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One of the most frequently asked questions online reputation management (ORM) firms receive is, Why is this outdated/irrelevant/negative/false content still showing up in my Google search results? Despite the fact that AI overviews now appear at the top of 47% of Google search results, AI systems (like Google) prioritize the credibility of established news sources and official documents. As a result, displacing negative media articles, old legal notices, and other problematic content now takes significantly longer. AI systems prioritize keeping them prominently ranked in search results.

The online reputation management industry exists to strategize and publish content on Google (and now, in AI data) that will shape its search results. Before we get into how online reputation management works, it merits some initial insights about what Google seeks. And now, AI.

Ultimately, Google’s goal is to provide visitors with the most relevant and reliable information about every topic that is searched for.

So, sites that have the most comprehensive and well-written information, have the highest number of visitors, and are linked to the most legitimate and high-ranking websites, are the ones that come up the highest and fastest in Google searches.

This is especially true now, as Google’s algorithm increasingly utilizes AI (artificial intelligence) to determine what search results to rank highly. We blogged about this: Big Changes to Google’s Search Results.  Equally notable is Microsoft’s growing ambition to take a bigger piece of Google’s business, which we wrote about here: Microsoft Signals a New Era for ‘Search’ Online. Bottom line: Clunky, poorly written content with SEO-centered tricks are out the window. 

What hasn’t changed is that after AI summaries, Wikipedia and LinkedIn entries are often the first to come up in someone’s results, at least on Google. A personal branding website (yourname.com) is next, or in the top results. Social media accounts, if used often, frequently appear on the first page.

Media articles or legal notices on government websites, no matter how old, often dominate your search results because they meet Google’s criteria for credibility and relevance more than any other information on the Internet. They can be displaced through frequent “refreshes” of newly published social content, website updates and authoritative content that links to the information online you own or manage. Using the latest technology for your websites and content is also important, because Google vets how fast sites download on mobile phones, which can influence their rank in the algorithm.

Google currently accounts for 86% of the global search market, so it is to your advantage to understand Google’s algorithm and how search engine optimization (SEO) works to improve the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. Google publishes considerable, free information about this topic. It also keeps the world informed every time it makes a change to its algorithm via the Twitter site, Google Search Central (@googlesearchc). MOZ, a leading platform for SEO specialists, publishes an extensive free guide for anyone wanting to learn the workings of SEO, as well as free tools for assessing a site’s SEO and subscription tools for ramping up SEO. There are a myriad of other resources, including SEMrush and Search Engine Journal.

Know that managing the online content about you and curating your personal and professional brand to ensure it is the most relevant and reliable data available about you will go a long way in shaping how the world perceives you online.

Our post, “10 Ways Online Reputation Management is Used,” illustrates its most common applications. Contrary to popular opinion, though, ORM is not a magic wand that removes unwanted information from the Internet – at least, not in the U.S., the market this article focuses on.  (Typically, content can be removed when it does not meet the website’s “terms of use.” Defamatory anonymous comments are one example of such content.)

ORM involves placing new content online that pushes old or unwanted content lower in search results. It can also raise other online content higher to displace unwanted material. Once successfully arranged, the results must be maintained. Otherwise, the unwanted material may resurface at the top of Google search results — usually within three to six months.

New content does not automatically appear at the top of search results. The key challenge of  ORM is to create content that search engines will rank highly. That involves an understanding of search engine algorithms as well as, increasingly, the ability to create high-quality content.  The best ORM uses strategies that Google considers “white hat,” which is described in the SEO section below.

Managing your digital footprint

ORM consists of monitoring, improving and maintaining the publicly available online information about individuals, businesses and organizations. (We also describe it is as “managing your digital footprint.”) ORM began in the mid-‘90s, in response to the proliferation of online social media and the opportunities for anonymous commentary to be made about anyone—and for that commentary to remain online forever.

ORM helps you create and maintain an appropriate online image so that any attacks on your image are counterbalanced with more credible, factual information. It helps remove personal addresses and other data from public databases, also known as “people search” databases. It protects your online brand from being taken over and misused by third-parties. There are also specialized services that help businesses to track and manage their consumer reviews.

Since the European Union passed the Google “Right to be Forgotten” law, many U.S. citizens have taken a renewed interest in trying to have their own content removed from the Internet. Our tips for becoming an informed consumer regarding your removal options are featured in this post: How Google’s Content Removal Request Process Works.

To learn more about the growing power of future “Right to Be Forgotten” laws, read this interview: “Dan Shefet: Creator of the Internet’s Ombudsman.”

Management, repair and monitoring

Managing the information that is publicly available online about you or your organization allows you to “take ownership” of your reputation. When you don’t take an active role in determining what biographical and professional information about you appears online, others may make that decision for you. “Others” include automatic programs (“bots”) that continuously collect and index publicly available information online. Many focus on personal data, which can include your age, home address and family members’ names.

That’s why it’s important to take the first step of knowing what information about you exists online. You can’t control what people say about you in articles, blogs and online forums. But you do have control over such items as professional biographies, company profiles (often compiled by sources other than your place of employment) and other types of content.

The more you contribute to the body of information about you that is online, the more you can sup­plant inaccurate and unwanted information that may surface about you (or someone with the same name). Having a significant body of factual information about you online also ensures you have a presence in the wider community. You can use it as a tool to present a more mature image of yourself as well as to help prevent age discrimination during a job search. 

Online reputation management is necessary because anyone can say anything online — anonymously, posing as an expert or as someone else. As mentioned before, bots also continuously locate and publish any data they locate from public records found on the Internet—including telephone directories and real estate ownership records filed at county courthouses.

The engineers who developed the Internet in the late ’60s and early ’70s didn’t foresee billions of people would be online now. As Internet use evolved, no mandatory laws or universal systems were enstated to authenticate credentials and identify Internet users.

Few laws are in place to regulate or address what is said and posted online. Currently, website operators have legal immunity over what is said and posted on their sites. That means they are not held responsible for it in a court of law (except, generally, in cases that constitute defamation).

Why? Because of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, a law regulating Internet content that has not been updated to meet the tremendous proliferation of online usage and proliferation of social media platforms.

According to Section 230 of the Act, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

Scrubbing Your Personal Info from the Internet, by Reputation Communications Advisory Board member Don Aviv, explains how people-search databases work and why they are dangerous. If you have been wondering how to remove all those listings advertising your home address (with photographs and value), look no more.

If the information is abusive or violates the law you can contact Google to submit a legal removal request. (Before doing so, it is best to check Google’s Program Policies to see if the material is considered inappropriate.) In June, 2021, Google announced plans to remove slanderous information about people published online and to also lower the types of extortion sites that often publish it. Our blog post has more info: Google Plans to Suppress Slander for Victims of Online Attacks.

Otherwise, much depends on where it is located and how it originated. There are many online information platforms that exist to aggregate and republish information. Some allow users to access their profile, so you can edit and update information about you on those sites. Other platforms make that process much more difficult. Public databases like Intelius collect home addresses, ages, family members’ names and other information that they publish in profiles that are accessible to virtually anyone.

Blogs often will correct information that is inaccurate (the name of your company, your title or position, etc), if you contact them in a neutral, reasonable manner – the way you would a newspaper editor.

If the information is on other platforms, such as an online gossip site, you have little control over it short of legal action (if you have grounds for an online defamation suit). In many cases, any request you email to the website administrator can be ignored, declined or posted online, as these actions are compliant under the U.S. government’s Communications Decency Act.

The expungement, or erasure, of public records from news providers and other resources is an issue of growing debate. 

As noted before, creating your own online image – with information that accurately profiles your career, business and other relevant endeavors – is the best strategy for counteracting and possibly replacing inaccurate online information. LinkedIn is a useful tool to begin building such an image. Publishing articles and posts on your LinkedIn profile will help it rise high online.

When any computer connects to the Internet it is assigned a unique code of numbers called an IP address. Computers connect to the Internet through Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which register the IP addresses of users.

Identifying anonymous posters can be difficult, especially if they are hiding their identity. (They can accomplish that by using Tor, a free tool that conceals IP addresses.) While logs collected by the blog host might correlate posts to a particular IP address, the address may not necessarily reveal the poster with any level of certainty. Difficulties may arise from public network use, dynamic IP address assignment, access from private networks that translate addresses, or through the use of internet proxies which are used to “sanitize” identities. If the blog is maintained in a public forum the only way to access log information is through legal action.

Legal action can result in a court order and subpoena for an ISP to identify the IP address. Law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and police departments around the country obtain IP identification every day.

The field of forensic cyber investigations is a large one.  Such investigators often succeed in identifying anonymous posters and emailers through their IP addresses…going so far as to locate the users’ home addresses and other identifying information.

If you are a celebrity, public or high net worth figure and you are the focus of cyberstalking or similar serious threats online, our interview with Philip Grindell, “the online security guard,” provides important information and potential resources: Philip Grindell, Protecting Clients from Harm on Social Media and the Dark Web.

How Scores of Reputations Were Intentionally Destroyed, provides insight into how people maliciously use the internet to defame others. The lengths it can take to identify them are eye-opening.

Online defamation lawsuits are a large area in legal practice. (Reputation Communications CEO Shannon Wilkinson serves as an expert defamation witness in some legal cases.) If something posted about a person is deemed by a court to be a false and unprivileged statement of fact harmful to someone’s reputation – or, to cite recent cases, is “injurious,” interferes with one’s livelihood or possesses any number of related characteristics – the website can be required by law to remove the information and reveal the poster’s identity.

“An Attorney’s Advice for Removing Negative, Defamatory and Infringing Material from the Internet,” by Christine Rafin, Esq., provides insight into what is possible. (Her companion piece, ““Legal Options When Battling Online Copyright Infringement”, is also helpful.) “What to Do When You Are the Victim of Online Defamation”, provides additional overviews of your options. 

People who have successfully sued in response to online defamation (typically a series of anonymous posts about them) have been awarded millions of dollars in damages. The posters identities have become public, often in the news media.

It is not always possible to have anonymous comments about you removed from an online forum or other platform—but it can be done, especially if the material is clearly defamatory. If you are the topic of such content, look for their user policy. Sometimes they will not only remove the offensive material when requested to do so, but they will block the user who posted it from their site.

You can also support Right2Remove, which advocates for “Right to Remove” privacy policy legislation “that allows for the removal of content from Internet platforms that is designed to cause reputational harm to consumers in the United States.” Their vision is for Congress to introduce a “Right to Remove” bill that can be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission or an independent review panel.

Tips for Safely Browsing the Internet

Be cautious of visiting obscure sites with potentially defamatory or invasive content about you or your organization. All sites are full of tracking mechanisms that capture your computer’s IP address (unless you use TOR) as well as your geographical location and other data. There are also programs that can collect your email address when you visit a site – even if you have not provided it. However, the obscure sites in particular are more likely to have malware that can infect your computer. Tread with care. 

Use caution when sending emails, too. Don’t say anything you would not want published on the front page of a major newspaper (or online platform). Look into encrypted services like Proton, which is free. It is a favorite of many top privacy and cyber security experts. 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s online defamation law guide for bloggers includes helpful general information on this topic.

In June 2014, good news was announced for victims of “revenge porn.” Google announced it would be removing links to revenge porn websites. Since then, many states in the U.S. have enacted laws protecting victims. Lawyers like Carrie Goldberg began specializing in the new area of cyber harassment and revenge.

Elsewhere, the open culture of the Internet – where it is common for bloggers to be transparent about editing errors they have corrected and post disclaimers if they write about a company they have worked for or accepted product samples from – helps explain why it can be so hard to have a photograph (or anything else) removed. Doing so without a publicly posted explanation would be considered unethical by many online publishers and writers. Wikipedia is a good example of this system. Whenever a fact is changed, removed or replaced, it is accompanied by an explanation of who edited it and why the edit was made.

So not only is your request likely to be declined, it is possible it may be published on the site, drawing more attention to the image and making you the target of other sites that will post the image. In any case, the longer a photograph stays online, the more it is cached (stored) by other sites and gains prominence in search engines.

The best option is to post your own photographs online – the images you believe represent you and your organization best and most authentically – and take action to ensure they take precedence over other images of you in search engine results. You can do this by publishing a different photograph in as many appropriate social media profiles as possible. If they are tagged, they will show up in search results, eventually dominating them.

If you are on Facebook, make sure your Facebook privacy controls are up to date. They are constantly evolving. The same is true of most, if not all, social media platforms.

Family offices — privately held companies that handle investment management and wealth management for wealthy families — face special reputation management challenges.

High net worth individuals (HNWI’s) are often the subjects of articles, Internet conversations, commentary and speculation on topics ranging from their appearance and behavior to leaked internal office documents.

Most HNWI’s and those who serve them do not wish to have a high profile, whether online or off. Indeed, most prefer to be “invisible” online. Unfortunately, that is very difficult to achieve….especially in the U.S., where we have limited legal rights regarding what is said and done to us on the internet.

Data Scraping Invades Privacy

Another reason is “data scraping.” Computer “bots” continually scan the Internet and collect the personal information of people who often don’t even realize that information is available. It is scoured from public records such as online telephone directories, driver license bureaus and the local courthouses that maintain legal records of property ownership. Then it is published in one of dozens of online “people search” databases that populate the Internet. Virtually anyone can access it for free or a nominal amount of money, like $9.99.

Other examples include:

• Websites created in a family office executive’s or family member’s name, intended to denigrate, or attract inappropriate attention to you. The content on these sites can range from responses to your political views to public protests over an offices initiatives, investments, or charitable giving.
• Anonymous and biased negative commentary about you on public Internet forums.
• Caricatures and doctored photographs of you.
• Organized campaigns on X and other social media platforms (also known as “disinformation campaigns”) that attack your credibility and views.
• Demeaning photographs and text on blogs or public sites posted by former spouses and partners.

Cyber harassment and stalking are particularly invasive issues. One victim was the subject of over 50 fake blogs and social media accounts defaming him, with new ones appearing as quickly as existing ones were shut down via legal action. Another HNWI was the focus of a cyberstalker who made over 2,000 changes to his Wikipedia page, all false.

Common Sources of Reputation Attacks Impacting Privacy

Current or former colleagues, employees, and/or romantic partners who, disappointed by a lack of an anticipated raise, promotion, or proposal, can (and do) deliberately publish private documents and photographs on internet forums…or doctor them to turn neutral information into false news.

Lawsuits filed by former employees can contain highly detailed descriptions of the homes and behavior of family members. One such a claim became public and was published on a legal website. The focus of it was the private lives of one of the wealthiest families in America.

How to Protect Yourself

If there is little information online about you that you or your representatives have placed and have control over, whatever information third parties place online will dominate search results of your name. It may also appear in AI summaries about you and your organization.

You can lose control over your public image if you become the focus of attacks, unfavorable media articles, lawsuits, #MeToo and other types of content that often populates the first page of HNWI’s Google results. It is far more difficult and time-consuming to regain that control than to establish it in the first place. Many of the issues we have resolved for our clients stem from exactly that situation.

Family offices can minimize the likelihood of becoming targets of such issues by creating a strategic information program and publishing it online so it establishes a safe body of content that will rank highly on the internet.

It is possible to create such a campaign while saying little about the  family: publishing general information regarding philanthropic undertakings and non-controversial topics can be used in a multitude of platforms. Such information provides a “digital barrier” to protect fake news and other negative attacks from rising to the top of a Google search in your name. Without it, you have no defense against such material.

Many damaged reputations occur when people, businesses and organizations don’t manage the information available about them online – and haven’t put any general information about themselves online.  When such resources aren’t established, material from public records, old articles and a myriad of other sources can easily rise to the top of search engine results…and stay there. That is why branding yourself online is so important.

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a “name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” A brand can also apply to an individual’s career and personal interests, in a process called “personal branding,” Advice about personal branding has been circulating for decades, but it was Tom Peters’ 1997 Fast Company article “The Brand Called You” that thrust the term into mainstream usage. More recently, New York City-based agency Leibowitz Design created this A-Z guide to branding.

Creating a personal brand is the first step in reputation management. This brand establishes a foundation for showcasing your value, differentiating you from your competitors and affirming your reputation.

Many people have built notable careers without intentionally branding themselves. At some point, however, even they may find it helpful to rebrand themselves or establish their brand on a more visible platform.

Don’t leave the creation of your brand to strangers

Without a current, clearly identifiable brand, you leave the interpretation of your achievements, skills and identity to other people. That interpretation will usually be based on incomplete, and sometimes inaccurate, information. Part of establishing a brand is building a strong presence online. As mentioned before, a common reason why people suffer online reputation damage is that they lack a strong “digital footprint” – a significant, informative and current body of material about them on the Internet. Without that reputation insurance, anything that anyone posts online about you (or even someone who shares your name) goes straight to the top of results and can stay there when anyone searches for your name. The more online “assets” you own, the more tools you have in hand to suppress such material. Creating them is what ORM professionals call “building a digital firewall.”

The single most important step you can take to establish, build and protect your online reputation is to register your domain name (“yourname.com”) online. Many companies provide that service, but Squarespace Domains is our recommended resource.

How do you brand yourself?

The primary branding tools are factual information, a new photograph and a website. After establishing a website, profiles can be created on key online and social media platforms. Those are all digital assets, invaluable in taking ownership of your name online. If you are an expert, a blog is an effective way to publish consistent, quality and extensive content. So are podcasts, videos and Substack newsletters. Such content can occupy a considerable amount of valuable online real estate because it can be amplified on LinkedIn, X and numerous other sites. We create such content for clients who are experts but lack the time to write their own posts.

If there is already substantial information about you online, those steps alone are insufficient to restructure top Google results in a search of your name. But if you are not a high-profile person, they are the first actions to take. Nine times out of ten, the prospective clients who contact us lack such critical content. We have created numerous such assets for clients who lack ownership of their name online. The result has been a restructured order of Google content that appears about them…with quality content that is also authentic. We have also created effective strategies for high-profile individuals who have reams of information about them on Google, but lack control over what is said about them. Now, much of the content we have created about (and for) clients appears in their AI search results.

Before you brand yourself, develop your key message. After all, you are the CEO of your career (and life). How do you want to be perceived? How can you differentiate yourself from others? Establish a series of benchmark goals and implement them until you have a strong, authentic brand identity. The more well-established your brand, the better your ability to build consensus, make an impact and attract opportunities. 

Take care when you plan your social media content. Most companies are now using pre-employment screening services that vet all of your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media posts to see if any “red flags” come up. If they do, you might not get an offer…and you may never know the cause.

Be sure to protect your brand once you have established it. Check out our post about how one attorney filed a federal complaint using the Anti-Cybersquatting law and won a permanent injunction to protect her brand after someone hijacked her name. It helps explain why protecting your brand is so important.

The four main tools of ORM include content, platforms, search engine optimization (SEO) and strategy.

Content. The most effective content begins with information-rich text that is not duplicated elsewhere online. It is helpful, relevant and well written. It can be augmented with video, photographs, podcasts and most anything else that can be placed online. SEO, platforms and strategy can only take you so far without continuously updated, quality content. That is why the best ORM campaigns have  a content plan at their center.

Platforms. Platforms are the online sites where content is placed: websites, blogs, micro blogs, forums, directories, news sites, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, X, and other outlets.

Search engine optimization. SEO is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines using frequently-searched-for words, inbound links (links to the site from other sites), effective meta tags and other techniques, including the way a website is structured. Google’s Webmaster Tools is an invaluable resource with extensive (and free) best-practices guidelines to SEO.

Creating high-quality content that attracts visitors has long been the most important aspect of SEO. It is only getting more important as AI and AI-driven search engine algorithms evolve to better identify the best sites.

Strategy. Every online reputation is different. Managing them requires a goal, strategic plan and timetable. It is well worth the effort.

What to do when negative online information is accurate, or just appears to be so?

The first impulse of anyone who is the subject of negative online commentary is to get rid of it – especially if it is true. But even after multiple attempts to resolve the situation you may see it persist for months or years.

We find a content strategy is the best solution to counter significant negative information online about you or your company. Together with the right technology, SEO strategies and social media platforms, new content is the most effective tool in substantially diminishing the placement of negative online content.

But a content strategy does not alter the facts.

A content strategy very effectively counters disinformation. But it does not alter the facts. If the negative online information is true, the best approach may be to own it. To “own” a fact is to acknowledge it. Doing so makes clear that you accept responsibility and are not trying to hide the truth. It also restores your ability to participate in the argument and ultimately influence perception of those facts. If appropriate, you might indicate the steps you have taken to address the issue in a positive way or ensure it does not reoccur. How this will be done depends on of the strength and character of the online presence you have built. There are a variety of options for turning what was negative into something positive.

It may be best to present a new, balanced image

In many cases it may be advisable to create a new or updated online image that authentically integrates these new facts with the achievements and the goals in your professional (and personal) life. This can be expressed in many ways, on multiple platforms, to provide a balanced view…even if you don’t reference the negative issue in your new content.

If the negative material does not disappear altogether, this new online image will present audiences a far more accurate and comprehensive image of you. Without this tactic, you leave the shaping of your image to your detractors.

Keep in mind that if you are preparing to raise capital, cultivate new business partners or join a new organization in a senior role, you may be the subject of a due diligence investigation that will turn up such issues. How you have handled it may influence how you are perceived by your potential colleagues or employers.

Most people – and organizations – get involved in philanthropic pursuits out of a genuine desire to use their capital to reduce suffering and injustice. But it can also be a central part of a strategy to repair their reputation.

In such cases, the first step often taken by a public relations crisis management team is to affiliate their high-profile client with a charitable cause. The ensuing donations, events and sponsorships often improve the situation. Many of the most-respected public companies maintain a longstanding involvement in philanthropic causes for the social and public relations benefits that arise from these activities.

Microfunding, grants, sponsorships, foundations and “high impact philanthropy” – the practice of making charitable contributions with the intention of maximizing social good – have all been important in shaping contemporary international society. Gifts can be in the form of time, money or the donation of a valued commodity to a community, individual or cause that needs it. There are many opportunities to become more involved in philanthropy. If you establish a foundation, you have limitless ways to create authentic, worthwhile content while supporting important causes.

LinkedIn is best known as a professional networking resource—but it is also an important tool for ORM. 

As a top-ranked online networking platform, LinkedIn earns a high ranking from search engines for each of its pages. So, in any search made through a major engine, relevant LinkedIn profiles will appear among the first results.

Creating a LinkedIn profile is one of the quickest and easiest ways to create highly visible content. LinkedIn features let you personalize your profile to highlight your skills, publish articles, follow influential thought leaders, and monitor who views your profile. Use them all: the more content you add to it, the higher it will rise online, creating a valuable digital asset for you. That will also contribute to your career, as this interview with top Silicon Valley talent sourcer Martha Josephson illustrates.

Most important is that you control the content in your LinkedIn profile. With it you can ensure there is a factual and readily accessible source of information about you online. That is critical if search results of your name yield little information about you or come from third-party sources or the information that appears is substantially inaccurate or out-of-date.

LinkedIn is a major publishing platform for its users. You can publish articles there which can be read by hundreds or thousands of readers. Then you can amplify them with social media tools. Better, post videos. Videos are now the most popular type of content on LinkedIn.

Social media plays an especially important role in maintaining and growing online reputations. It can also ruin them.

Professionals invest time and capital to ensure such social media platforms as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and X contain content appropriate to their stature and reflect both personal and professional goals. Celebrities have found social media an effective platform to promote their creative projects, support their philanthropic causes, and stay attuned to their audience. Using it carelessly, though, can backfire. Especially in a politically charged climate like our current one.

Nevertheless, there are many reasons why a company or organization may not be active on social media. Some do not allow employees to utilize social media.

Some companies – and people – avoid engaging social media simply because they don’t understand the social media culture. Or, they may feel that the risks inherent in social media usage by employees outweigh the potential benefits to the company’s brand and customer engagement. Others prefer to stay below the radar online for privacy reasons. They like having virtually no online profile, especially when they work in industries where privacy is important.

If you don’t feel comfortable with the idea of using social media, don’t.

Reputation management isn’t pretending to be someone you aren’t or whitewashing your background; it means that you have taken steps to ensure the audience you care about knows who you are.

According to the Reputation Institute, reputation is the new corporate and professional currency. The business world understands what is at stake. Mainstream companies such as Toyota and MasterCard now have reputation managers. “Reputational risk” is the second biggest concern of boards of directors, surpassing regulatory issues.

Who controls your image?

If you do not purposefully shape your online image, someone else will do it for you.

Case in point: Many companies now undertake background checks on potential new hires by scouring their social networking channels (they also monitor the online activities of current employees). This is important news for users of all social media platforms, especially those who do not realize the impact that their online posts can have on their career opportunities. AI is used to “red flag” posts that reference violence, racism, political and other views.

News headlines regularly offer examples of the dangers of reckless online communication. But, if managed properly, your online image can be a powerful tool in your personal and professional life.

Trust is a key factor in doing business and building relationships, and a degree of transparency is necessary to engender trust. Your online presence offers that transparency. That is just one benefit of establishing and maintaining a strong online reputation.

How can you help your CEO and senior management protect – and maintain – their reputations when two-thirds of the online content about them is posted by consumers, or even competitors? When anyone can create a Web site accusing the CEO of a publicly traded company of any number of questionable actions, even if all of the accusations are false? When internal emails and confidential documents are not only routinely leaked, but quoted in The New York Times?

If you work in PR, the online era – the age of forced transparency – has broadened and added complexity to your role. Helping your CEO and senior management understand the reputational issues they could face is essential to helping them prepare for and navigate this new terrain. The first step is to ensure your agency has adapted to the new fundamentals of public relations. Then, take these steps.

Develop a reputation protection checklist

Develop a reputation protection checklist to review with top management. Focus on three areas: creating, updating or expanding the online information about them; monitoring that information daily so you are aware of what is being posted about them in online forums, blogs and media; and having a crisis response plan ready to enact – including on holidays and weekends, when many online issues develop. Ensuring their personal information – including home addresses – is removed from online databases is also important.

If your company does not already have an in-house system for cultivating online dialogues with customers, assess whether it would benefit from one. When they can’t easily and immediately engage with a company’s customer support system, dissatisfied and frustrated customers will vent on review sites. Many subscription platforms allow a company to quickly build an online area where customers can connect with each other and company representatives to report problems, share ideas and build a sense of community. 

It is far preferable to address a customer’s complaints on a forum you provide. There are few laws in place to regulate or address what is posted online. Web site operators currently have legal immunity over what is posted on their sites. That makes it difficult, if not impossible, for you to have inappropriate or inaccurate content removed from other sites, even if it is biased.

Many reputations suffer needlessly

Much damage to the online reputations of executives could have been prevented. Ideally, the first AI summaries and entries of a Google, Bing, or other search of an executive’s name will contain verified, factual information about them. When that is not the case, their vulnerability to misinformation increases.

Social media can be effective online reputation support tools. But they are not appropriate for all executives, including those in highly regulated fields like banking, pharmaceuticals and financial services. In that case, there are many other tools you can explore with them, including a variety of publishing and information platforms. Help them realize there are many ways to establish an online presence – and that they are not necessarily living in the Stone Age if they do not have an Instagram or X profile.

If you are a PR consultant providing Wikipedia editing services to your clients, understand Wikipedia’s new rules for paid contributors — and follow them.