images, identities and reputations of corporations became objects of hot discussions, as an essential outcome of interpretations and implementations of the conception of governance and thought that emerged in late 1980s, placing corporations under treatment as living beings. Ever since this humanly conception has started to penetrate into the world of business, social sciences have become the prime tools that business entities increasingly adopted and used to expand and proceed farther. The business world, having evolved to a state where it can fully exploit social studies as an effective instrument, then started to redirect its main focus of interest on a variety of concepts, in an effort to build further on its financial power. In an attempt to better understand the opinions of its shareholders, the business world noticed what the term "reputation" unanimously reveals in their minds, with unique significance. The term "Reputation", by dictionary definition, refers to the estimation in which a person or thing is held, especially by the community or the public generally, or a favourable or unfavourable name or impression. A short reference to its academic descriptions, on the other hand, yields several dissimilar renditions. What all such renditions conclude in common, yet, appears to be that it is an agglomeration of thoughts generated in minds of shareholders. Reputation is a concept, which affects many thoughts and ideas of shareholders, ranging from purchasing behaviours to personal judgements of financial power. Reputation is an attribute, that can be built and lost rapidly, the rebuilding or regaining of which demands both a long time and immense effort. By this quality of its, it is a property that is advised to be managed pro-actively, before the occurrence of any crisis. Long-term academic research concluded that companies with good reputation were able to sell products at higher prices than competition, had a larger customer base remaining loyal to them in times of crises, which helped them persevere with much less damage and with attraction of relatively broader demand from the public for their issued stocks, while continuing to be the top choice among finest staff in the employment market to join forces with. For corporations, holding a good reputation has become analogous with retaining a position that leads directly to financial gain. Nowadays, both natural persons and legal entities face direct threats to their reputation more frequently than ever, thanks to the thriving web technologies. These ever changing and evolving technologies have transformed billions into active internet users, as of today. With the open and unobstructed communication model offered by the Internet, companies have to communicate as openly as ever before. The concept of reputation found another layer of extension on the line, with the help of Internet technologies. This reputation gained over the net will shortly be referred to as the e-reputation, in the rest of this study. E-reputation should not be conceived as a separate or distant concept from what the term reputation purports. E-reputation is there only to put the stress on reputation across the web and in electronic environment, in the area of informatics. As an outcome of the advancements in web technologies, increasingly more communication channels that widely differ from one another come into play, as the day turns. In discordance with the times before the advent and global deployment of world wide web, managing reputation through these channels is both more possible and more difficult, at the same time. Homing billions of users actively generating content day to day, the world wide web consolidates numerous reputation opportunities and threats for individuals and entities. The users of internet may easily xii access any desired knowledge on any subject, through effective use of search engines. It is in fact these search engines which are used widely as the primary tool for monitoring and assessment of e-reputation. Another valuable tool for use in management and tracking of e-reputation is the social media sites. Especially in countries, like Turkey, where the use of web and social media tends to be much higher, social media sites have gained so much importance to the level of crucial, for pro-active management of e-reputation. Different social media sites may adopt and utilise a wide variety of channels as source of information. However, the Internet is clearly vulnerable against disinformation and info pollution, by its nature. The credibility and authenticity of social media sources have gained high importance on web platforms which are exposed to info pollution. Some of the social media tools include built-in features for sending "verification badges" to self-verified and confirmed accounts, as contribution to the authenticity and trustworthiness of such accounts. By this opportunity, such social media accounts that possess a valid verification mark are distinguished from those which do not, and highlighted as verified accounts by the social media channel. This thesis study lays its primary focus of interest around the influence of the so called "verification marks", which are used to identify accounts which may be copied or otherwise imitated in certain social media tools as real accounts on e-reputation and attempts to determine whether or not such verification marks have any contributions to e-reputation, for social media users with different educational backgrounds. The study has been designed on the basis of the following two presumptive questions: 1) Is there a relationship between the social media verification badges and e-reputation? 2) Does possession of social media verification badges help enterprises / brands / celebrities gain reputation? In this study, the decision for or against rendering work on the concept of e-reputation and social media verification marks was mostly influenced by the currently increasing numbers of internet users and web technologies in constant development. The concept to which the term reputation refers, that has started to gain importance from late 1980s, has found its reflection on the line as e-reputation, owing to the recent advancements in web technologies. On the Internet, a platform that is open to perpetual growth, the factors affecting e-reputation persist in a progressively increasing stance with each day left behind. With the introduction and widened use of search engines, social media has become the container of the world's highest threats to e-reputation. It is considered that verification signs already used by certain social media tools for confirming validity and authenticity of accounts may prove to be an important indicator, with respect to e-reputation. There are only few academic studies directly conducted on verification badges which are thought to have somewhat an influence on reputation in social media. The use of Internet and associated technologies broadens and evolves day by day, across the whole world, and Turkey is not an exception. According to the recent reports, there are more than forty million active internet users, in Turkey. Turkey is also one of the most active countries of the world in terms of use of social media. Public celebrities, corporations, institutions, public agencies and ministerial posts and even politicians use social media intensively, in Turkey. Associations and universities are guided through voluntary instructional classes on "Social media literacy" against information pollution caused by such dense use. In Turkey, where the use of social xiii media retains a level this much high, the opinions of the users on potential effects of social media verification marks on e-reputation reveal to be quite interesting. Throughout this thesis study drawing interest on the importance of management of reputation on the internet based upon all these precursors, primary interest is initially laid upon definition, features, stages and models of "reputation" and "reputation management". Part one lays a hand on the theoretical background of reputation as a concept and investigates its interrelations with associated constructs normally employed in scholarly lexicon. Here, the details of the conception of reputation are elucidated, with subsequent inclusion of examples to frequently used measurement models of reputation, following a short narrative on historical background and overview of various models adopted for the management thereof. Part one also holds a review of the relationship existing between the concept of reputation and such conceptions as "corporate culture", corporate image" and etc. Additionally, the historical development of the concept of ethics and the link between ethical behaviour and reputation for companies and industrialists are the two other subjects dealt under this section. Part two of the study puts the internet environment occurring as a consequence of changes and advancements in technology under review, along with e-reputation, the internet equivalent for the term reputation and the various components of on-line environment. It holds a discussion on the importance as a channel and indispensability as a tool, of the internet for natural persons and legal entities at the present. Paving a path from the historical invocation of the internet which dates back to 1960s, into the present, the impressive story of the internet, or as more widely used, the on-line environment is disclosed. The concepts of social media and web 2.0 are also discussed, as realities brought by the extraordinary transformation that the internet went through over the last two decades. A review of the new opportunities and threats introduced after the launch of web 2.0, which heralded the end of an era where most of the content was provided by media proprietors. An analysis of e-reputation, the term equivalent of reputation on the internet and of its management is also made, outlining the current challenges. Various components which may potentially affect reputation in the on-line environment are addressed. At the final section of part two, the social media verification marks, which constitute the core subject of this thesis study, are discussed. These four separate and distinct channels have been chosen as the first four channels attracting the highest number of visitors and having verification marks. A concurrent discussion is also made on the modus operandi of the verification marks of each of these channels, detailing the terms on which these issue such marks to users and the rights retained exclusively by them. The awesomely vivid use of social media in Turkey brings along numerous disregardful and debatable approaches. While social media and mobile applications offer ease of communication, they are also used as important tools leading the path for disinformation. Nowadays, several odds can be encountered because of the malicious attempts of ill-minded users of the internet and social media. Problems that threaten all, yet can be experienced by any one of us in our daily lives during the hours we spend on the net, include internet frauds, cyber crimes and hacker attacks, among countless others. Accordingly, authenticity and trustworthiness appear to be top two concerns that really matter, when using the internet. The social media verification badges in fact refer to and form part of a system of indication that originates and solidifies the perception of an authentic and trusted account amongst users of social xiv media, helping them distinguish real accounts from the fake ones. In order to stay away from potential incidents of frauds and misuse, it is pretty much essential for anyone to track and become fully aware of such minor indicators as "verification badges" found inside the internet ecosystem. E-reputation appears to be an ideal construct, the measurement and monitoring/tracking of which are relatively more plausible. Reputation has to be measurable, before it can be managed. It is possible to measure any and every parameter that exists on the net and social media sites, with contemporary technologies. As a natural outcome of this ability, management of e-reputation becomes much more attainable and yet, important, for both individuals and entities. E-reputation is an asset that cannot properly be managed by social media experts or digital marketing specialists, alone. There has to be collaborated and coordinated effort spent by corporate communications, marketing and sales departments of corporations, in unison. As for this aspect, the digital communication strategies of companies should not be separate and independent from their corporate communication strategies and corporate culture. A coordinated action should be put in place and exercised with the higher management to successfully manage the process, just like in times of reputation crisis experienced in other realms. A survey held as part of this thesis study, through the use of questionnaires clearly revealed the very existence of a relationship between the social media verification marks and e-reputation. A majority of the respondents stated that they perceived social media accounts to be reputable, if they had verification badges. They also found them more reliable and trustworthy than their rivals. Verification badges used for brands and corporate accounts are perceived to be more reliable than their counterparts used for celebrity accounts. According to the participants, verification badges observed in celebrity accounts indicate that the owner of the account is real and authentic. All respondents pointed that their existing thoughts and behaviours against accounts that possess verification badges may change. With this study, verification marks were demonstrated to be components of e-reputation. Those individuals and entities that intend to manage their e-reputation should always keep in mind the fact that they may make a positive contribution to their e-reputations if they closely track the verification marking systems of different social media networks and conclude the necessary set of arrangements with the same, to obtain marks for themselves. Predictions are towards a progressively increasing public interest in management of e-reputation, as dealt by this study, during the forthcoming years in Turkey, concomitant with increased use of social media and mobile devices by the general public. The daily growing interest in social media and digital media in combination with newly established networks and advertisement platforms premeditate the rise of digital media. Bearing in mind several examples of unmanaged e-reputation recurrently ending up in a turmoil, it is considered both wise and viable to include a separate topic for e-reputation management in social media classes administered by schools of communication. The potential risks of use of internet and web technologies should be told to people and their internet literacy improved at colleges and universities, and if practically possible, in elementary grades.