What is Reputation Management? A Broad Definition

What is Reputation Management? A Broad Definition

There are three categories that exist within reputation management. These three categories are building a reputation, managing a reputation and recovering a reputation. Usually, when you hire a reputation management expert, they will concern themselves with each three of these three elements, but particularly the one that is most important at any given time.

Why Reputation Management Matters

We live in a world that is almost fully online now. Furthermore, everybody knows that it is vital that you shop around for the best deals and the most trustworthy companies. This is why it is vital for any business to be portrayed online as a go-to source for a certain product or service. It is also a known fact that businesses with a positive reputation can increase their prices and that they are worth more on the stock market.

Reputation management is about far more than simply recovering a destroyed reputation. It is about being preventative and proactive. It helps to create a positive reputation and to maintain and even improve it. All online activities that involve the business have to be monitored very closely and they must be addressed. A true expert in the field of reputation management will be able to look at each piece of information that appears online and know whether to promote it, or whether to undertake SEO (search engine optimization) efforts in order to hide that piece of information.

There are many strategies used in order to build and maintain a reputation. This includes creating content through social media, blogs, forums and more. Promoting information that is already out there is also an important way of growing a good reputation. If a reputation is damaged, this will be noticed in decreased sales, lost partnerships and opportunities and more dissatisfied customers. If not handled correctly, this could actually mean the end of a business.

The way people perceive a certain business affects investment and sales alike. If this perception is negative, it could truly cripple a business. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to have a piece of content taken down from the internet. In fact, this is unsuccessful in 90% of cases. This is why it is far more important to work on having this information pushed back so far that people simply cannot find it anymore.

Quality of a Reputation Management Consultant

Good consultants have a number of qualities. These include:

  • They understand your situation.
  • They can help you build, maintain and repair your reputation.
  • They will get back to you very quickly.
  • They offer custom solutions specific to your needs.

A reputation is nothing something that you can just ‘have’. It is something that you must work towards earning and then you must work towards keeping that reputation. This takes a long time and a lot of effort. A reputation can also not be forced. It is created by perceptions and conventions. Destroying all your hard work, unfortunately, takes just a few minutes. This is why it is so important to work together with an excellent consultant.