Why Reputation
Management Has Become the Most Important Facet of Public Relations
Article Abridged from Dmytro Spilka
In this era of enhanced interconnectivity,
reputation management and PR go hand in hand. Defined as the management of
relationships between an organisation and the constituencies on which it
depends, there is no doubt that relationship management has become a pivotal facet of any successful business.
Today, the digital age has fundamentally changed
the way businesses need to approach marketing communications, and this includes
public relations. PR now goes hand in hand with digital marketing, as well as
other more traditional approaches to the industry.
With the prevalence of active social media users and a diversity of
channels, news spreads at a rapid rate; companies have to adapt fast to ensure
that any damaging content towards their brand is managed as swiftly as
possible.
The importance of regular reputation
management is highlighted by a recent Clutch survey, which
highlighted that many companies monitor their online reputation every day –
over one-fifth of those surveyed revealed that they check social channels each
hour to ensure that they’re on top of any developing stories.
Reputation and an Empowered
Public
Social media has grown to become an untameable
beast. While the public
relations masters of yesteryear could efficiently spin stories in
the press, today a single act of negligence can gain millions of views in
minutes – causing a business to undergo ‘trial by public opinion’: keyboard
warriors and worriers!
Pushing misconduct into the public eye can be a
good thing. After all, if a business is going to build itself into a
trustworthy entity, it has to be made aware of its shortcomings as swiftly as
possible. Practitioner Juda Engelmayer warns against the existential threat that isolated actions of a single rogue
staff member can cause for businesses: “People can tweet whatever they want, or
they can go to Yelp or Facebook to post about a bad experience. This can have a
huge effect on search engines”.
If poor reputation management can lead to negative
stories manifesting on social media and reviewing sites, it can not only affect
a business’s reputation on platforms and impact the company’s share value, but
also hit its position within Google’s search engine results pages.
Repairing Reputation
Given the increasing importance of reputation
management in an interconnected world today, there are plenty of views on how
to firefight emerging negative stories on social media. A simple and direct
approach endorses the three R's: Repair, rebuild and recuperate.
Should your business suffer the misfortune of
requiring reputation remediation, your first thoughts should focus on how to
repair some of the damage before it develops further.
Once the initial outbreak has been quelled to as
manageable a level as possible, thoughts should turn to rebuilding. It’s
imperative that companies that suffer reputational setbacks swiftly set up a
fresh PR campaign that looks to restore brand image through various platforms
such as social media, the press, blogging and so on. The idea here is to build
a positive public perception of the business in question as an ethical entity
that’s trustworthy as a whole.
Finally comes recuperation. Here, businesses are
implored to bury any remaining negative connotations surrounding its reputation
by optimising digital properties and image through
strategic SEO, rapid response and around the clock social and review
site monitoring.
Reputational Tools
The digital arena features plenty of tools and
services that promise to manage brand reputation remotely and in a way that
ensures peace of mind for organisations.
There are several cost-effective ways in which you
can consistently
monitor your brand’s reputation, such as Google Alerts or
Talkwalker. By instructing the platform to notify you whenever your business
name or relevant keyword/s are mentioned online, you have the ability to nip
developing negative stories in the bud by instantly addressing them and
maintaining your image.
More expensive tools are available to give deeper insight into your brand reputation too. These tools gets to grips with all of your mentions, providing deep insights into your referring websites, sentiment detection and analysis to determine whether comments about your business are positive or negative, and even ‘mention locations’ – to help you see exactly where your brand is being talked about.
Of course, there’s no better way of monitoring your
reputation than through the use of a good old fashioned web browser. Simply
search online for your business name and pay close attention to the high
ranking results pages: it’s what 90% of your customers will see before they
navigate on to your web pages.
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Source: Abridged from www.business2community.com/public-relations/why-reputation-management-has-become-the-most-important-facet-of-public-relations-02191214
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