Reputation management

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Reputation management, refers to the influencing, controlling, enhancing, or concealing of an individual's or group's reputation. It is a marketing technique used to modify a company's reputation in a positive way. [1] The growth of the internet and social media led to growth of reputation management companies, with search results as a core part of a client's reputation. [2] Online reputation management (ORM) involves overseeing and influencing the search engine results related to products and services. [3]

Contents

Ethical grey areas include mug shot removal sites, astroturfing customer review sites, censoring complaints, and using search engine optimization tactics to influence results. In other cases, the ethical lines are clear; some reputation management companies are closely connected to websites that publish unverified and libelous statements about people. [4] Such unethical companies charge thousands of dollars to remove these posts – temporarily – from their websites. [4]

The field of public relations has evolved with the rise of the internet and social media. Reputation management is now broadly categorized into two areas: online reputation management and offline reputation management.

Online reputation management focuses on the management of product and service search results within the digital space. A variety of electronic markets and online communities like eBay, Amazon and Alibaba have ORM systems built in, and using effective control nodes can minimize the threat and protect systems from possible misuses and abuses by malicious nodes in decentralized overlay networks. [5] Big data has the potential to be employed in overseeing and enhancing the reputation of organizations. [6]

Offline reputation management shapes public perception of a said entity outside the digital sphere. [7] Popular controls for off-line reputation management include social responsibility, media visibility, press releases in print media and sponsorship amongst related tools. [8]

History

Reputation is a social construct based on the opinion other people hold about a person or thing. Before the internet was developed, consumers wanting to learn about a company had fewer options. They had access to resources such as the Yellow Pages, but mostly relied on word-of-mouth. A company's reputation depended on personal experience.[ citation needed ] A company while it grew and expanded was subject to the market's perception of the brand. Public relations were developed to manage the image and manage the reputation of a company or individual.[ citation needed ] The concept was initially created to broaden public relations outside of media relations. [9] Academic studies have identified it as a driving force behind Fortune 500 corporate public relations since the beginning of the 21st century. [10]

As of 1988, reputation management was acknowledged as a valuable intangible asset and corporate necessity, which can be one of the most important sources of competitive edge in a fiercely competitive market, [11] and with firms under scrutiny from the business community, regulators[ vague ], and corporate governance watchdogs; good reputation management practices would to help firms cope with this scrutiny. [12]

As of 2006, reputation management practices reinforce and aid a corporation's branding objectives. Good reputation management practices are helping any entity manage staff confidence as a control tool on public perceptions which if undermined and ignored can be costly, which in the long run may cripple employee confidence, a risk no employer would dare explore as staff morale is one of the most important drivers of company performance. [13]

Online

Originally, public relations included printed media, events and networking campaigns. At the end of 1990s search engines became widely used. The popularity of the internet introduced new marketing and branding opportunities. Where once journalists were the main source of media content, blogs, review sites and social media gave a voice to consumers regardless of qualification. Public relations became part of online reputation management (ORM). ORM includes traditional reputation strategies of public relations but also focuses on building a long-term reputation strategy that is consistent across all web-based channels and platforms. ORM includes search engine reputation management which is designed to counter negative search results and elevate positive content. [14] [15] Reputation management (sometimes referred to as rep management or ORM) is the practice of attempting to shape public perception of a person or organization by influencing information about that entity, primarily online. [16] What necessitates this shaping of perceptions being the role of consumers in any organization and the cognizance of how much if ignored these perceptions may harm a company's performance at any time of the year, a risk no entrepreneur or company executive can afford. [17]

Specifically, reputation management involves the monitoring of the reputation of an individual or a brand on the internet, primarily focusing on the various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc. addressing content which is potentially damaging to it, and using customer feedback to try to solve problems before they damage the individual's or brand's reputation. [18] A major part of reputation management involves suppressing negative search results, while highlighting positive ones. [19] For businesses, reputation management usually involves an attempt to bridge the gap between how a company perceives itself and how others view it. [20]

In 2012, there had been an article released titled "Social Media Research in Advertising, Communication, Marketing and Public Relations" written by Hyoungkoo Khang et-al. [21] The references to Kaplan and Haenleins theory of social presence, highlights the "concept of self-presentation." [22]

Khang highlights that "companies must monitor individual's comments regarding service 24/7." [23] This can imply that the reputation of a company does essentially rely on the consumer, as they are the ones that can make or break it. A 2015 study commissioned by the American Association of Advertising Agencies concluded that 4 percent of consumers believed advertisers and marketers practice integrity. [24]

According to Susan Crawford, a cyberlaw specialist from Cardozo Law School, most websites will remove negative content when contacted to avoid litigation. The Wall Street Journal noted that in some cases, writing a letter to a detractor can have unintended consequences, though the company makes an effort to avoid writing to certain website operators that are likely to respond negatively. The company says it respects the First Amendment and does not try to remove "genuinely newsworthy speech." It generally cannot remove major government-related news stories from established publications or court records. [25] [26]

In 2015, Jon Ronson, author of "So You've Been Publicly Shamed", said that reputation management helped some people who became agoraphobic due to public humiliation from online shaming, but that it was an expensive service that many could not afford. [27] [28]

In 2011, controversy around the Taco Bell restaurant chain arose when public accusations were made that their "seasoned beef" product was only made up of only 35% real beef. A class action lawsuit was filed by the law firm Beasley Allen against Taco Bell. The suit was voluntarily withdrawn with Beasley Allen citing that "From the inception of this case, we stated that if Taco Bell would make certain changes regarding disclosure and marketing of its 'seasoned beef' product, the case could be dismissed." [29] [30] Taco Bell responded to the case being withdrawn by launching a reputation management campaign titled "Would it kill you to say you're sorry?" that ran advertisements in various news outlets in print and online, which attempted to draw attention to the voluntary withdrawal of the case. [31]

In 2015, Volkswagen, a german automobile manufacturer, faced a massive €30 billion controversy. A scandal erupted when it was revealed that 11 million of its vehicles globally had been fitted with devices designed to mask the true levels of harmful emissions. The reaction from the company's investors was swift as Volkswagen's stock value started to fall rapidly. [32] The brand released a two-minute video in which the CEO and other representatives apologized after pleading guilty. However, this wasn't enough to change the public perception. The automotive giant had to bring in four PR firms led by Hering Schuppener, a German crisis communications and reputation management agency. [33] To rebuild its reputation, Volkswagen launched an initiative to transition to electric motors on an unprecedented scale. The company released print media and published pieces in top publications to show its commitment to developing electric and hybrid vehicle models worldwide, which helped improve its CSR image. [33]

Starbucks, the coffeehouse chain, also faced reputation damage in response to the arrests of two African-American men at its Philadelphia branch. In response to a request to use the bathroom, the branch's manager denied the two men's access since they hadn't bought anything, calling the police when they refused to leave. [34] The incident sparked massive public outrage and boycotts across the country. [35] SYPartners, a business reputation consultancy, was engaged to provide Starbucks leadership with advice after the incident. Starbucks issued an apology, which was circulated across top media publications. [36] The company also initiated an anti-bias training for its 175,00 employees across 8,000 locations. [37] Starbucks also changed its policy, allowing people to sit without making a purchase. Both men also reached a settlement with Starbucks and the city. [34]

In recent years, AI-driven reputation-tarnishing campaigns have also emerged as a potential threat to companies. In 2024, a London restaurant was attacked by an AI mafia gang with negative Google reviews to extort £10,000. The negative reviews brought the eatery's Google rating down to 2.3 stars from a 4.9 stars before the attack. [38] Maximatic Media, an online reputation management firm, was hired to identify the origin of the malicious reviews and found that they were being generated by AI-powered bots. The agency worked with Google for the removal of these fake reviews to restore the restaurant's online reputation to a 4.8-star rating. [39]

Examples

Organisations attempt to manage their reputations on websites that many people visit, such as eBay, [40] Wikipedia, and Google. Some of the tactics used by reputation management firms include: [41]

Ethics

The practice of reputation management raises many ethical questions. [44] [48] It is widely disagreed upon where the line for disclosure, astroturfing, and censorship should be drawn. Firms have been known to hire staff to pose as bloggers on third-party sites without disclosing they were paid, and some have been criticized for asking websites to remove negative posts. [14] [42] The exposure of unethical reputation management may itself be risky to the reputation of a firm that attempts it if known. [49]

In 2007 Google declared there to be nothing inherently wrong with reputation management, [43] and even introduced a toolset in 2011 for users to monitor their online identity and request the removal of unwanted content. [50] Many firms are selective about clients they accept. For example, they may avoid individuals who committed violent crimes who are looking to push information about their crimes lower on search results. [44]

In 2010, a study showed that Naymz, one of the first Web 2.0 services to provide utilities for Online Reputation Management (ORM), had developed a method to assess the online reputation of its members (RepScore) that was rather easy to deceive. The study found that the highest level of online reputation was easily achieved by engaging a small social group of nine persons who connect with each other and provide reciprocal positive feedbacks and endorsements. [51] As of December 2017, Naymz was shut down.

In 2015, the online retailer Amazon.com sued 1,114 people who were paid to publish fake five-star reviews for products. These reviews were created using a website for Macrotasking, Fiverr.com. [52] [53] [54] Several other companies offer fake Yelp and Facebook reviews, and one journalist amassed five-star reviews for a business that doesn't exist, from social media accounts that have also given overwhelmingly positive reviews to "a chiropractor in Arizona, a hair salon in London, a limo company in North Carolina, a realtor in Texas, and a locksmith in Florida, among other far-flung businesses". [55] In 2007, a study by the University of California Berkeley found that some sellers on eBay were undertaking reputation management by selling products at a discount in exchange for positive feedback to game the system. [56]

In 2016, the Washington Post detailed 25 court cases, at least 15 of which had false addresses for the defendant. The court cases had similar language and the defendant agreed to the injunction by the plaintiff, which allowed the reputation management company to issue takedown notices to Google, Yelp, Leagle, Ripoff Report, various news sites, and other websites. [57]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization to the public in order to influence their perception. Public relations and publicity differ in that PR is controlled internally, whereas publicity is not controlled and contributed by external parties. Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment. The exposure is mostly media-based, and this differentiates it from advertising as a form of marketing communications. Public relations often aims to create or obtain coverage for clients for free, also known as earned media, rather than paying for marketing or advertising also known as paid media. However, advertising, especially of the type that focuses on distributing information or core PR messages, is also a part of broader PR activities.

The reputation or prestige of a social entity is an opinion about that entity – typically developed as a result of social evaluation on a set of criteria, such as behavior or performance.

In marketing, publicity is the public visibility or awareness for any product, service, person or organization. It may also refer to the movement of information from its source to the general public, often via the media. The subjects of publicity include people of public recognition, goods and services, organizations, and works of art or entertainment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corporate social responsibility</span> Form of corporate self-regulation aimed at contributing to social or charitable goals

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate social impact is a form of international private business self-regulation which aims to contribute to societal goals of a philanthropic, activist, or charitable nature by engaging in, with, or supporting professional service volunteering through pro bono programs, community development, administering monetary grants to non-profit organizations for the public benefit, or to conduct ethically oriented business and investment practices. While CSR could have previously been described as an internal organizational policy or a corporate ethic strategy, similar to what is now known today as environmental, social, and governance (ESG), that time has passed as various companies have pledged to go beyond that or have been mandated or incentivized by governments to have a better impact on the surrounding community. In addition, national and international standards, laws, and business models have been developed to facilitate and incentivize this phenomenon. Various organizations have used their authority to push it beyond individual or industry-wide initiatives. In contrast, it has been considered a form of corporate self-regulation for some time, over the last decade or so it has moved considerably from voluntary decisions at the level of individual organizations to mandatory schemes at regional, national, and international levels. Moreover, scholars and firms are using the term "creating shared value", an extension of corporate social responsibility, to explain ways of doing business in a socially responsible way while making profits.

Perception management is a term originated by the US military. The US Department of Defense (DOD) gives this definition:

Actions to convey and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning as well as to intelligence systems and leaders at all levels to influence official estimates, ultimately resulting in foreign behaviors and official actions favorable to the originator's objectives. In various ways, perception management combines truth projection, operations security, cover and deception, and psychological operations.

Impression management is a conscious or subconscious process in which people attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event by regulating and controlling information in social interaction. It was first conceptualized by Erving Goffman in 1956 in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, and then was expanded upon in 1967.

Corporate communication(s) is a set of activities involved in managing and orchestrating all internal and external communications aimed at creating a favourable point of view among stakeholders on which a company depends. It is the messages issued by a corporate organization, body or institute to its audiences, such as employees, media, channel partners and the general public. Organizations aim to communicate the same message to all its stakeholders, to transmit coherence, credibility and ethics.

Social media optimization (SMO) is the use of online platforms to generate income or publicity to increase the awareness of a brand, event, product or service. Types of social media involved include RSS feeds, blogging sites, social bookmarking sites, social news websites, video sharing websites such as YouTube and social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X (Twitter). SMO is similar to search engine optimization (SEO) in that the goal is to drive web traffic, and draw attention to a company or creator. SMO's focal point is on gaining organic links to social media content. In contrast, SEO's core is about reaching the top of the search engine hierarchy. In general, social media optimization refers to optimizing a website and its content to encourage more users to use and share links to the website across social media and networking sites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital marketing</span> Marketing of products or services using digital technologies or digital tools

Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services.

Online public relations, also known as E-PR or digital PR, is the use of the internet to communicate with both potential and current customers in the public realm. It functions as the web relationship influence among internet users and it aims to make desirable comments about an organization, its products and services, news viewed by its target audiences and lessen its undesirable comments to a large degree. Online public relations shows differences from traditional public relations. One of these is associated with its platforms. Compared with traditional public relations channels, the network systems used for online public relations vary from search to social platforms. In the era of digital marketing, the major online public relations tools for the public relations professionals and marketers such as content marketing, search engine optimization are the results of mixture of digital technologies and public relations. Those approaches have become the mainstream digital marketing machines and learning to take advantage of these marketing tools is an essential part of modern public relations strategies.

Online identity management (OIM), also known as online image management, online personal branding, or personal reputation management (PRM), is a set of methods for generating a distinguished web presence of a person on the Internet. Online identity management also refers to identity exposure and identity disclosure, and has particularly developed in the management on online identity in social network services or online dating services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Content marketing</span> Form of marketing focused on creating content for a targeted audience online

Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online. It is often used in order to achieve the following business goals: attract attention and generate leads, expand their customer base, generate or increase online sales, increase brand awareness or credibility, and engage a community of online users. Content marketing attracts new customers by creating and sharing valuable free content as well as by helping companies create sustainable brand loyalty, providing valuable information to consumers, and creating a willingness to purchase products from the company in the future.

Marketing buzz or simply buzz—a term used in viral marketing—is the interaction of consumers and users with a product or service which amplifies or alters the original marketing message. This emotion, energy, excitement, or anticipation about a product or service can be positive or negative. Buzz can be generated by intentional marketing activities by the brand owner or it can be the result of an independent event that enters public awareness through social or traditional media such as newspapers. Marketing buzz originally referred to oral communication but in the age of Web 2.0, social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube are now the dominant communication channels for marketing buzz.

Reputation is a business-to-business online reputation management and customer experience management company headquartered in San Ramon, California. The company claims its software-as-a-service platform helps businesses monitor and respond to online reviews, social media, and surveys; analyze customer sentiment; and collaborate to make operational improvements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social media marketing</span> Promotion of products or services on social media

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corporate social media</span>

Corporate social media is the use of social media platforms, social media communications and social media marketing techniques by and within corporations, ranging from small businesses and tiny entrepreneurial startups to mid-size businesses and huge multinational firms. Within the definition of social media, there are different ways corporations utilize it. Although there is no systematic way in which social media applications can be categorized, there are various methods and approaches to having a strong social media presence.

Online presence management is the process of creating and promoting traffic to a personal or professional brand online. This process combines web design, development, blogging, search engine optimization, pay-per-click marketing, reputation management, directory listings, social media, link sharing, and other avenues to create a long-term positive presence for a person, organization, or product in search engines and on the web in general.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brand.com</span> Defunct American online reputation and brand management company

Brand.com was an American online reputation and brand management company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded as Reputation Changer in 2009. In 2013, it purchased the Brand.com domain name for $500,000, and changed its name. The company provided Internet search management, creating positive web articles about its clients in order to have them overtake negative news, and Wikipedia profile management. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2015 and was shut down.

Social media use by businesses includes a range of applications. Although social media accessed via desktop computers offer a variety of opportunities for companies in a wide range of business sectors, mobile social media, which users can access when they are "on the go" via tablet computers or smartphones, benefit companies because of the location- and time-sensitive awareness of their users. Mobile social media tools can be used for marketing research, communication, sales promotions/discounts, informal employee learning/organizational development, relationship development/loyalty programs, and e-commerce.

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