Online Reputation Management

Reputation management refers to the influencing and controlling of an individual's or group's reputation. Originally a public relations term, the growth of the internet and social media, along with reputation management companies, have made search results a core part of an individual's or group's reputation. Online reputation management, sometimes abbreviated as ORM, focuses on the management of product and service search website results. Ethical grey areas include mug shot removal sites, astroturfing review sites, censoring negative complaints, and using search engine optimization tactics to influence results.

With extensive developments in this field of public relations, in-sync with the growth of the internet and social media, along with the advent of reputation management companies, the overall out-look of search results has become an integral part of what defines "reputation" and subsequent to all these developments, reputation management now exists under two spheres: online and off-line reputation management.

Online reputation management, sometimes abbreviated as ORM, focuses on the management of product and service search results within the digital space. A variety of electronic markets and online communities like e-Bay, Amazon and Alibaba have ORM systems built in, and using effective control nodes these can minimize the threat and protect systems from possible misuses and abuses by malicious nodes in decentralized overlay networks.

Whereas, off-line reputation management refers to the process of managing public perception of a said entity out-side the digital sphere using select clearly defined controls and measures towards a desired result ideally representing what stake-holders think and feel about that entity. Wherein, the most popular controls for off-line reputation management include social responsibility, media visibility, press releases in print media and sponsorship amongst related tools.

The concept was initially created to broaden public relations outside of media relations. Academic studies have identified it as a driving force behind Fortune 500 corporate public relations since the beginning of the 21st century. As the Internet and social media became more popular, the meaning has shifted to focus on search results and electronic communities; such as review sites and social media.

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