Why You Can't Afford To Ignore Your Reputation?

We'll explore the key reasons why it's essential to pay close attention to your reputation and do what you can to proactively manage it.

Your reputation is one of the most important things you have. It's what people think of you when they interact with you or your brand and it can make or break your success.

Whether you're a business executive, an entrepreneur, in the arts, or part of the sports world, it's important to understand that ignoring your reputation is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. In fact, in some cases it can have detrimental consequences in regard to your career or personal life. In this article, we'll explore the key reasons why it's essential to pay close attention to your reputation and do what you can to proactively manage it.

Reputation is an irreplaceable and manageable asset

Have you heard of the Streisand Effect? This is when someone tries to cover up or delete something and ends up drawing more attention to it. This can happen when you try to protect your reputation but approach it in the wrong way. It Is named after Barbara Streisand, who tried to have aerial photos of her house removed from the internet. However, this resulted in more people finding out about the pictures and taking an interest in them.

The point is, you need to be very careful when it comes to managing your reputation. While your reputation is essential and invaluable, it's also manageable. You can, and should, take steps to protect and improve your reputation, even if you're just an individual or small business and not a huge corporation. In this modern, digital world, it's hard to hide anything and even one negative review, article, or photo can have a lasting impact.

Negative things naturally spread much faster and wider than anything positive. So, to protect your reputation, you need to be proactive, not reactive. Most businesses and individuals don't have the knowledge or skills to effectively manage their reputation.

Even for smaller businesses like local mom and pop shops, keeping an eye on reputation and taking the steps to protect it, such as monitoring social media and the web for any negative mentions or reviews and populating the web with positive content, can do a lot for their reputation. So, although you can't fully control your reputation, you can manage and protect it with the right skills.

Reputation impacts your brand and credibility

When someone builds a reputation, they shape their identity and consistently present that image to the world. The messages you spread, planned and unplanned, should be aligned with that image and identity. However, when those messages and interactions become inconsistent, your credibility suffers because people no longer know what to expect from you.

For example, let's say you built a reputation as a hard worker who is always on time and goes above and beyond for your boss. One day, you show up late and do the bare minimum. Your boss will probably be disappointed because your actions didn't match their expectations based on your reputation. The same is true for your customers or clients. If they expect a certain level of quality from you and you don't deliver, they'll be disappointed. That disappointment can lead to them taking their business elsewhere.

Managing your reputation allows the positive messages you put out there to shape your identity. With an improved reputation, your business or individual brand will be more credible, which can lead to increased success through better job offers, more customers, or improved sales. Possibly even all of the above!

Reputation heavily influences opinions and decisions

Did you know that up to 87% of consumers will change their minds if they come across an issue with your reputation? When it comes to making decisions, whether personal or professional, people often rely on the opinions of others. If you're looking for a new car, you might ask your friends or family members for their recommendations. If you're trying to decide which candidate to hire for a job, you might check out the candidates' social media profiles.

In both cases, you're basing your decision, at least in part, on the reputation of the person or thing you're considering. That's not a bad thing! After all, why would you want to buy a car from a dealer with a reputation for being unhelpful and pushy?

While word of mouth referrals are still a great way to attract leads, they have largely been replaced by search engines. With the rise of social media and review sites, managing your reputation has never been more important. In fact, 68% of people will not contact a business or individual if they have negative reviews. Unfortunately, it just takes one or two to strongly impact your reputation. A better reputation can lead to more customers, better sales, and improved success in your personal or professional life.

To put it simply, your reputation is important because it can impact your brand, credibility, and the decisions made about you. The important takeaway here is that if you can prevent a negative reputation forming or improve your current one, you're likely to see real-world benefits.

We live in a digital world driven by social media and online review and comparison websites are increasingly influencing the way your current and potential network accesses the services you offer. That's why it's important to protect your reputation, online and offline; the last thing you need is a bad Yelp rating or a viral tweet ruining all of your hard work.

You can’t ignore it, but with the right information and strategy, you can ensure that your good name remains untarnished.
In our next article in this series, we'll share some tips on how to keep your reputation in good standing. Stay tuned!