To understand this, first you have to understand the fact that since time immemorial, businesses have operated and will continue to operate on goodwill. Reputation is the lifeblood of any business, brand or public entity. Anything and everything you do, its success or failure and the amount of leverage that it will gain, is decided by the goodwill that your brand has. Even the existence of business depends entirely on its positive image and positive public opinion. Negative brand image can result in things falling apart instead of adding up for a business and can lead to low sales figures, little to no revenue generation and poor market confidence.

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ORM or online reputation management as we call it, is not a thing of today. It has been in existence in traditional marketing as well but it in a different form. It was known as PR activity in which an optimistic image of business was created through publicity, media coverage, display, banners, flex and sign boards and a lot more.

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But with the progress of technology, the process of reputation management has become a little more complicated. Traditional PR activities involved and focused on creating a positive brand image through newspapers, print and other forms and sources. Now, newspapers tend to get old, printed materials get obsolete after some time. Display flex and banners are remembered till the time they are in public view. After that, people start to forget about the brand.

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In online medium, however, things are very different. Newspapers are electronic now. A news article voicing a positive opinion about a business, once published, stays live for a very long period of time. Whenever anybody searches for Google about the business, the news article also shows up, probably at a higher rank than the business website itself. The same fact is true for an article voicing negative sentiments as well. Things were easy to forget now but they are not today. 

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Moreover, additional issues are created when your competitor tries to damage your reputation through dirty tactics. It can resort to writing defamatory articles on public platforms about your business, spreading rumors to create environment of mistrust, starts spreading fake customer reviews about your product or service offerings.

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Now imagine the spiraling negative impact that all of these activities will have on your brand over a brief period of time. If went unchecked and not countered, these can destabilize a business and cause its downfall. That is why proper Online Reputation Management is the need of the hour for every business.