When it comes to media relations or public relations, most business executives want to be on the cover of the New York Times.  However, as many politicians and CEOs will attest to, being on the cover of a newspaper or magazine may be as negative as it can be positive.  Building a relationship with the media is important, both for the major stories that can possibly happen and the minor everyday stories that happen on a regular basis.  While the media can be tricky, and even on attack mode lately, like all industries they operate on trust and relationships and establishing credibility with them is an important task.  Establishing credibility can have a profound impact upon the success of any political campaign, press initiative or marketing campaign.

It’s important to be media friendly.  Being media friendly involves being responsive, listening, answering questions and simply being available to the media should they call or contact you.  If you can position yourself as a resource, meaning if you can position yourself as someone who not only wants to get into the papers, but who can also offer important information on other stories, you can go a long way towards helping build trust with the media.

You should also be sure to give you media person or contact the tools to be helpful.  One thing the media hates is a press person who is basically a glorified receptionist, simply answering phones and passing messages along.  Having someone with quality communication skills and who has the knowledge to at least give the media a taste of what they want will make you and your company a far more attractive target for quality stories than the alternative.  Most people overlook their public relations people, but good public relations can benefit you, and offer quality reputation management.

Probably the most important tool for reputation management today is the Internet.  Using your Website, e-mail and other Internet tools will give you quality reputation management at a relatively inexpensive price.  Offering quality information on your Website, using your e-mail quickly and effectively and utilizing other Internet tools such as Digg, Twitter, Facebook and others will give you the kind of online reputation management that will benefit you in the short and the long term.

You should also embrace a policy that increases your transparency.  The media loves to report on stories where a company is seemingly hiding something, even if that isn’t the case.  If it seems like you’re unwilling to answer questions, or that you are trying to keep certain stories from hitting the press, the media will pick up on that and sometimes create a story out of thin air.  This will obviously damage your reputation.  Good reputation management sometimes involves commenting on your own mistakes and errors, and allowing your staff to admit mistakes and apologize when appropriate.  This isn’t always easy, and every once in a while someone may say too much, but if there’s nothing being hidden you won’t have to worry about a 20/20 exposé.

Brand and strategy research can have a great impact on your reputation management strategy.  Knowing and understanding the messages that are floating around can help you decide what direction you’d like to go in, as well as possible pitfalls.

Reputation management has always been important, but in today’s market where consumer trust is at an all-time low, discerning companies are acknowledging the importance of their own reputations as corporate assets.  Companies and individuals are now recognizing that to actively manage their reputation, the must first measure it.  With so much information floating around the world wide Web, it’s possible for individuals such as Matt Drudge and Perez Hilton to be household names, even though they employ virtually no one.

If you’re searching for a reputation management company, look for one that partners with its clients to provide deep insights on your company’s current reputation, as well as one that strives to understand your brand promises and goals.  Before you can know where to go, you must know where you are.

There are various tools at your disposal to find out what the world thinks of you, or if they even think of you at all.  There are demonstrable links between strong reputations (or perceptions) and positive supportive behaviors people have toward those companies.  Product purchases, investment behavior and so on are all impacted by reputation management.  Also, experts have identified a strong positive relationship between a change in reputation and a change in financial success or failure.

Case in point, consider AIG.  Before these last 6-12 months, AIG was a well respected insurance company that supported various sports teams and that was considered a multi-billion dollar titan.  Today, after consistent negative press and public embarrassment, AIG is considered one of the causes of the economic downturn (even though that’s absurd).  When AIG takes the time to research their reputation, using Internet tools, media history and other resources, they will be able to trace their corporation’s poor reputation to the economic collapse.

The various tools available include some that are very simple, such as Google and Yahoo, and others that take a bit more finesse, such as Lexis Nexis.  Using the tools you have available can mean finding out not just what your reputation currently is, but how that happened.  For example, KFC is the kind of brand that regularly bounces up and down.  When the country wanted healthier food, KFC almost became a poster child for obesity.  Then, things seemed to die down.  Recently, when Oprah offered coupons for KFC on her Website, and the company had problems filling the requests, near riots broke out at the stores.

Some reputation management research will demonstrate that while companies have big ideas, they have poor follow through.  KFC thought partnering with Oprah would help their bottom line, but when their operations weren’t lined up with their marketing, it turned bad.  

Not only should you research your current reputation, online and otherwise, but you should annually research your reputation so that you can take a continued inventory.

The Internet provides numerous opportunities, both good and bad.  In a strange way, the Internet is extremely democratic in that it allows anyone with access the chance to use or abuse the Web however they see fit.  As such, reputation management has become a major area of interest and concern for millions, if not tens of millions, of Americans.

Reputation management is the process of tracking an entity’s actions and other entity’s opinions about those actions, meaning the search for what people are doing and what others think about what people are doing.  It’s a bit like online gossip, but reputation management goes further than just People magazine.  Entire Internet related responsibilities, such as search engine image protection (SEIP), were created for the sole purpose of protecting a person’s name and reputation from undesired public information.  Reputation management is important to individuals, businesses, non-profits, politicians and more, because it affects so many areas of life.  

There are many ways to execute reputation management on the Internet; one way is to overwhelm and eliminate negative listings that show up when people search a name or term in Google.  However, things have changed and online reputation management is evolving and new services such as online image consulting and litigant image enhancement is growing.

Growth

More so than ever before, it’s easy for an individual to post slanderous, untrue, injurious and hurtful information based on nothing more than the wind.  In the past, a person would have to use a print medium, newsletter, newspaper, to produce a wide spread negative message, but those days are over.  Now, anyone with Internet access can make wild comments.  

Another reason why online reputation management is important is that companies are producing as much hurtful information as individuals, if not more.  Comments regarding a person’s credit rating or debt could be posted online, individuals can use the forums on various company Websites to bash the company, the employees, stockholders or whomever they like.  Websites such as eBay, Wikipedia and Slashdot are often abused in such a way.



Solution?

There are a number of ways to combat the type of information that is slanderous or flat out inaccurate.  For example, you can use Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) to shield your brand or reputation from damaging content.  In the end though, two challenges persist, the nature of Internet search engines and the ability of certain individuals to spread information no matter how much time it takes.

One of the best ways to combat negative information is to produce positive information.  So, reputation management can be performed with SEO/SEM, putting quality information of a positive nature online about the person or entity being attacked.  The goal is to produce enough positive information that it drowns out the negative being produced.  It’s a difficult battle overall, but one that is winnable.  

Moving Forward

To enhance your online reputation management, find a reputable individual or company who can protect your brand and your name.  Odds are you don’t have enough time to deal with the rumors flying around about you, or the time to learn how.  Find professionals who specialize in reputation management and let them handle the mess.

Managing your reputation involves using tools and language to improve and/or control how the public views you, your company and those who work for your company.  Reputation management can’t simply be approached from a technology standpoint, or a communications standpoint.  This means that you can’t simply rely on blogs and/or the Internet for reputation management, and you can’t simply rely on press releases or well-planned events.

Tools

Reputation management and online reputation management require the use of certain tools to help repair, create or manage public perception.  Those tools include blogs, social networking, SEO/SEM and more.

Blogs

Having a quality blog works in a couple of ways.  It offers you a medium with which to talk directly to the public, without having to go through the newspapers, magazines, radio or television where your message can be distorted.  You can link your blog to your Website, have as a link on your Website or have it as a completely separate Website.  If you post regularly, not only will that benefit your search engine optimization (SEO), but it will communicate with your public without any outside interference.Being able to talk directly to your audience will greatly enhance your reputation management capabilities, because you can affect opinion with minimal effort.

Social Networking

Websites such as Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and others offer a way to create a community based around or involving your company.  As another form of communication with your audience, social networking sites (also known as Web 2.0) can help you create positive public opinion based around open communication and shared experience.  Quality reputation management doesn’t just focus on force feeding messages, in a perfect world it involves encouraging other people to basically market your business for you.  Social networking can be a tool that accomplishes just that, because it’s based around shared experiences, shared opinions and so forth.  It also doesn’t require the resources that a national publicity campaign would.

SEO/SEM

Search engine optimization and search engine marketing are possibly the two most important tools for online reputation management.  SEO and  SEM utilize pay-per-click technology, keyword usage and even HTML coding to successfully keep your company’s name and services in the top Google search lists.  Keywords should target words related to your company.

Communications

Using your language properly is vitally important.  Whether it’s properly seeding your Web content with keywords or writing a persuasive and eye catching press release, writing your content effectively can mean the difference between molding public opinion and being ignored.  It’s important that you highlight exactly where you’d like your reputation management to go in terms of how you want to influence opinion.  You can write a great press release, or have a Website with great content, but if you aren’t making strong statements and giving positive information, you’ll be wasting your time.  

Outline your goals and try to see what your competition is doing. This may help to give you some ideas as to where you want your messaging to go.  Reputation management can be a huge asset to your company and/or business, if the tools and language involved are used properly.

Managing your external reputation involves using the press to get your messages out and protecting your reputation.  Reputation management can become tricky when it involves the press, because you lose a little bit of control over the message you want to get out.  The reporters and editors who cover any press release or publicity story you put out may simply ignore your angle and get the story they want.  This is why it’s important when approaching reputation management to be proactive and aggressive in getting to know and building relationally with the media.

One important tip in properly handling your online reputation management is to be aggressive about addressing any issue that sheds light on your honesty and credibility.  Some of the worst media relations mistakes in history originated when people were afraid or slow to respond to some seemingly secretive or terrible news.  When Princess Diana was killed while being chased by the paparazzi, it took Queen Elizabeth days to respond via the media to speak to the nation of England.  Unfortunately, when the entire world saw the slow response by the Queen people began to assuming all sorts of terrible things about the Queen and her relationship with her daughter.  When you allow your reputation to react slowly to negative or secretive news, people will always assume the worst, because that’s human nature.

When it comes to negative news on the Internet, you should respond even quicker, because the Internet has a long memory.  People still view Youtube videos from 1998, still read stories from the mid-90’s and so forth.  In the past, once the newspaper was thrown away, it was old news.  Since the Internet is all online, there is nothing to throw away.  Bad stories, bad information and negative opinions will stay on the Internet for years, even decades, so it’s important to be proactive to counteract any negative news or negative information being spread on the Internet.

Be honest about being ambiguous is also important.  In a time of extreme media saturation, it’s important to remember that people can tell when you’re not giving the whole truth. Reputation management involves being upfront about your intentions, especially if you aren’t going to give straightforward answers.  People can understand if your lack of information is targeted at protecting investors, protecting investments or is simply a matter of not having enough information.  Politicians are usually the worst culprits of both being ambiguous and not being honest about their ambiguity.  When political scandals occur, it’s best to get out and be honest with what’s going on, because in this day and age very little can be hidden for that long.

Reputation management involves defining the issues that affect you and your company as much as possible.  Defining means taking as much control as possible, and putting yourself out in front of the news instead of simply reacting to it.  The worst that can happen is that you are uncomfortable for a period of time, which is better than having to deal with two week’s worth of bad news.