There’s a reason why the National Enquirer, The Sun, Daily Star, and US Weekly publish content that is all about scandalous behavior. We all love a good fall from grace story (unless it's happening to us), a red hot gossip drop, or a celebrity rumor. And when personal reputations start blowing up like Philadelphia on the 4th of July, we are tapping and swiping our devices to get the latest, juicy tell-all details.

You may not end up on the cover of US Weekly, but you nonetheless have a reputation. And that reputation needs to be managed.

Reputation matters, whether you’re an ordinary individual, an extraordinary individual, a crook, a saint, a political figure, or an entertainer. But reputation matters for more than just individuals. In the world of business, reputation has an ever broader impact.

It’s hard to change someone’s mind. However, it’s easy to confirm one’s biases. And nowhere is this more true than in the world of political reputation management.

Corporate reputation refers to people’s collective opinion regarding a corporation or enterprise. It’s based on such features such as search engine results, news coverage, and the publicized actions of the company. There are there some corporate reputation humdingers out there. The news media loves a sizzling story of a corporation’s fall from grace and with good reason. The public is receptive, clicks ensue, money is made. This is because the human brain seems wired to generate copious amounts of curiosity when the topic is salacious or negative.

Corporate sentiment, or business sentiment, is how people feel about your brand. In more technical terms, it’s the level of confidence that shareholders have in a corporation or business—the prevailing mood or attitude about that company’s success (or lack thereof).

What is Reputation? Reputation is the subjective qualitative belief a person has regarding a brand, person, company, product, or service. Reputation is the key to success.

The best way to define reputation: Reputation is a third-party perception of your, or your brands, character. It is a malleable thing. Malleable by others, or by you. This is because today, people depend on Google to make decisions for them. So, by changing how Google portrays a brand you can change one of the main ways people perceive reputation. 

A person or company’s reputation is based on information (of some kind or another). And every reputation is perceived by people (of some kind or another). Put information and perception together, and you have reputation. 

Left unchecked, your brand is portrayed on the internet by a machine. It may not have your best interests at heart. Reputation management enables a degree of message control specifically tailored to the online environment.

For all the effort and attention that we give to character, it’s reputation that really matters. This is especially true in the business world. But today reputation is focused and distorted through the lens of artificial intelligence systems. That's why online reputation management services exist - to provide balance and a degree of control.

What is reputation management? Reputation management is the effort to influence what and how people think of a brand or person when viewed online. Put another way, character is who you are. Reputation is who other people think you are, and today it's based mainly on what artificial intelligence systems portray about you rather than first-person experience.

Online marketing and SEO for the financial services industry is often heavily regulated by entities like FINRA. The rules financial firms must live by make SEO and content marketing more challenging for the industry. But there are still ways to craft effective campaigns. 

Your company has fallen from grace. Maybe your CEO was arrested for fraud. Maybe E. coli was found in your food and made your restaurant customers sick. Or maybe you’ve just made some ill-advised business decisions over time, and it’s finally caught up with you.

A reputation crisis can be a difficult thing to overcome, but it is possible to repair your reputation. The journey to rebuild your corporate reputation can be summarized in a few key steps: take control of your brand's online presence, know and monitor what is said about you online, and, most importantly, apologize for any missteps. The following roadmap offers a place to begin your journey to rebuild your online reputation. The question is, are you in for the long haul?