Communication Strategy in the Social Media Era of Private Schools in Bangkok towards The Image and Reputation of The Organization.

Abstract

The objectives of this research were: 1) to study the characteristics of the image and the dimension of reputation in the social media era towards the private schools in Bangkok; 2) to study the communication strategy in the social media era for the image and the reputation of private schools in Bangkok; 3) to study the various issues in the social media era affecting the image and the reputation of the private schools; 4) to study successful factors and obstacles in the use of communication strategy in the social media era for the image and reputation of the private schools in Bangkok. This research applied the Qualitative Research Method, collected documents and conducted In-depth Interviews of administrators and public relations officers or coordinators of six private schools, a total of 18 people. The study results revealed that: 1) the private schools in Bangkok focused on communicating to achieve the three aspects of image building, such as reliability, acceptance and faith. Each school focused on communicating its image and reputation by means of its vision, mission, and core values. The schools ran by priests – religious focused on the quality of the students to be smart, good, and virtuous, according to religious doctrines, communicating these through the traditional and new media. The main target groups for communication were the parents and the alumni. It was believed that when they thought that some- thing was good and satisfactory, they would spread the news by ‘word-of-mouth’; 2) the strategy used integrated the distribution of information through personal media, activity media, and new media, based on the principles of good relationships, the core of creating cooperation among the people, both inside and outside the organization. In the management, there was no clear strategy plan in dealing with issues, conflicts, or crises. These were dealt with according to previous experiences expectations, and resolved on a case-by-case basis; 3) the issues met by the private schools in Bangkok in this social media era were about food, inequality, and the teaching staff. These issues came out because of dissatisfaction due to their attitudes, experiences, personal needs, the prejudices of the parents, which gave birth to the behavior of posting, sharing online, or story-telling among the parents, resulting in a negative image and reputation; 4) factors contributing to the success of private schools were the cooperation of the personnel in the organization and their academic excellence, though varying from each other; the parents and alumni who were like the ‘mouth-piece’ through on-line communication – the fast way of public relations. The obstacles were – the personnel in the school lacked skills and proficiency in communication; the external obstacles were the changing economic, social, political situations, including the National Education Act.