As Head of ReputationDefender, Chad Angle spearheads the direction and strategy of the world's leading online reputation management company. This article will look at online reputation management, exploring how an individual's online presence can impact their personal and professional lives and highlighting the importance of high-profile individuals taking control of the narrative surrounding them online.
By their very nature, high-profile people create a buzz, particularly online. For individuals who are the focus of increased attention, creating a positive online presence is even more important, helping them to establish trust and credibility with shareholders, customers, the media, and the world at large.
Reputation is a cornerstone for high-profile individuals. While people in the public eye were traditionally reliant on their professional network and word of mouth, in an increasingly digitized age, these factors have been largely replaced by mainstream media, social media, regulatory announcements, blogs, and a plethora of other online content vehicles, all beyond the individual's control. Today, a reputation attack is instantly seen by global audiences, posing the potential to sully the reputation of a previously respected individual within a very short space of time with catastrophic consequences.
ReputationDefender, the world's leading online reputation management and digital privacy space leader, was founded in 2006. Over the years, the company has pioneered the industry, today ranking as its largest and most trusted company.
Forming part of the Gen Digital Inc. group of companies alongside Norton, LifeLock, Avira, AVG, Avast, and CCleaner, ReputationDefender provides digital privacy and online reputation solutions for both businesses and individuals. Unequivocal in its ethos that everyone has the right to be empowered online, ReputationDefender helps high-profile individuals take charge of their online reputation, utilizing its patented, rigorously tested technologies to help clients ensure they are reflected fairly, accurately, and positively online.
For high-profile individuals, the impact of defamatory and damaging content published online can be devastating, particularly in terms of trust. Now more than ever, trust is integral to building relationships with employees, clients, partners, and other key stakeholders. Once broken, the damage can be almost impossible to repair.
Today, more and more people are falling prey to online defamation, with internet trolls, business competitors, and disgruntled employees intentionally trying to tarnish their reputation by publishing negative content online. The real-world consequences can be seismic, hindering an individual's employability or affecting the revenue of their business. In addition to the professional impacts, there can be serious and lasting emotional repercussions.
Internet defamation and reputational harm take a variety of forms. Take, for example, Professor Lisa-Michelle Kucharz, an anti-cyberbullying advocate who found herself the target of a two-year-long smear campaign, with an endless stream of defamatory accusations about her spread across the internet. The perpetrator published negative content via blogs, shared hundreds of posts on social media, and even contacted her employer. Some of this negative content is still visible in Professor Kucharz's search results, highlighting the powerful effect that one bad player can have on many different aspects of their victim's life.
For high-profile people, their personal brand is a hard-won commodity and their most valuable asset. A tainted reputation can significantly hold them back, resulting in loss of income, compromising established business relationships, and making it harder to access new business opportunities. All too often, people neglect to invest in building and safeguarding their online reputation, leaving them exposed and vulnerable to attack.
When managing the reputation of high-profile clients, ReputationDefender acts swiftly to help clients take charge of the online content that surrounds them. For people in the public eye, choosing the right message is crucial. Equally, it is vital to ensure that this message receives the necessary digital support to ensure maximum coverage and online visibility. In addition, choosing appropriate language and suitable online assets is important, with messages framed from the standpoint of the audience the individual needs to address.
ReputationDefender's objectives are simple: to protect, defend, and enhance the high-profile individual's personal brand values online. The company achieves this by optimizing messaging to ensure it occupies important online real estate, increasing positive visibility while pre-emptively shielding the client against any possible future negative coverage.
