With the emergence of the Interactive Web or (Web 2.0), social media applications gained enormous popularity among Internet users forcing businesses to adapt their marketing strategies and engage the social media as part of their marketing toolbox. The social media has empowered the public and weakened the position of businesses by exposing them to negative publicity, customer attacks and reputation damage. This study analyzes the threat of social media to the corporate reputation that can be damaged by three different actors: the customer, the employee and the corporation itself. We review the literature about the impact of each of these actors and assess the findings by means of real-life cases. Based on the findings, social media reputation threats are discussed in light of corporate response strategies. The results indicate that organizations need to develop a portfolio of response strategies with several approaches specifically relating to each of the three actors of reputation damage; the best policy of businesses to successfully manage their reputation is to create an organization capable of managing the risks to corporate reputation arising from employees and the corporation itself. The real-life cases indicate a lack of organizational knowledge on how to effectively manage social media risks, highlighting the need for businesses to update their knowledge on using the social media as part of their marketing toolbox. Finally the various response strategies are classified according to the source of the reputation threat.

IX 2.3.2 Data collection: In-depth interviews, observations, and document review .

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