Reputation Management – Reviews of reputation management companies

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The Best Reputation Management Consultants

Hot off the press, we just published the list of the top reputation management consultants. You can access the 2017 list right here.

The Best Reputation Management Companies

We have recently compiled the 2017 list of the best reputation management companies. Please send us feedback on any company we may have missed or any reviews and comments you have about any companies you have experience with.

The Reputation Management Industry

A wide scale study of Fortune 500 companies published in Public Relations Review suggests that “reputation management” is gaining traction as a driving philosophy behind corporate public relations.

There is also a lack of consensus in defining reputation, and some argue on whether or not a reputation can be “managed.”

As the Internet and social media became more popular, Reputation Management has shifted to focus on electronic communities, such as review sites and social media. This is called  Online Reputation Management, known widely as ORM.

We define it as the practice of attempting to manage public perception of a person or organization by influencing the retrieval online information about that entity.

In speaking to many crisis management and litigation communication professionals, it is clear that these segments of the marketplace are fertile ground to groom the practice of ORM services. Because so much of this communication plays our over the Internet, long after the dust settles.

Online Reputation management involves several activities:

  1. Monitoring the reputation of an individual or commercial brand on the internet.
  2. Identifying content which is potentially damaging to the brand, and directing the conversation away from it.
  3. Suppressing negative information. Most of the time, this involves damaging search results.

Things You Need to Know About Online Reputation Management Industry

 It is more likely that you encounter some negative comments about yourself or your company online. As the usage of internet has increased over the past few years, so we come to witness its negative impacts as well. Anyone can tarnish your image online without allowing you to do anything about it. You cannot do anything about a customer’s negative feedback on your website neither can you remove anything negative about your firm’s employment policies which appear on the first page of your Google search results. All this can be only fixed and countered with the help of an efficient online reputation manager, who is responsible for maintaining your positive public relations. Here are few things you need to know about online reputation management industry:

1. Functions of an Online Reputation Manager

Online reputation manager helps you have control over things which you want other people to see and what you don’t want them to see. The industry is bent upon helping people portray a positive image by countering the effects of negative propaganda about a person or company. It helps you to win back the respect and dignity that you feel you have lost due to some rival’s negative agendas.

2. Need of Online Reputation Management

The need of online reputation management arises when you come to witness some negative comments about yourself which might be either false or true but that information is an outdated fact. The internet has overtaken every field of our life and has benefitted us in a lot of ways while on the other side it has also given birth to some negative impacts. One of the negative impacts of the internet is that people can post any negative thing about you without you having any control over it. It can be something like a past illness that you don’t want to disclose to your acquaintances, it is when you need the services of an online reputation manager.

3. Need of Professional Online Reputation Manager

Many might believe that they can manage their online reputation themselves, but the fact is that it requires professional expertise and proficiency to help combat negative propaganda about an individual or a business. Professional online managers help you handle such defaming comments or posts more expertly because they are trained to do so.

4. Difficulty in Erasing Something Negative

The actual job of an online reputation manager is not to erase a negative comment but to just get it off from Google search results’ first page. This is because when a post is not on the first page it is almost invisible.

Conclusion
Many of us might just not give importance to online reputation management at this hour, but it is surely going to create problems for us in future. Thus, we need to act smartly in this regard and get professional help as soon as possible before a negative comment can cost our businesses a fortune or affect our personal lives.

Why Use Online Reputation Management

Online reputation management allows you to control what you want others to see and prioritize the best content, while minimizing the ones that hurt your image and brand equity in the eyes of the people who are interested in your brand image.  It is the digital equivalent of offline Public Relations.

Reputation Management Market Size

The reputation management Industry has had it’s fair share of ups and downs. In 2017, it is still not definitely clear whether this is a fad or a “here to stay” Industry.
There is a wide debate about the market size of the industry and it’s origins.

Misconceptions About Online Reputation Management

Online Reputation managers often get a bad rep themselves, often times people do not understand what they do. The general idea about reputation management is that it is a rogue industry with hired mercenaries. This is often due to misconceptions about what is done with negative information. Most people think that ORM companies remove all negative content. The truth is we cannot remove all the negative content, it is a home run if we even remove some of them. Reputation managers often just remove EMPHASIS from the negative content and increase the prominence of the positive content. The ORM process helps a company achieve a balanced picture of their brands in the digital channel.

The most important thing to remember is that best ORM is prevention. Great customer service and, more importantly, impeccable problem resolution will prevent many angry one-star reviews from appearing online.