In this course, you’ll take on the role of a communications manager for a fictional organisation, making key decisions that will affect its online reputation. You will experience:

• how to build a robust and sustainable online reputation.
• the positives of building a strong participatory culture.
• how to manage social media issues based on a real-life examples.
• how to manage a crisis and respond appropriately across multiple platforms.

Throughout the course, you’ll learn from real life case studies and gain an understanding of the important role that blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and other social platforms play in today’s business world.

The digital landscape is fast-paced and continually changing, yet is an equally challenging and exciting environment in which to work. This course is relevant to anyone working in marketing, communications, public relations, social media and advertising.

The Program

• Week 1: Corporate reputation in the digital age In this module you will: identify what a corporate reputation is and why it is important examine how the digital age has affected reputation management identify the types of reputational risk that exist online and the difference between an issue and a crisis.
• Week 2: Reputation and participatory culture In this module you will: explain what participatory culture is and why it is important utilise the audience as co-creator of the story and brand recommend ways in which to build a strong participatory culture.
• Week 3: How online has changed the media cycle In this module you will: examine how the traditional media cycle has changed and the broader definition of who ‘the media’ is now explain how online reputation affects offline reputation and whether an organisation can separate the two.
• Week 4: Managing reputation online In this module you will: examine how to build a reputation — conversation and coverage demonstrate how to protect a reputation in times of adversity monitor your reputation and act on issues.
• Week 5: Protecting a Reputation: when it goes wrong, crisis response In this module you will: identify ways to embrace online negativity/criticism explain how to respond to a crisis online debrief after a crisis and evaluate your response.
• Week 6: Towards best practice reputation management In this module you will: examine how ethics relates to corporate reputation articulate how to be authentic and speak ‘beyond the corporate voice’ compare best practice in building a sustainable corporate brand online.

What you’ll learn

• How manage an organisation’s online reputation;
• How apply reputational management principles to manage online issues and crises;
• How build a strong participatory culture to engage your audience.