In a study, it was found out that 87% of the people asked believes that a CEO’s reputation is as important as the company’s reputation. This means that when a CEO’s online reputation gets damaged, the company’s online reputation gets a hit as well.

Celebrities, people of interest, and news worthy personas aren’t safe either. They may be a prime targets of smear campaigns that can easily topple down a well-kept reputation. One minute you are reputed for something good the next day you are swarmed by various unfounded reports or just plain bad news. Most of these negative results are nothing more than sensationalized news and overblown gossip.

Thing is, reputation is not built in a day. For a lot of top-level executives and celebrities, it takes years and thousands of dollars to get a solid reputation. Yet, it takes bad gossip 5 minutes to destroy it.

So how can you protect yourself? You can always take advantage of online reputation management to protect and address issues with regards to their online reputation.

How Can Online Reputation Management Help?

In General, there are 2 types on ORM
(Online Reputation Management):

Proactive Online Reputation Management

Why wait for something bad to happen before you act when you can already create a solid online reputation? With proactive online reputation management you can build your online reputation through the following tactics:

  • Publish positive content on high authority sites.
  • Enforce a customized content marketing campaign that will bury negative content.
  • Build up social pages, self-hosted websites, public pages, or blogs that will help you own your personal online real-estate.

Reactive Online Reputation Management

  • Constant monitoring of your online reputation.
  • Burying down irrelevant content from your search engine results; This can
    range from negative content, unwanted posts or pictures, a negative review
    on sites like ripoffreport, or a blotter.
  • Removing sites or content that contain malicious content and lies that aim to
    defame you as an individual which become grounds for libel.
  • Doing damage control for PR blunders or unwanted media coverage.
  • Tweaking your social media privacy profile so they will be picked up less by
    Google.

Why Do You Need Online Reputation Management?

Simple, a solid online reputation can be the difference between making or failing in the real world. No one is immune but rather the biggest targets of smear campaigns and malicious defamation.

While these people might not have spent thousands of dollars to keep their reputation in check, they are honest to goodness citizens who might have had their 5 minutes of fame. In order to protect the reputation you have worked hard to achieve, you must ensure you have precautions that can address issues of negative reputation.

In case you already have negative content about you online, don’t sleep on it and act now. The sooner you do something about it, the sooner you gain back the reputation you deserve.