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. Whether you're selling water or running for President, your online reputation precedes you. By changing how Google portrays a brand you can change one of the main ways people perceive reputation.

In today’s digital environment, reputation is more important, more pervasive, more unforgettable, and more meaningful than ever. It's difficult to build, enhance, sustain, and protect a reputation that'll last (even for a reputation management agency). It’s also easy to neglect, abuse, reject, or shred a reputation in just a short amount of time. A disaster can happen in minutes, and circle the globe within hours. That's why it's so important to maintain an active reputation management strategy. Let's unpack what reputation really is.

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. 

What is reputation management? 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.

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. Although a damaged corporate reputation may seem impossible to reverse, the journey to rebuild it 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. There will be ups and downs, but with a solid game plan and a lot of hard work, your reputation can be saved. The question is, are you in for the long haul? 

Steps to rebuild a damaged corporate reputation:

1. Analyze the damage
2. Regain control 
3. Create a recovery roadmap

Today, it’s easier than ever before to spark misinformation, watch it spread, and then witness it take down corporations, crush reputations, and topple political figures.

A brief glance at the news tells you all you need to know. Fake news is powerful enough to shake technology juggernauts, crush world-famous personalities, and wipe entire businesses right off the map. And yet people still believe it. 

Your brand reputation is the single most crucial factor in the success of your company. An excellent reputation increases your customer loyalty, lead generation, and your competitive advantage. A bad one lowers your sales and makes people look at your business in a negative light.

Here’s the deal. The media thinks your CEO screwed up. According to rumors, she siphoned the company’s quarterly earnings into a private yacht spending spree.

The truth? Your CEO is innocent.

But what does the media care about truth? They’re hanging onto the rumors like a toddler clutching a Snickers bar. The Internet’s news minions are intent on vilifying a corporate leader, weaving tales of oversized yachts funded with ill-gotten gain.

How many times have you said "You suck, Google". Sometimes Google says the same thing about you. Despite all of your time and money invested on ads, fast-talking copywriters, and brand consultants, Google just keeps telling you, and all of your prospective customers, that you suck. 

In sales there is a method known as "predictable revenue". It's an outbound sales method of marketing and sales that enables a business to predict what their revenues might be. But is there a way to do that with content marketing?

How can one predict whether a content campaign will be worth it? It’s a constant battle: executive leadership and check-signers won’t approve a marketing budget unless they can be assured of a Return on Investment (ROI) of X%. Marketing departments continue to push to develop new marketing strategies, but without budget approval, their hands are often tied.