PBA Glossary · Reputation and Trust
Online Reputation Management
When someone hears a name for the first time, they search it. Online reputation management is concerned with what that search returns: the first page of results, review profiles, news and social posts. The work ranges from routine monitoring to repairing the damage after a crisis.
What the Work Includes
- Monitoring search results, review sites, news and social mentions.
- Building accurate material the person controls, such as a website, profiles and published work, so it ranks for their name.
- Encouraging real clients to leave honest reviews.
- Responding to reviews and complaints professionally.
- Asking publishers and platforms to correct factual errors through their own processes.
Why Reviews Carry So Much Weight
What strangers write is read, and it moves decisions. A 2006 study in the Journal of Marketing Research, which looked at online book reviews, found that better reviews were linked to higher relative sales, and that one-star reviews had a larger effect than five-star ones. A 2015 meta-analysis in the Journal of Marketing found that how positive online word of mouth is matters more to sales than how much of it there is. A few thoughtful, honest reviews can count for more than many thin ones.
Tactics to Avoid
- Fake or purchased reviews, including reviews written by staff or by friends who were never clients.
- Paying or pressuring reviewers to remove honest criticism.
- Legal threats used to silence fair comment.
- Networks of thin websites built only to push other results down.
A practice that offers to make negative results disappear, or promises a clean first page by a set date, is promising something it does not control.
Sources
Each source was read at its publisher, its DOI record or an official index such as PubMed. Findings are summarized in plain words; see how sources are chosen.
- Chevalier, J. A., and Mayzlin, D. (2006). The Effect of Word of Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews (opens in a new tab). Journal of Marketing Research, 43(3), 345-354.
- You, Y., Vadakkepatt, G. G., and Joshi, A. M. (2015). A Meta-Analysis of Electronic Word-of-Mouth Elasticity (opens in a new tab). Journal of Marketing, 79(2), 19-39.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is online reputation management?
The ongoing work of monitoring, improving and protecting what people find about a person or business online, especially in search results and reviews.
Can negative search results be removed?
Sometimes, if the content breaks a platform's rules or the law, or is factually wrong and the publisher agrees to correct it. Otherwise the realistic aim is to publish accurate material that ranks above it, which takes time and is never certain.
How long does online reputation management take?
Monitoring and responding never really stop. Changing what ranks for a name usually takes months, depending on how established the existing results are.
Is online reputation management the same as personal branding?
They overlap. Reputation management focuses on what others find and say. Personal branding also covers positioning, voice and the work that creates the material in the first place.
Related: Review Management, Electronic Word of Mouth, Crisis Communications, Search Engine Optimization, Verified Review · In the Wiki: Responding to Reviews and Complaints as an Agency, How to Read Agency Reviews and Verification, Earning Client Reviews Ethically: A Guide for Agencies
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