Online Reputation Management
Reputation management refers to the influencing and controlling of an individual’s or group’s reputation. Originally a public relations term, the growth of the internet and social media, along with reputation management companies, have made search results a core part of an individual’s or group’s reputation. Online reputation management, sometimes abbreviated as ORM, focuses on the management of product and service search website results.Ethical grey areas include mug shot removal sites, astroturfing customer reviewsites, censoring negative complaints, and using search engine optimization tactics to influence results.
With extensive developments in this field of public relations, in-sync with the growth of the internet and social media, along with the advent of reputation management companies, the overall out-look of search results has become an integral part of what defines “reputation” and subsequent to all these developments, reputation management now exists under two spheres: online and off-line reputation management.
• Improving the tagging and search engine optimization of company-published materials, such as white papers and positive customer testimonials in order to push down negative content.
• Publishing original, positive websites and social media profiles, with the aim of outperforming negative results in a search.
• Submitting online press releases to authoritative websites in order to promote brand presence and suppress negative content.
• Submitting legal take-down requests if someone believes they have been libeled.
• Getting mentions of the business or individual on third-party sites that rank highly on Google.
• Creating fake, positive reviews of the individual or business to counteract. negative ones.
• Using spambots and denial-of-service attacks to force sites with damaging content off the web entirely.