The managing of a company’s reputation is a task that must be handled dutifully and cautiously in a highly turbulent business environment.
Reputation management can be defined as the process of refining, enhancing, controlling, and influencing public conversations and stakeholders’ perceptions about an organisation’s products and services.
Managing an organisation’s reputation similarly involves reacting to repute threats, monitoring public perceptions and conversations, and grabbing every opportunity to boost its reputation.
The three renowned elements involved in the reputation management process are:
- Reputation Monitoring – involves the strict monitoring of every conversation around an organisation’s brand. Public relations consultants are trained to build the monitoring strategy for every company based on its unique needs.
- Reputation Repair – is the process of consciously and delicately suppressing negative perceptions or conversations regarding a company. A repair reputation is done tactically by a public relations expert by managing the conversations on all touch points of the organisation.
- Reputation Building – focuses on approaches to regaining positive perceptions and conversations from their stakeholders and the public.
Effective corporate reputation management has been the major backbone for the sustainable growth and success of top businesses around the world. The main goal of reputation management is to promote and retain a corporate reputation that positively impacts the organisation’s business using both online (traditional and social media) and offline channels (Corporate social programs).
Some of the tools that can be employed in reputation management are:
- Monitoring media for brand mentions
- Encouraging customer reviews and responding to negative reviews
- Above all, leveraging public relations.