The paper clarifies the theoretical aspects of enterprise business reputation formation in social networks. Substantiated the relevance of modern information and communication technology's introduction in business practice. The goal is to research opportunities and develop recommendations for building the business reputation of enterprises in social networks. The following general scientific and special research methods were used in the work: analysis, synthesis, systematic approach, generalization, grouping and classification, expert evaluations, analysis of hierarchies, typology, comparative analysis, content analysis. Analyzed the expediency of using social networks to form the business reputation of TM “Molokiya”. Outlined approaches to effective strategies formation for creating business reputation and proposals for improving the forms of doing business TM “Molokiya” in social networks.
The relevance of the topic of building a business reputation in social networks is related to the fact that the latter are developing quite actively, radically changing the behavior of economic entities in the aspect of building effective communications with consumers of goods and services, suppliers of resources, forming new approaches to marketing policy and increasing the profits of enterprises. The social network has become not only a medium through which people can communicate with each other, but also an integral part of a person’s professional activity. In addition, today business reputation is a rather important element for business entities. This is important mainly for society, because it is the main and unbiased subject of its assessment. Reputation is a full-fledged intangible asset, and therefore its formation, management and use as a tool for ensuring competitive advantages in the market under conditions of fierce competition is becoming more and more relevant. The Internet is rapidly socializing, and this is the main trend of today's online environment. Today, there are tens of thousands of the most diverse social networks and services: communication, news, professional, graphic, blog and many others. However, despite this, new projects appear in this niche every day. The task of every enterprise that wants to form a certain business reputation is to be where its target audience is.
The functioning of any enterprise, from the moment of its foundation, forms its reputation on the
market among buyers, suppliers, investors, and other counterparties. A positive business reputation
contributes to the rapid development of the enterprise, by increasing the number of potential
consumers, increasing the sales volume, and therefore the share of the enterprise in the total market
(A.3);
capacity. Thus, the concept of “business reputation of an enterprise” is not abstract, since first, it is
affected by positive effects in the process of its activity and is accompanied by corresponding costs
for its formation and maintenance at a certain level. From a legal point of view, the term “business
reputation” means a set of information (documental confirmed) about a person, which makes it
possible to draw a conclusion about the compliance of his business and/or professional activities with
the requirements of the law [1]. According to scientific sources, the “business reputation of an
enterprise” is understood as a scientifically based assessment of professionally important qualities of a
firm, which are reflected in the public consciousness, the perception of employees and buyers of
goods of a certain enterprise [
Business reputation is a unique characteristic of a firm, a rare and unique asset that cannot be
bought or acquired without some effort. It is acquired in the process of development and is an integral
characteristic of the firm [
The existing definitions of the business reputation of an enterprise are reduced to three groups [
• an assessment formed on the basis of one's own experience or the opinions of third-party experts, which is obtained by directly involving target groups in the assessment of the company’s condition; • an intangible object that has a value expression, that is, in its essence, it is a financial or economic asset.
Image is the emotional perception of the firm by its customers, counterparties or other market participants, a unique characteristic of the firm that is specific to each individual organization and is difficult to formalize. At the same time, reputation is in a certain way a generalized perception of the characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages of a specific company in the business environment, which, by stimulating customers (in a certain way) to prefer its products, in the end, provides an opportunity to increase the company’s profitability. This feature of business reputation, which manifests itself in its ability to influence the company’s financial indicators, is embodied in the concept of “goodwill” – the monetary value of reputation as an intangible asset of the organization.
Reputation is determined based on a set of indicators that allow it to be evaluated by various target
groups. These include: the absence of fines for the company’s activities, ownership of new
technologies, participation in associations, unions, the availability of state awards and various
incentives, the experience of the team, its professionalism, etc. [
The formation of the business reputation of enterprises through social networks is especially
interesting nowadays. A social network is an Internet service, the main purpose of which is to enable
users to communicate with each other and to post and distribute information [
A new direction in the field of social networks began to take shape at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries, receiving the name – virtual social formations. Social communication is becoming more global, operative, systemic. However, only the form of communication underwent changes, while the content and basic communication laws remained unchanged. In 1995, R. Konrads created Classmates.com – the first virtual social network (the most common in the USA and Canada) [9; 10], the main purpose of which is to help registered users establish and maintain contact with friends and acquaintances with whom they communicated throughout their lives. Friendster (2002), MySpace (2003), Hi5 (2003), Tribe (2003), Orkut, Yahoo, Bebo (2004) were born much later. Also in 2004, M. Zuckerberg created Facebook, which is still one of the leaders in the world of social networks (about 2 billion active users). In Ukraine, one of the first was the social network 1ua.com.ua (2005), which, despite the low level of popularity, continues to function.
Any social network is based on a number of basic typical principles, the main ones of which are: • authorization of the user by creating his virtual “I” (page in the social network); • communication tools; • certain mechanisms for searching and distributing content.
The difference is only in the intended purpose and quality of the software.
In 2007, American scientists identified the main features of a real social network, which boils down to the fact that users can create a public or semi-public profile, specifying a list of users with whom they want to connect and view their data, as well as transfer information about themselves [10; 11]. The pragmatic American approach to the development of social networks was based solely on meeting current social needs. These needs included managing multiple contacts, which grew as the number of Internet users expanded.
Implementation of another important public demand in the USA was related to the business
sphere. In 2003, the Linkedin network was founded – the first social network designed to help the
professional development of the company. The development of contact management technologies led
to the development of technology that allowed users to form groups around a common interest.
Relatively new to this list is the Ukrainian social network PROFEO, professionally oriented, which
was launched in April 2008. The main goal of PROFEO is the professional development of a person
in Ukraine, it is also important that it is endowed with a Ukrainian-language interface. The peculiarity
of this network lies in the unique for Ukraine combination of various services and services, which are
accessed from one platform: instant messages, online address book, forums, blogs, gallery, and groups
based on professional interests [
Recently, the promotion of goods and services using social networks is becoming more and more effective. We can distinguish two main directions of marketing in social networks: • online communities as an effective sales channel for online stores; • increasing the company’s reputation and the loyalty of the target audience.
Promotion of the enterprise in social networks is usually carried out using the so-called SMM
(Social Media Marketing) – this is the promotion of the site or goods or services of the enterprise, by
communicating with the target audience using social resources, not only social networks, but also
blogs, forums, various online communities, and media resources. With the help of a social network,
five types of promotion can be carried out [
1. Standard advertising, which includes specific information from the advertiser and does not involve any social interaction. The essence of this type of advertising is that the user is redirected to a page in the social network itself or to an external resource. This type of promotion is the simplest. 2. Advertising news. This type of publication is content (articles, news, reviews) that is promoted using the news feed on a paid basis. This method is different in that it makes it possible to increase the company's visibility among those users who did not know it before.
3. Advertising publications. Advertising on the social network allows not only to inform users about this brand, but also to form a positive attitude towards it. Posting data is useful for promoting promotional offers, events, activities, and announcements.
4. Advertising applications. For example, on Facebook, each user can create his own application and conduct an advertising campaign with its help.
5. Event advertising. The enterprise, advertising itself in groups on social networks, has a certain goal – to widely reach the target audience and involve them in one or another event organized by the enterprise.
Building a reputation in social networks involves certain tools. The most popular of them are shown in Figure 1.
Let’s consider in more detail each of the methods of forming the business reputation of an enterprise:
1. Building brand communities. Quite often, consumers have a desire to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a certain product or service, express their wishes, post photos/videos, etc., and therefore virtual groups are created. The lack of feedback from the enterprise, that is, the ability to communicate with representatives of the manufacturing company, is a significant drawback of these communities, because several consumer requests remain unanswered, and proposals are never heard.
2. Work with the blogosphere. With the development of the Internet, and in particular social networks and their communication capabilities, the blogosphere underwent significant changes, which gave it the opportunity to become a channel for the implementation of activities for the promotion of the enterprise. In current conditions, it is safe to say that the blogosphere is almost completely replacing the mass media. Most companies already use this opportunity to generate and maintain interest in the company, manage consumer preferences, inform a wide audience, etc.
3. Personal branding is a necessity for independent specialists and professionals who want to stand out in their field. This task is most effectively solved with the help of social networks.
4. Reputation management. Customer reviews influence the formation of a company’s reputation. And consumers often choose a company based on the experience of people who have already dealt with its products or services, and subsequently evaluate the product’s cost and other factors.
5. Non-standard SMM promotions include the development of interactive and media elements of social networks. The purpose of such non-standard projects is to draw attention to the enterprise or a specific product/service. 6. Hidden marketing is advertising that aims to draw attention to a certain product, service or company in general and basically, such marketing uses veiled, implicit methods of information dissemination. Such promotion is carried out not at the expense of direct sales, but as the spread of rumors around a certain subject artificially creating increased interest on the part of consumers. Since over time, direct advertising no longer has such an impact on the consumer's mind as before, buyers are inclined to trust more the rumors and opinions of, in their opinion, authoritative people. The influence of such advertising is manifested in the fact that the buyer is completely confident in the independence of his own choice. In general, any management of the company’s business reputation in the network is a certain set of actions that involve the manipulation of the opinion of the company among its consumers [15; 16; 17]. Such a set includes: 1) development, placement, and promotion of positive (or negative) content with the aim of displacing negative (positive) information; 2) writing reviews; 3) deletion of reviews; 4) monitoring of the information field.
Social media reputation management requires continuous monitoring of company mentions and managing discussions with users in their territory. Fulfilling this condition involves collecting feedback from consumers and responding to comments, as well as mildly influencing public opinion. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to coordinate all elements of marketing, for example, to correct the company’s reputation, it is necessary to analyze which part of the product needs improvement, if, for example, the quality of the product is low, then advertising can radically change the opinion of the audience and not for the better. But if the quality of the product is improved, and the opinion of users about it remains negative, then it is with the help of reputation management that you can win the trust of dissatisfied customers. To timely monitor and respond to negative feedback about the product/service or the company in general, it is necessary to conduct a constant collection and analysis of information, and this is a huge number of platforms in various social networks. It is highly advisable to automate work using special services. Such monitoring must be carried out before the start of a communication campaign in social networks, to identify the attitude of the audience towards the enterprise. To track the dynamics of the indicators and the nature of the studied trends, such actions should take place on a regular basis.
When conducting the research, social network analytics was used, which allows you to obtain information about: 1) the state of the current perception of the enterprise by users; 2) the best topics for discussion with the audience; 3) the work of competitors in social networks and their results; 4) platforms on which the target audience is most active and which of them have the greatest impact on the company’s reputation.
The official website of TM “Molokiya” and its social networks were used as information sources for the research, which allowed analyzing the analytics and building the appropriate graphs. Also, monitoring of social networks allows not only to receive relevant information about the enterprise, but also to quickly respond to the needs of the audience, to make managerial decisions about a certain marketing strategy in social networks to promote a certain product or business in general.
Since their inception and popularity, social networks have taken an important place in a person’s daily life. Almost everyone spends time online at home, while working or studying, while traveling. Also, with the introduction of new functions such as the sharing of music, videos, photos and documents, social networks have become a way of life. Accordingly, the positioning of the enterprise through social networks is very popular.
The development of social networks makes it possible not only to unilaterally provide information about the company, but also to communicate with the audience, receive their feedback and suggestions. The ability to respond directly to consumer questions and comments creates conditions for avoiding misunderstandings and prevents the spread of inaccurate information. Therefore, the better the company’s presence in social networks is organized, the better and more reliable the contact with the consumer will be. Today, there is certainly no more effective channel for implementing a communication strategy than social networks.
In modern conditions, traditional channels of communication, such as print media, television,
radio, personal meetings are losing their positions, giving way to Internet communications, one of
which is social networks. This is natural, because statistics show that the number of Internet users in
the world is growing every day and every hour: at the beginning of 2021, out of 7.8 billion people on
Earth, their number was 4.6 billion, i.e., 53%. Such data are given in the Global Digital report, which
is based on research data from the companies “We Are Social” and “Hootsuite” [
2 1.5 0.5 1 0 0.97 1.91
2.62 2010 2014 2018 2019 2020 2021
Social networks are so firmly rooted in the everyday life of many people that the composition of the top five most popular social networks almost does not change from year to year. However, the use of these social networks and the scale of their penetration may differ depending on the geographical component and demographic factors. Understanding these nuances plays an extremely important role in the formation of the business reputation strategy of the enterprise. When comparing the most popular social networks, it is important to pay attention not to the number of registered accounts, but to the number of active users.
Figure 3 demonstrates the number of active users in the world’s most popular social networks. And this list is headed by Facebook, which can hardly surprise anyone, since more than 2 billion users actively use it. In January 2019, WhatsApp, which is also owned by Facebook, was in second place. Today, however, YouTube is in second place with 2 billion users, and WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are in third and fourth place, respectively. This is followed by platforms with a large part of the audience located in the Asia-Pacific region. These are WeChat, Qzone and Sina Weibo (with over 600 million active users). This proves that there are several popular social media in the AsiaPacific region countries. Among them, we see a cluster of platforms popular mainly in the West – Instagram, Tik Tok, Snapchat, Twitter, and Pinterest. TikTok network has rapidly gained popularity over the past few years. It’s not just the fastest growing social media network of 2020, but it’s one of the fastest growing social networks of all time. TikTok allows users to shoot and share short-form video content using a huge range of features.
As for the age distribution, the largest number of users of social networks are people aged 18-34
(95%). Table 2 shows that users aged 18 to 24 use various platforms more often than other age
groups. Twitter is the least popular. Users aged 25 to 49 use YouTube and Facebook the most. Only
half of users over the age of 50 are on the most popular platforms Facebook and YouTube [
Tik Tok
Pinterest 517 516 430 400 398 386 366
1300 1165 1000 800 2000 2000 2498
As of January 2020, 27.46 million Internet users were registered in Ukraine. Therefore, their number increased by 1.5 million people (5.7%) during 2019-2020. At the same time, 19 million people were users of social networks in January 2020. Their number increased by 1.5 million (8.3%) between April 2019 and January 2020. The penetration of social networks in January 2020 in Ukraine was 43% [15; 19]. The use of social networks in Ukraine can be estimated by Figure 4. As of September 2020, the two most popular social networks in Ukraine were Facebook – 53.11% and Instagram – 16.79%. The third place is YouTube – 9.1%, which keeps the positions unchanged both in time and by territorial feature. In fourth place is such a social network as Pinterest – 8.88%. Twitter also maintains a stable position (5.80%). Starting from 2017, many new Ukrainian social networks began to appear. An insignificant part of the market is occupied by Tumblr – 1.43% and other social networks – 1.95%.
The use of social networks to build a company’s reputation is relevant given the fact that 90% of
users are interested in online reviews before making a purchase or ordering a service, 63% of
potential consumers use search engines to find reviews, and only 37% directly contact specialized
sites with reviews [
Vkontakte
1% Twitter 4% Pinterest
6% YouTube 27%
Tumblr 1%
Linkdn 1%
Others 1%
40% Instagram
19%
According to the results of the analysis of monthly sales volumes in 2018 and, based on our own
estimates, the products of TM “Molokiya” take the 1st place in Ternopil, Rivne, Lutsk and Lviv – 1st
and 2nd place, in Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk – 2nd place. The company has a fairly positive reputation
in its regional center and successfully spreads it to neighboring regions due to its own established
brand and the successful practical implementation of its strategy: “production and sale of fresh natural
dairy products of consistently high quality with maximum preservation of the natural properties of
milk” [
1. Availability of the company’s official website, which is frequently updated. The site contains all information about the company, the history of its creation, contacts, product portfolio and even recipes using its own products.
2. The presence of a Facebook page, which has almost 14,000 followers, where information about exhibitions, fairs and other events held by the company is actively updated.
3. The presence of the company’s YouTube channel, which has 1,300 subscribers. However, uploading videos to the YouTube platform is quite rare.
4. The presence of a page on the Instagram network, where there are 14 thousand readers. TM “Molokiya” is quite active on this platform. Posts on Instagram contain messages about promotions, product assortment and presentation photos, which are widely popular.
Let’s consider in more detail the effectiveness of using some platforms to build the business
reputation of the enterprise under study. In our opinion, the analysis should start with the most
popular and most active network – Instagram. Engagement on Instagram affects the ranking of posts
in the feed. The higher the level, the higher the posts are displayed. The higher they are, the more
users will see them. The abbreviation ER is translated from English as the engagement rate. The
indicator is calculated as a percentage and serves as an indicator of the activity of the audience on the
page in the social network. More simply, it represents how actively subscribers respond to posts and
the reach of the audience. An active reaction is a like, comment, repost, bookmarking a post. At the
same time, there is no exact value, which ER indicator should be considered good. It all depends on
the size of the audience. For a post with up to 10,000 readers, an ER of 10% can be considered good,
for a page with an audience of more than 100,000, 1% will be normal. It is also worth considering
whether it is a commercial or personal account. Commercial pages, accordingly, have lower
engagement. ER is calculated as the ratio of the average number of all interactions on posts to the
number of readers for a certain period. This indicator is very important to calculate to understand the
loyalty of your readers. The disadvantage is that it is not possible to consider the reaction of other
users who simply saw the publication [
The calculation for June 2021 showed: for the month, 9 posts were published on the account with 14,000 followers, which received a total of 3,956 likes and 69 comments. By simple calculations, it turns out: (3956+69) / 9 = 447 reactions to the post. Accordingly, ER: 447/14000*100% = 3.19%.
For a commercial page, this value is considered a pretty good indicator, but it is also important to consider the fact that TM “Molokiya” held the “Lviv Molokiya Marathon 2021” during the same month, that is, most subscribers liked and commented on the post for the corresponding prize. Figure 5 demonstrates that on June 15, 2021, the promotion took place, as a result of which the ER indicator reached its maximum.
23.3476 25 20 15 % 10 5
We can also estimate the ER indicator for the year. To carry out the relevant calculations, we took the period from 01.06.2020 to 01.06.2021: (42324+728) / 118 = 365 reactions to the post. Accordingly, ER: 364/14000*100% = 2.60%. Overall, it can be argued that the engagement of the audience on Instagram is very good and the company should not stop and continue to actively promote itself on this platform. Let’s consider another no less popular Facebook network. In it you can find all the necessary information about TM “Molokiya”, in particular: working hours, company location, official website, contact information, etc. In this network, the presence of “Molokiya” is even greater. That is, if there were 9 posts on Instagram in June 2021, then on Facebook there were almost twice – 17. However, with the same number of readers as on Instagram, the activity here is much lower. This can be explained, probably, by the fact that the Facebook audience is older in terms of age, and is not willing to like published posts. Figure 6 displayed ER value for June 2021. Based on the data shown in Figure 6, it can be argued that the Facebook network, even during the promotion period and with a larger number of posts, does not bring sufficient activity to the “Molokiya” enterprise and even with the same number of followers as on Instagram. This may be since the age group of Facebook users is older than that of Instagram users. Therefore, the company is recommended to pay more attention to the creation and use of tools for building a business reputation on Facebook.
1.2
1 0.8 %0.6 0.4 0.2
As in the previous case, when calculating ER for the year, the period from 01.06.2020 to 01.06.2021 was taken: (7647+529+2031)/101 = 101 reactions to the post. Accordingly, ER: 101/13324*100% = 0.76%. So, summing up the above, we can say that TM “Molokiya” is engaged in promotion in social networks, the main ones being Instagram and Facebook. The level of promotion on the Instagram network is quite high, although it requires a greater presence of the company (publishing posts and Instagram stories), but Facebook, to build a business reputation, needs more user activity, because the lower the activity of followers, the fewer new users will be able to see the page on social networks.
In order to improve the level of business reputation, TM “Molokiya” needs to use various brand
monitoring tools and monitor trends in the industry, because, for example, changes in legislation or
the emergence of new advanced technologies can negatively affect the company’s activities. TM
“Molokiya” is quite aware and understands which social media platforms its target audience is on and
how to communicate with them most effectively. The company almost completely covers its target
audience through positioning on Facebook and Instagram. No successful online reputation
management strategy is complete without SEO (search engine optimization) – the process of adjusting
the HTML code, text content (content), site structure, control of external factors to meet the
requirements of the search engine algorithm. The goal of SEO is to increase the site’s position in
search results based on predefined user requests. Since people usually go to the first links in the
search, the higher the position of the company’s site, the more likely that the user will go to it from
the search engine [
Encouraging consumers to leave positive reviews online will help improve reputation. Today’s consumers are highly dependent on online reviews when making purchasing decisions. A brand’s reputation on social media can affect a company’s overall ranking. But with the exponentially growing number of opportunities for consumers to post their feedback, it’s often difficult for businesses to know where to look and how to deal with negative feedback. The easiest way to deal with negative reviews is to outweigh them with positive ones. Therefore, the company should also have a strategy aimed at encouraging customer feedback. For example, you can create a small pop-up every time someone visits your company’s website asking them to leave a review. However, it is better to make it as simple as possible and not to direct visitors to platforms that require too much effort, for example, to register personal data, etc. Another option for collecting feedback and suggestions in the case of the Instagram network: you can start a special hashtag day for feedback on TM “Molokiya” products and create a special incentive program. Let’s say that for each review, the consumer receives X points. After receiving a certain number of points, consumers can count on a discount, a gift, free advertising (posting a link to the consumer’s page in one of their social networks). And don’t forget to thank every customer who left a positive review.
Negative reviews have a direct impact on the profitability of a business, as they discourage existing and potential customers from purchasing the product. Negative comments are very time sensitive. The sooner the company responds, the less impact these comments will have. Using the existing management strategy, it is necessary to work on increasing the speed of responses. At the same time, do not respond without a prior plan. The answer should always start with a simple thank you, common courtesy for the time spent. It would also be appropriate to issue an apology and request that the problem has been identified and work is being done to solve it. If the problem cannot be solved in another way, then you should offer a refund or a discount. This tactic should be the last step in a reputation management strategy. However, there may be cases where this approach is the best option, especially if the company is truly at fault. If the feedback is public, it is best to respond to it publicly as well and make sure that the consumer's problem is resolved. Responding to positive reviews shows potential customers that you appreciate the company, while responding to negative or neutral reviews can help provide insight into why the experience was bad and what the company could improve.
Building long-term relationships with consumers is one of the main directions of increasing the company’s competitiveness and given the fact that a significant number of the target audience is in social networks, the company needs to use the opportunities of its presence in them. Therefore, TM “Molokiya” is actively developing in social networks, using almost all the most popular social networks among Ukrainian consumers. The company is present on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and has its own website. TM “Molokiya” is quite active on all sites, publishes posts, holds raffles and contests, responds to consumer comments, etc. And the calculation of ER, as the ratio of the average number of interactions on posts to the number of readers for a certain period, gives an opportunity to understand how loyal the audience of “Molokiya” is in social networks. From the conducted research, it can be understood that both Facebook and Instagram are an important component of forming a positive business reputation of TM “Molokiya”.
The formation and management of a positive reputation is usually associated with a significant expenditure of resources, but the result is a multiple return, which makes it necessary to maintain the reputation at an appropriate level and form an effective strategy for the development of the company’s reputation. The strategy must have a long-term, systemic nature, consider all risks, be integrated into the key business processes of the company, and meet social standards. With an effective strategy, you can expand your presence on important platforms, drive engagement with your community of supporters and consumers, and develop lasting relationships that retain existing customers and attract new ones. 6. References [1] Legal terms. Interpretive dictionary [2nd ed.] / V.G. Honcharenko, P.P. Andrushko, T.P. Bazova, etc. K.: Lybid, 2004. 320 p.