This report, written by Dr. Andrew Currah, examines the impact of digital media on corporate reputation and outlines a satellite model for how to organise a digital era corporate media team.

1. ItsOpen REPORT
DIGITAL MEDIA
AND THE FUTURE
OF CORPORATE
REPUTATION

2. aim of the report
based on extensive market
research and over 30 interviews
explores the current digital
media landscape and traces the
implications for communications
and corporate reputation
recommends a ‘satellite’ model
of digital communications

3. the digital media landscape
sharing of content is now integral to
the web and the latest devices
‘social’ appears to be going the way
of ‘web 2.0’ as a distinct term
advances in connectivity and user
interface = sharing more content
digital sharing is akin to a
‘gift economy’

4. impacts on news publishing
social technologies are now vital to
the gathering and distribution of news
publishers are beginning to
remove social media editors
experimenting with new
forms of visual storytelling
the commercial outlook is brightest
for publishers of specialist news

5. a renaissance in communications
speed of digital sharing poses
a threat to reputation
but crucially also presents an
opportunity to deepen and
extend the core capabilities of
communications teams
requires that communicators
engage with new audiences,
via new channels

6. a cultural shift
the overall trend points
towards greater openness
the key to successful digital
communications is argued
to be an executive culture
that is more curious, open,
humble and participatory

7. recasting communications
the digital media landscape
enablers rather than
controllers of information flows
participate in the
web’s gift economies
giving access to data, being
proactive, changes perceptions
‘Absolute transparency is the
best antidote to a digital crisis’

8. managing digital communications
two critical elements of a successful
digital communications structure:
1. mechanisms to collect
and organise information
from the frontline
2. mechanisms to
monitor and engage
with news and comment

9. building a satellite model

10. communications as a digital hub
we argue that it is more scalable and
cost-efficient for communications to
adopt the function of an ‘enabling hub’

11. realtime media monitoring
digital media enables a realtime
view of corporate reputation

12. conclusions
opening to the potential of digital
media means taking a leap of faith
in many cases, companies already have
the skills and experience to digitally
enrich their reputations; it is simply a
case of re-organising and re-tooling