A research on the social responsibiliy studies of brands via Twitter during Covid-19 pandemic

The Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) has deeply affected economic, social and cultural life throughout the world, causing the deaths of millions of people and ruining the physical and mental health of billions of them. Within this context, it is seen that the coronavirus leads to the change of situations and behaviors regarded as normal and forms new normals. In this direction, there have been changes in purchasing behaviors and expectations of consumers towards brands. Accordingly, with the transition from "need-based" consumption to "meaning-based" consumption, consumers expect brands to be more sensitive to social issues and take responsibility, as corporations create corporate social responsibility strategies to build brand awareness. In addition to all these, social media has created an environment in which every user can be a content creator and there is no control mechanism with its changing communication methods, which has exposed them to false information at some point. Spreading the disinformation, the post-truth era that we live in and the social media dynamics that reinforce it can detract the society from rationality regarding the events that occur, which has been experienced throughout the Covid-19 process. Especially in times of crisis, the approach of brands to social issues becomes even more critical. Attitudes of brands towards the epidemic as well as communication strategies that they have followed during the coronavirus epidemic have become remarkably important for the future of the brand. In the study, the areas in which the practices of corporate social responsibility intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic and corporate social responsibility activities brands concentrated on have been examined. For this purpose, in this study, "891" tweets were analyzed within the scope of social responsibility practices, determined between "March 11th 2020 - June 11th 2020" by various field researches which were conducted by "Capital Magazine" and shared by Turkey's most successful "20" brands in the field of CSR as of 2020. Content analyses of "Twitter" posts of these organizations were carried out and subcodes of "brand-advertisement", "health-pandemic" and "special days and weeks" were created by paying regard to the areas which they emphasized most frequently. In the headings created with subcodes, on the other hand, according to the scanned results; themes of these subcodes are formed.