Can reputation be managed?
Can reputation be managed? It’s clear that
you cannot control what people think about you or your business
The word “managed” conveys a greater degree
of control than most reputation management practices can truly effect. Much of what
reputation management attempts to do is to adjust a very small scope of
reputational issues. Most of these issues are online.
Here are some of the sources of reputation
problems that reputation management does attempt to deal with:
Negative news articles
News articles are often the first thing that
people see when they Google your business’s name or peruse their news feeds. Even though people are aware that fake
news exists,
we still tend to believe what we read in the news.
Negative online images
Celebrities and ordinary citizens alike have
been the subject of leaked photos. Thankfully, there are legal guidelines that stipulate when such images may be
removed from search indexes.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is the cultural default for information
on virtually every conceivable subject. Reputation management must pay close attention to this site that
consistently ranks high in the search engines.
Blog posts
Anyone can write anything they want about
anyone they want. The result is a riot of misinformation and confusion. This is
another arena in which reputation management can and does exercise substantial impact.
Ripoff reports and scam sites
Like malicious blogs, some review sites are
nothing more than conduits of complaint for disaffected consumers.
Review sites
Review sites like Yelp exist to help the
consumer make guided choices based on what other customers have experienced. In
an ideal world, the number of good reviews would counteract the outlier, but sometimes
a single negative review can shutter a business for good.
Social media
Social media has a shorter shelf life than
anything else in this list, but it still matters. Social media is the method of
choice for people recommending brands, spreading gossip, airing complaints and
criticizing public figures.
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