What is Reputation Management?
In business and branding, reputation is everything, and never has this been more pressing than in the age of online reputation management. With every company now under intense scrutiny on the web, itʼs important to have a firm reputation management strategy in place.
Reputation management has been around for a long time, but in 2025 reputation management software, services and strategies look very different to how they did even just five years ago. With the introduction of AI technologies in digital reputation management, the future of maintaining a positive brand presence is likely to be both an exciting and daunting prospect for organisations.
In this article weʼll explore the definition of reputation management in detail, what methods can be used to practice it, and the three main phases of reputation management, that you can use as a guide for implementing your own brand management or reputation risk aversion plan.
Read on to find out more about the essentials of reputation management, including:
- What is Reputation Management?
- What are the Different Types of Reputation Management?
- Should I Use a Reputation Management, Company, or Reputation Software?
- Strategy in Action: What are the 3 Phases of Reputation Management?
What is Reputation Management?
A concise reputation management definition would be that reputation management is the technique of influencing perceptions and opinions about a business and its brands.
To practice reputation management, an organisation may monitor the way stakeholders and consumers talk about the business, seize upon any opportunities to improve reputation perception, as well as reacting to any reputation threats using one or a combination of the following: PR, legal, marketing and communication strategies.
Brand reputation management is about changing what people think by changing what they see and hear.
Efforts to shape public perception are at the heart of any reputation management strategy. In other words, brand reputation management is about changing what people think by changing what they see and hear. Establishing an online reputation management strategy is crucial for brands to assess their current standing and prioritise their reputation goals. Effective brand reputation management is essential for shaping public perception and fostering customer trust.
Is reputation management important? Yes, reputation management is extremely important for building and preserving brand reputation. A brandʼs reputation is its most valuable asset and managing it effectively is crucial for building trust, loyalty, and ultimately, driving business success. A positive reputation can lead to increased customer loyalty, retention and advocacy, while a negative reputation can result in decreased sales, revenue and profitability.
While the goal always remains the same, which is to influence and shape public perception of a business or person, you may find that reputation management is often known as any or all of the following:
- Digital reputation management
- Brand reputation management
- Brand perception
- Impression management
- Online reputation management
- ORM
- Internet reputation management
Definition and Importance
Definition of Reputation Management
Reputation management is the process of monitoring, influencing, and maintaining a positive public image of an individual, company, or brand. It involves managing both online and offline presence, engaging with the audience, and addressing negative feedback to build trust, loyalty, and success. In essence, reputation management is about shaping public perception by controlling what people see and hear about your brand. This can include responding to customer feedback, managing online reviews, and ensuring that positive content about your brand is prominent.
Why is Reputation Management Important?
In today’s digital age, reputation management is more crucial than ever. With the internet providing a platform for instant feedback and widespread information sharing, a brand’s reputation can be made or broken in a matter of moments. Effective reputation management involves a proactive approach, a well-defined strategy, and continuous monitoring and adaptation. A positive reputation can lead to increased customer loyalty, retention, and advocacy, while a negative reputation can result in loss of business, revenue, and overall brand value. Consumers expect brands to be responsive and responsible, making reputation management an essential component of any successful business strategy.
Is Reputation Management Legal?
As a business that deals with the legalities of things like content removal, content creation and all of our other services, we can categorically say that practicing reputation management in an ethical and considerate way is not illegal.
Reputation management should really be seen as part of a wider marketing communications strategy within a business, overlapping with both PR and digital marketing as well. As the world continues to develop into an almost 100% digital space, the lines between these different disciplines continue to blur, making reputation management an underlying yet essential part of online marcomms.
What are the Different Types of Reputation Management?
Today, reputation management examples can be split into two types—online reputation management (or digital reputation management) and offline reputation management. While online reputation management is now the more dominant form of reputational risk management, offline or traditional reputation management is still very important to know about and implement.
What is Online Reputation Management?
Online reputation management involves monitoring and influencing how a brand is perceived online. This may include managing online reviews, monitoring social media accounts and comments, and looking at how a brand is talked about on other digital platforms to ensure that the brandʼs online reputation is positive and consistent with its values and mission.
Online reviews and social media can significantly impact a brandʼs reputation. According to a recent consumer review study, a significant 85% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation from someone they know. Thatʼs somebody buying a product or service (or choosing not to) based on just one short website review.
To practice effective online reputation management for a company, you will need to engage in the following tasks: Reputation management efforts are crucial, requiring consistent effort and monitoring to address any negative information that may arise and to strategically influence public perception.
Monitor Online Reviews: Regularly check review sites like Google, Yelp and TrustPilot to stay informed about what customers are saying. Negative reviews can and will happen, but the way a business responds to them is key. Be proactive and engage with negative reviews in a genuinely helpful manner.
This will not only reach out to the customer in question but will also stand as a visible example of the businessʼ positive engagement online. In engaging with negative feedback, always exercise caution—we advise that if you do have negative content online such as a particularly negative review, itʼs best to acknowledge and try to resolve the issue, but ultimately attempt to take the conversation offline. Arguing with a customer publicly can just make matters worse…and remember, whatʼs said online very often remains online!
Engage on Social Media: Actively participate in conversations on platforms like Facebook, X (Twitter), TikTok and Instagram to build a positive presence and address any issues promptly.
SEO and Content Management: Ensure that positive content about your brand ranks highly in search engine results to overshadow any negative content.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a long-term process that requires a dedicated digital marketing strategy, and it may be beneficial to outsource this to a specialised digital marketing agency.
What is Offline Reputation Management?
Offline reputation management involves managing a brandʼs reputation in the offline, real world, including managing customer feedback, responding to complaints and building relationships with customers and stakeholders.
While much of todayʼs business interactions occur online, offline reputation management is still extremely important. Offline incidents can also have a knock-on, ripple effect on a brandʼs online reputation. A negative experience with a customer service representative, for example, can lead to a negative review or complaint, or even more extreme consequences like online petitions or boycotts against a brand. A brand’s reputation is shaped by customer experiences and effective communication, emphasizing the need for proactive measures to address negative feedback and maintain a positive brand image.
Key practices for effective offline reputation management include:
- Customer Feedback: Actively seek and respond to customer feedback to show that you value their opinions and are committed to improving.
- Complaint Resolution: Address complaints promptly and effectively to prevent them from escalating and becoming public.
- Build Relationships: Foster strong relationships with customers and stakeholders through excellent service and consistent communication.
Should I Use a Reputation Management Company, or Reputation Software?
A question that often arises in relation to reputation management is whether an organisation or individual should use reputation management services provided by a specialised company, or ‘DIYʼ using reputation management software. The answer to either option really comes down to the scale and size of the business, the reputational risk at stake and practical issues like budget and time required to manage the brandʼs reputation.
Letʼs weigh up the options.
What are the Advantages of Using a Reputation Management Company?
If a business chooses to use a reputation management company, it is choosing to outsource the expertise and resources of managing brand reputation to a large team of experienced reputation managers. A reputation management company can also offer bespoke strategies that help companies to manage particular aspects of their brand perception or instances of reputational damage.
Reputation management experts have the technical know-how, legal backing and in-house staff to implement a cohesive reputation management strategy across content marketing, content creation, SEO, website creation, social media management and PR.
At Igniyte, we use tried-and-tested strategies to manage brand image and to improve the clientʼs customer experience. We also provide a range of niche expertise based on our experiences of managing the reputational risk of multiple brands and individuals, meaning you have access to a library of actionable reputation knowledge without having to experiment with management methods yourself.
In all, if you are a large corporation or an individual with particular reputation management requirements that may need a more considered and expert-backed approach, hiring a reputation management company is a wise move.
What are the Advantages of Using Reputation Management Software?
An increasingly wide range of sophisticated reputation management tools and apps are now reaching the marketplace, designed to bring more reputational control into the heart of a business. Often making use of AI technology to provide analytical insights and swifter automation of marcomms tasks, reputation management software can be incredibly useful for in-house teams.
Many of these reputation management tools can be used to intelligently swerve risk at a very early stage, as in the example of YOONO, which is a new AI-powered screening tool that allows companies to learn more about the individuals they hire or collaborate with. You can use a tool like YOONO to acquire more knowledge about people before you bring them into the business, which is particularly critical when hiring at leadership level.
Social media screening software with companies like Yoono is just one of many reputation management tools that you can incorporate into your online reputation management arsenal. Other useful reputation management software includes Review Management software, Social Media Monitoring tools and Brand Mention Monitoring apps.
While reputation management software is becoming increasingly useful for brands looking to manage their online reputation, it should be noted that these tools should be viewed as a helpful add-on to a more holistic reputation management plan. To really see results, you will need a dedicated reputation strategy in place, either in-house or through an experienced reputation management company.
Strategy in Action: What are the 4 Phases of Reputation Management?
If you want to build or improve the brand reputation of a company over time, we advise and assist our clients in following a three-step strategy:
1. Research and Monitor Your Reputation
Researching and monitoring your reputation is the first step in managing it effectively. This involves assessing your current reputation, identifying areas for improvement, and tracking online mentions and reviews. Tools like Google Alerts, social media monitoring software, and review management platforms can help you stay updated on what people are saying about you or your business. By keeping a close eye on your online reputation, you can quickly identify potential issues, address negative feedback, and build a positive online presence. Regularly monitoring review sites and social media channels ensures that you are aware of customer sentiments and can respond promptly to maintain a strong brand reputation.
2. Build a Positive Reputation Online
To meet your business needs you most likely want to increase sales and attract new customers. Building a positive reputation for the business online should be the first place to start.
A good reputation flows when you have various ‘buildʼ elements in place, which include:
- A professional and engaging website. This is the ‘foundationʼ platform from which the rest of your online presence will originate. The website must be configured to work across all major desktop browsers and smart phones, and to include all alt tags and meta tags listed correctly. The website design should provide an excellent customer experience, and be intuitive to use, showcasing the company and its services at its very best. Without this level of care at the first stage of reputation building, the customer will click away quickly and simply spend their money elsewhere.
- Social media channels must be set up and actively maintained across all relevant platforms. This includes business social media platforms, such as LinkedIn and any other platforms that your customers frequently visit, such as Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter) and Facebook.
- Public review sites, such as Google and TrustPilot are essential for providing reassurance to customers who are making a purchase decision, and assessing how customers feel about the business.
The aim of monitoring your presence on public review sites is to encourage customers to leave positive reviews about your services and for the business name to show up on the first page of search results.
For all of the above build elements, you should keep the following tips in mind:
Try to make it very easy for users to post positive content about you. Include links to all of your social profiles online on your website and ensure that the process of leaving positive reviews is as simple as possible.
Draft clear internal standards for how you and your team will engage with customers going forward. Have a plan and ensure that everyone who needs to see it has a copy. Itʼs much easier to do this with a written document rather than a quick chat. This step should include decisions on how often you will respond and the timings of responses.
As part of the standards, itʼs essential to have a process for interacting with customers who have left negative content, negative reviews or have discovered negative search results when they searched for your company name. None of this is a disaster, as long as itʼs handled appropriately.
3. Maintain Your Positive Reputation
After youʼve laid the foundations for a positive brand reputation, we can move into this second stage, where a comprehensive reputation management plan is put into action. This should include monitoring mentions online, keeping track of negative reviews, posting relevant content on social media, managing engagement levels and anything else you can do to maintain and build upon the positive reputation as it stands.
Understandably, at this stage many businesses donʼt have the capacity and resources to do this in-house, in which case a reputation management company is best placed to assist.
To keep the momentum going and to actually make a difference to the reputation of the business, there is ongoing work required. This may include:
- Website content optimisation. Simply building a website isnʼt enough. Your brandʼs website will need to be populated with up to date, relevant and optimised content, that is directly useful and engaging for your stakeholders and customers.
- Search engine optimisation (SEO). Your content might be fantastic, but if no- one actually finds it, itʼs not worth anything. If a tree falls in a forest…
- Social content creation. Generating consistent and engaging content for your brandʼs social media channels requires an ironclad strategy and schedule. The pace of social media is incredibly fast—brand opinion can quickly change overnight with a viral review, for example, but social platforms also allow brands to react just as quickly to preserve reputation.
4. Recover from Reputation Knock-Backs
The third phase of reputation management is about recovering from the inevitable reputation hits that most businesses will face from time to time. If you employ the steps outlined in the first two phases you will be working from a position of strength in cases of negative brand opinion.
The simplest advice for businesses setting out on a reputation management journey is to realise that almost every organisation will face some kind of public relations crisis, whether itʼs a large-scale crisis like a press scandal or simply a negative review that has gained some traction online. As a result, itʼs always best to be prepared as possible to deal with any negative opinion, and have a strong strategy in place to face it with confidence.
Reputation Management: Preparation is Key!
The secret to good reputation management? A tidy house in order is the first step towards building and maintaining a positive online reputation, as well as providing your business with the tools and resilience to face a larger reputational crisis.
Thank you to our friends at Yoono for working with us on this blog. Yoono is a fast and reliable online screening tool to run accurate background checks on candidates during the recruitment process.
Managing Director at Igniyte – The Reputation Experts
Roz is an industry spokesperson on all areas of online reputation management and our resident digital media expert. She regularly writes about reputation management research, online reputation risk and industry best practice.
