Online reputation management enables you to take more ownership over what appears about you on the Internet. Without it, the world controls how you look online.
Here are ten examples of the ways online reputation management is used by individuals, companies and organizations.
To ensure up-to-date and accurate information dominates search results for an organization or individual’s name.
To ensure that factual, credible reference material is readily available online. That reduces the chance that fraudulent information will impact a brand.
To remove unwanted or inappropriate information, photographs or other content from the first few pages of Google search results. Home addresses, ages and other personal information found high on Google searches are especially sought after by online databases which scour the internet for personal information. These databases (“people searches”) then publish such content online without consent from the individual or organization. Once it is posted it stays.
To monitor social media and online forums for red flags signaling potential on- and offline threats against high-profile individuals and their organizations.
To create a strong online presence about a topic. That presence acts as a barrier against potential distortions from third-party content, including anonymous and defamatory material. Without it, such items can go straight to the top of searches – and stay.
To ensure that your story is told by you and not by former partners or other potentially biased parties.
To establish a reputation within your area of expertise on multiple online platforms.
To create an online legacy for a VIP who is preparing for retirement or to exit an organization.
To educate individuals and organizations about basic safeguards to help protect the reputation they have worked hard to establish.
Social innovator and technology consultant Rachel Botsman is the leading global authority on the new era of trust. Her name often surfaces during conversations about the reputation economy. She’s an award-winning author, speaker, university lecturer and media commentator. Her specialism is an engaging and intelligent long-view of how technology is transforming human relationships and what this means for life, work and and how we do business.
A recent EUobserver article, Trust is ‘gold’ in digital age, quoted her on this topic. “Many parts of the world do not appreciate that trust is society’s most precious and fragile asset,” she said.
As early as 2012, she observed that we are at the start of the shift from trusting people more than corporations or government. She called for a measure for this new era, “reputation capital,” defining it as the ‘the sum value of your online and offline behaviors across communities and marketplaces.’ That year at the annual TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, she posed this question: “If someone asked you for the three words that would sum up your reputation, what would you say?”
Botsman has spoken of a time where you won’t need to answer with a traditional “elevator pitch,” or even a list of references or credentials. Instead, she sees “a future in which resumes and even credit scores are irrelevant, replaced by an aggregated digital reputation based on our interactions in the collaborative economy.”
“I believe we are at the start of a collaborative revolution that will be as significant as the industrial revolution,” Botsman told the TEDGlobal audience in Edinburgh. She has further explored such ideas as the co-author of What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption. Pointing to services such as the vacation rental hub AirBnB, errand outsourcer Taskrabbit and community-based learning marketplace Skillshare as examples of how “the old market principles of sharing, swapping and bartering” have been “reinvented for the Facebook age,” Botsman notes that “we have moved from sharing information and music online to transferring trust about how we get things done.”
She forsees an “age where reputation will become your most important asset” and “reputation dashboards” will provide “a real-time stream of who has trusted you when, where and why.” Botsman acknowledges that privacy would be a major concern and a simple algorithm or score wouldn’t suffice, but she still believes the outcome would be worth it: “When we get it right, reputation capital creates a massive positive disruption in who has power, influence and trust. Reputation data will make the resume seem like an archaic relic of the past.”
UC Davis, one of the 10 campuses in the University of California system, is under fire for spending $175,000 on online reputation management to “clean up” its search results. In 2011 campus police pepper-sprayed students protesting a tuition increase. The resulting photographs and videos were shocking — and have become top-ranked Internet content for UC Davis ever since.
Since The Sacramento Bee broke the story, Huffington Post, The New York Times and countless media platforms small and large have reported on it as well. (The Sacramento Bee’s coverage includes the publication of the contracts with the online reputation firms.) Many factors contributed to this train wreck. With the goal of helping readers avoid such a public relations nightmare, here is our take on why UC Davis got into this mess—and what they should have done differently.
Don’t be a misinformed consumer
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to be an informed one. For years, consumers have been misled by the online reputation management (ORM) industry’s use of advertising that implies fast, instant and sure results. Google “online reputation management” and these phrases will appear: Guaranteed! Fast, easy! We specialize in scrubbing your Google results! Want to whitewash your Google results? Hire us! Don’t let one bad review destroy your reputation! Not all online reputation management firms use that kind of marketing. But that is how many ORM firms that target a broad public have advertised. The most effective ORM involves a range of approaches, and won’t be fast or easy. But it also won’t further damage your online image with low-quality content and ethically questionable attempts to manipulate search results.
What else could UC Davis have done? A campaign to improve UC Davis’ search results would require a year or longer. It would be very difficult to move the pepper-spray photographs and videos down in search results—they are on the Internet’s highest-ranking platforms. By publishing new content that is just as highly ranked, though, an ORM campaign might counter-balance them. The pepper-spray incident will no longer dominate search results, but they will still be present on the first page of results.
UC Davis should have started by launching a video series that addresses their errors and describing how it could and should have handled the protest. It should have created a YouTube channel specifically for that purpose and then conducted a series of video interviews with students and UC Davis leaders to include all points of views. This material could be widely shared on social media. We would have recommended UC Davis also commission an independent documentary film to tell the story and put it into a historical context, with takeaways at the end to help other institutions understand how to avoid similar crises.
It’s a policy decision To consider this approach, UC Davis would have had to have been informed that nothing would dramatically change their current search results. Then, the leadership would have had to agree to apologize for the error. A legal team would need to evaluate all of those steps (and would probably advise against it). Heads might have rolled. The Chancellor may have had to step down. What would result from this strategy? Extremely high-ranking online content. National news stories. Substantial social media sharing.
Done well, it could equal the current search results. UC Davis could turn lemons into lemonade by establishing an annual conference to examine and shed light on best-practices for supporting student protests and utilizing them to make policy changes. This strategy would have been authentic and transparent. It would not erase the 2011 content. But it would position it (correctly) as a crisis the university has learned from and faced head-on.
The ethics question
It is being reported that UC Davis’s online reputation tactics have necessitated communications budget increases. Considering that the initial protest was against tuition increases, that is a reputational catastrophe. Furthermore, public attention has focused on the ethics of trying to erase unflattering content. Online reputation management can be undertaken in an ethical way. The first step is for the ORM industry to stop making false claims about what it can do, and how. The second is for consumers to educate themselves about the practice so they understand their options. There are no tricks and gimmicks to magically wipe away high-ranking Internet content. It is possible to achieve that, but not in cases such as this.
ORM is always a long-term undertaking. It is also impossible to hide the truth on the Internet. The more visible an organization is and the more the issue of ethics is involved, the more likely it will come out. So if you face a crisis, look at how to make the truth the bedrock of your reputation management approach. It may be painful, but the first step is often acknowledging and apologizing for an error. When you interview prospective providers, ask if they will be available to advise you and your team in person, to guide you in implementing best-practice reputation repair strategies in-house. This adds privacy and eliminates detailed contracts and reports. It is less profitable for reputation management firms, so not all offer this option. Using an attorney to represent you adds another layer of privacy.
In Vanity Fair’s current cover story on Rihanna, she discusses the chasm between her reality and her reputation. Jay-Z confirms that her authenticity is one of her biggest attractions. That was our take, too, when we published this in December 2012.
At 24, Rihanna is one of the world’s biggest pop stars. She’s become the most-liked person on Facebook by acting in a way that many celebrities don’t: genuinely.
The combination of authenticity and transparency has earned her recognition ranging from TIME’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” to Forbes’ “Celebrity 100” and “Social Networking Superstars.” “Rihanna’s fans love her all the more for being so brazenly imperfect,” wrote Huffington Post’s Kia Makarechi, whose take rings true in the singer’s candid talk in a recent Vogue profile.
Recent 777 Turbulence
Given her self-proclaimed “Good Girl Gone Bad” reputation, the reports from Rihanna’s recent 777 Tour weren’t that surprising. To promote her new album she invited some lucky fans and more than 150 journalists to jet around on a seven-country, seven-concert jaunt. First-hand accounts offered harrowing tales of what transpired, but they steered clear of blaming Rihanna, instead lamenting the exhausting travel and poor execution of the weeklong trip.
She ended up showing her travel companions the other side of being a global pop icon—it can be incredibly grueling. “It’s impossible to spend time with everybody, and I’m sorry I didn’t,” she told the press as the tour came to an end, later elaborating in an interview with BBC’s Radio 1.
Image counselors might advise that she reward the participants with an all-expenses-paid trip to one of her concerts in Paris or Las Vegas. Or, to make a donation in their names to organizations that support less fortunate fans, like homeless teens. (She already supports many charities.) But the spin control long utilized by other superstars may not be necessary – and isn’t in keeping with her approach to her career.
“…Rihanna, who earned $53 million last year… is the pleasure principle incarnate,” wrote Camille Pigalia last week.
The article cites thegrugq, the author of several practical guides to protecting yourself from hacking. He points out that, “Security is a trade-off against efficiency” and that it can be difficult to make the additional effort when consequences seem remote or unlikely.
But if the hack of AshleyMadison…and Adobe.com…and even the website for Dominos Pizza…tells us anything, the chance of being hacked is no longer remote (check Have I Been Pwned? to see if you already have been). Now is a good time to reconsider what the right level of operational security is for you—and implement it, consistently.
The New York Times today published “‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Online Could Spread,” an article discussing the imminent proliferation of ‘right to be forgotten’ laws and the problems they could cause.
So far, the law has been overwhelmingly used in ways most people would support—mostly removing links to private personal information. But individual nations have demanded that Google remove access to information worldwide, and other countries are considering more aggressive laws.
This will be a battle between advocates of privacy and of free speech, vastly complicated by notions of sovereignty. How it develops is critical to practitioners of ORM, but it could impact how the Internet is experienced by everyone.
Two of the most respected magazines in the art world have made headlines by announcing their merger. Art in America, an elegant glossy established in 1913, is merging with ArtNews, established in 1902, which is renowned for its annual guide to the top collectors.
Art in America, ArtNews and their peers represent and report on a rarefied world, one that traffics in the highest levels of taste, education, and finance. They bring together some of the most creatively incandescent people in the world with some of its wealthiest.
When We Transitioned to Digital
My prior company, Cultural Communications, specialized in PR. Because of that, I had a first-hand look at the seeds that grew into this merger. Cultural Communications was an early adapter of the Internet. We were one of the first companies in our industry to offer sophisticated digital content capabilities to our clients.
When the online reputation management (ORM) industry was still in its infancy, Cultural Communications received requests by a range of companies to orchestrate online campaigns. That is when I decided to refocus on digital brand-building and re-form the company as Reputation Communications.
As my company was retained by hedge funds and financial services companies to provide online reputation management services, we reduced the number of art projects we took on to prepare for our transition into a new industry and new verticals. A book we promoted at that time was Skate’s Art Investment Handbook, published in 2006 and authored by a Russian financier named Sergey Skaterschikov, the CEO of Skate Capital.
The Once-Opaque Art Industry
Mr. Skaterschikov, then in his early 30s, became the first independent provider of stock indices and company data on Russian and later Eastern European emerging capital markets when he was 20. He turned his attention to the art market after he noticed the large size of many of its transactions. As he researched it, he was struck by its lack of transparency– and by its general inefficiency when compared to other investment markets. He wrote Skate’s Art Investment Handbook in part to explain why the art market’s operational structure was unsustainable. He predicted, among many other things, that auctions and art sales would in coming years be handled online with full transparency – or at least significantly more.
As publicists for his book, we found the business and investment media to be receptive to his ideas. The Wall Street Journal was the first to express interest; Forbes, like many other publications, wanted to meet him personally. The art world media, though, was skeptical. There were art journalists that met Mr. Skaterschikov, read his book and became colleagues. But ArtNews and many other art periodicals ignored Skate’s Art Investment Handbook. They were as resistant toward his point of view as horse-drawn carriage owners once were toward Henry Ford.
The Deal
Last year Mr. Skatershikov’s investment company, Skate Capital, bought ArtNews. It was later revealed that Skate was acting on behalf of the Polish company Abbey House, though he retained a percentage of ArtNews’ ownership. News has broken that ArtNews will buy 100 percent of Art in America, TheMagazine Antiques, Modern Magazine and related archives and digital properties from owner Peter Brant (though he will retain Interview). Skate Capital will sell him 6,400,500 shares of the newly created company Artnews S.A. for $3.4 million. BMP, Mr. Brant’s company, and Skate Capital plan to list Artnews on Germany’s Deutsche Boerse in 2016.
Very notably, the most visible portion of the merger will take place online, creating the world’s largest online art world media property. Digital content can be monetized in a variety of ways, as big players like BuzzFeed and VoxMedia show. (On the same day as the ArtNews and Art in America merger was made, NBC Universal neared a deal to invest $250 million in BuzzFeed. The site is known for its popular cat videos, among other widely-shared content that often goes viral, raising its value to advertisers.)
ArtNews and Art in America are unlikely to get into the cat video arena, but publications in many fields can still learn from the merger. Time Inc, for example, is one of many publications grappling to stay alive and relevant in this new digital age. They might do well to take a page from Mr. Skatershikov’s playbook.
