An Assessment of The Use of Social Media in Corporate Reputation Management in Private Universities in Nairobi-Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the use of social media platforms by different internal and external stakeholders of Kenyan private universities and the extent to which the universities managed corporate reputation on the social media platforms. The objectives were, to examine the effectiveness of the mechanisms used in Social Media monitoring and their influence on corporate reputation in Kenyan universities, to establish the effect of the social media content placed in the social media platforms on the corporate reputation in Kenyan Universities, and to examine the policies in place for social media usage in the Kenyan universities that are meant to ensure that positive impression of the universities are received by the publics. The target population for this study was 77 respondents from 22 private Universities in Nairobi. This study was anchored on the framing theory and the impression management theory. Both theories addressed the study adequately as the framing theory informed how the information conveyed through social media was utilised by different personnel thus creating corporate reputation, whereas the impression management theory informed how such information conveyed was managed to portray a good impression to the public. The study concludes that the use of social media by universities in Kenya does not seem to enhance their management of corporate reputation and corporate image due to lack of policy to guide social media use. The study recommends a more strategic approach focusing on using social media as a platform to disseminate information to the different stakeholders, but also incorporate a social media monitoring mechanism and a social media corporate reputation management that would see the universities use social media as a tool to manage their corporate reputation.