Reputation is Something Highly Personal
Reputation is something highly personal and one is always striving that the reputation should be always good and never bad as it has direct and indirect effects on our life. Not only is reputation personal, it has also gone online. Online reputation management of ORM as it is also called is all about the negative or positive publicity (or bashing) on the internet about a specific brand. There are millions of people using a wide range of products, sometimes they are happy after using the product and sometimes dissatisfied. Whatever the case may be, one thing is elementary that humans have a habit of voicing their thoughts. It can be through newspapers, flyers, emails and even through internet Blogging. Imagine you search for a particular product on the internet, as you really want to try it out after watching that really eye catching advertisement on the television. So you Google it the first link which comes up is that of the product website. However, a link right under it is the one that says all the bad things about the product, because some disgruntled and dissatisfied consumer used the stuff and did not find it worth the money. Would you still go ahead and make that online purchase? The chances are that you would try a different manufacturer of the same product. What has just happened here is that the reputation of that product has been tarnished online and a possible sale opportunity missed out by the company who manufactured it. This is when online reputation management kicks in and needs to be enforced.
Apart from being brand specific, ORM also relates to personal reputation of individuals, your website, any article of blog that you have published, your professional identity to anything related to you. It is all there and it can happen to anyone. As long as people have a right to speak, we will keep expressing our views even more on the internet today, as it is the tool of the future.
There are various tools available online which can help you to manage your Online Reputation, some of them are Garlik, MonitorThis, Omgili, Joongel, TweetBeep just to name a few and each has its own use to manage different types of reputations ranging from personal to blog to professional. If you search the internet, you will be able to find a lot more stuff to suit your need.
ORM is an emerging market and there are various websites that can help you track your online reputation and provide you with a lot of data on your online reputation. Sites like ReputationDefenders.com, which helps you to protect your reputation and even your child’s reputation online for a very small fee, which is worth the money. In addition, it may be worth a mention here that there are various degrees of online reputation, like Excellent, Good, Bad and Ugly.
Online Reputation Management or ORM has affects both negative and positive. For brands, it can mean giving an insight about the good and bad side of the brand by creating a perception. For people it can mean improving your public relations or even tarnishing your image. At least it will make you aware of the situation and help you deal with it before any major setback.
