Protecting the Company Name and Brand

Reputation Management can help Protect Corporate Image

Feb 15, 2010 Mike Virgintino – Suite101.Com

Communications strategies impact sales and, collectively, they impact corporate performance. Today, company teams are involved in protecting the corporate image.

Marketing experts often have told corporate executives that a company’s reputation is its most important asset and that it is critical to performance. Without successful management and protection of the corporate reputation, equity in the company can quickly erode in terms of stock price, customers and whether or not a prospective employee will want to work for the company.

A company today is confronted by a challenging explosion of social media where anyone can write a blog, post a comment or video about anything whether it’s factual or not. This has put companies on the defensive as they attempt to counter the ravages of negative publicity. The corporate suite has begun to realize that they need to be fully engaged and proactive to protect brands, reputation and profits.

“When a company is hit with negative publicity, they often face an uphill battle just to survive. If they don’t act quickly and appropriately to repair the damage, the results can be long lasting and sometimes devastating to the bottom line. Companies must be vigilant in monitoring all media platforms to deal with potential problems head on,” said Jim Paymar, president of Paymar Communications Group and a partner in Reputation Outlook, a media-centric reputation management firm that helps businesses navigate the difficult communications environment.

A past corporate communications executive and a former journalist with CNBC, Business Week and several New York City television stations, Paymar told Suite101.com that companies have been conditioned to make decisions based on metrics and metrics are not the way to measure public perception.

“Metrics help with marketing, manufacturing, the opening of new offices and the acquisition of other businesses, but metrics analysis doesn’t protect the brand or the company’s overall reputation,” said Paymar. “Until recently, organizations weren’t overly concerned about reputation, because it was difficult to measure and even more difficult, at times, to relate cause with effect.”

Read more at Suite101: Protecting the Company Name and Brand: Reputation Management can help Protect Corporate Image