What Is Online Reputation Management?

What Defines Online Reputation Management?

Online Reputation is the impression others have of when they search for you online. Online Reputation can include news articles, photos, videos, blog posts, social media profiles, review sites, public records, and more.

The Key Concepts Of Online Reputation Management

Having an online presence provided businesses with a platform to tell people about themselves and whether you post or not, content generated impacts your online reputation. It crucial that what is being said online provides the right message for your brand awareness and letting someone else define it may not yield the results in the way you wish your message to be told.

What gets published on the Internet stays on the Internet and potentially part of your online reputation. While search engine results can be buried, the results are usually never actually removed. Since search results are not categorized in chronological order, old news articles, outdated information, and news stories from the past can resurface and plague a business owners online reputation indefinitely if visitors click on the older indexed items more than the newer content.

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Your online reputation is determined by complex calculations running automatically by computer servers called, “algorithms" and unfortunately are not able to distinguish between information that accurately reflects you or your brand accurately or not. Due to the complexity and overwhelmingly vast amounts of information that is a populated online, search engine and social media sites are programmed to make educated guesses about what people find interesting and rely heavily on popularity as a key metric for measuring data.

Over 80% of reputation damage comes from a mismatch between the buzz and the reality.
—Digimind—

Due to popularity over accuracy, intriguing but irrelevant “click bait" content can dominate search results such as embarrassing party photos/video, lawsuit dismissals from years past, etc. These types of search results can destroy your online reputation and require the assistance of a professional online reputation management service provider or experienced PR team in order to do damage control.

Online reputation problems don’t simply go away and can have serious long-term impact. Business Owners being unaware that a problem existing can be the first step a online reputation manager can take to preventing or stopping an issue before it becomes more enmeshed with the remainder of your activities which may permanently impact your life. Just plain being aware to the fact that a problem exists regarding your online reputation but not doing anything about it is simply Ignorant and while you may think that people aren’t searching for you, chances are they are. Common reasons might include the following:

• Potential Employers Pre-Interview Research


• Landlord’s Researching Prospective Tenants


• Curious Significant Others, Past And Present


• Former Colleagues Looking To Network And Share Professional Opportunities

Once again, if someone says or writes something negative about you or your business online than your being put at a disadvantage over time, even more so without being aware of it. If you ever questioned why you hadn’t got that great apartment you wanted, or that job offer after an impressive interview than you might want to keep tabs on what others are saying about you online. An online reputation management audit could be exactly what you need in order to identify issues and correct any inaccuracies.

Do you use ORM to help protect your reputation? Have you got any Online Reputation Management (ORM) tips and tricks to share with other business owners out there? If at any time you get stuck or need further assistance than feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.