In a world where communication is so easy and more importantly so public, reputations can be built and destroyed almost at a moments notice. Platforms such a YouTube, twitter and Facebook have given individuals the means to broadcast their views to millions at the touch of a button. A well crafted ‘tweet’ can be both highly devastating or massively encouraging should the content start ‘trending’. One might argue that the odd comment from a disgruntled customer will ‘soon blow over’. This may well be true, but it really does depend on where you are in terms of your reputation in the first place. Those organisations that have spent the time building a robust reputation are going to fare a lot better than those that have not. A fragile reputation will collapse easily and the organisation will go with it.

Having a baseline to start with is a good thing, but how do you measure your reputation? The first thing to acknowledge is that reputation is seen through the eyes of customers (or citizens in the case of government) and stakeholders and not generally through the eyes of those people in the organisation itself. They will have their part to play in influencing a reputation score, but they can’t score themselves. So the measures have to be external measures.

The next thing to consider is how you stack up against similar companies or organisations. Doing a poll of existing customers and asking them about your reputation might provide some useful anecdotal insights.  It is unlikely to provide a conclusive result and it certainly will not rank you in a world-wide marketplace. So there is a need to look at some form of benchmarking as well. There a several companies who specialise in reputation and all provide some level of information to demonstrate the need to better understand organisational reputation.

The Reputation Institute say: “We asked 300 senior communication practitioners at the largest companies: is reputation a priority of your Board and how equipped are you to manage reputation?” The answers were:

  • 65% say it is a high priority
  • 78% say they compete in a reputation economy
  • But only 16% say they are ready to take advantage of the reputation economy

Other organisations that deal with reputation measurement include:

Although we cannot recommend a specific reputation management company, we can say that this is an area that is best left to the experts and there is no easy way to measure reputation.  If you agree with the Reputation Institutes’ findings above, it may be time to look into how you can start measuring and then taking advantage of the ‘reputation economy’.