Protecting your reputation: Things to note

The reputation of every institution, organization, business or brand (whether personal or corporate) is important and needs to be invested in and protected. 

Our Principal Consultant, Sola Abulu defines reputation as the sum total of all the stories told about you. We have defined reputation in our previous article and written in detail the importance of reputation and why brands must invest in their reputation. In this article, we will be exploring 4 ways in which you can protect the reputation of the businesses, organizations and entities that you serve, as a business leader, executive officer or communications professional.

How do you protect your reputation?

Reputation management focuses primarily on these 3 pillars: Performance, behaviour and communications 

• Performance: The best way to manage your reputation is by meeting your commitments and obligations to your stakeholders and end users.
• Behavior: This has to do with the relationship you build with your stakeholders. It involves managing your  customers, employees, investors, etc., effectively and with ethical principles of integrity in mind.
• Communication: Communication helps you establish credibility. Every communications effort should be transparent and consistent helping stakeholders see your progress and commitment to deliver as stated.

Some things to consider

• Be deliberate about the quality of service you deliver. There are many instances of a damaged reputation that communications alone cannot fix. Brands ought to be very deliberate about walking the talk on the quality of service they provide and the service delivery. If an organization in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector sells a product that is not of good quality or is harmful to the health, the effect is that such a brand will have aggrieved consumers who can produce negative feedback very easily in the age of social media. This highlights the importance of quality business operations because in scenarios like this, communications alone can not protect the reputation. Therefore, businesses and organizations have a responsibility to first walk the talk.
• Ensure those whose voices represent your brand like the business leaders and communications professionals are well trained for the media. Some brands make the mistake of ignoring the role of media training before allowing people to represent them. The business leaders and anyone who has the responsibility to represent the brand in media interviews and functions need to know what can be said and what ought not to be said in order to protect your reputation. When something that is not on-brand is said by an internal stakeholder to the media, it gives room for conversations that can damage the reputation and perception of the brand. Catch up on our previous article on The Importance of Media Training
• Another way to protect one’s reputation is by being proactive rather than reactive. Proactive reputation management is valuable to ensure that the organization, business, institution or brand is actively involved in stories being told about them. This can be done by monitoring the news, comments on social media posts and regularly requesting feedback from their stakeholders. You will find our recorded webinar on the value of proactive reputation management very insightful. Click here to watch. 
• Own your narrative: This is to be intentional about how you want to be perceived and the stories told about you by others. Reputation is the total of all narratives said about you which can be either positive or negative. By owning your narrative, brands can be on top of how they want others to perceive them. It will require listening, responding and engaging to the stories told of you in order to reiterate your key message and commitment to your target audience and stakeholders.

If you are seeking a professional reputation management training, you can jump on our Live Zoom training course happening on 24th April, 2025. Enrollment is open into the 3rd Cohort of our CPD-Accredited Issues, Crisis & Reputation Management Course. Register your interest here.

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Sola Abulu & Associates is a strategy and communications consulting and training firm committed to enabling businesses, brands and organizations to achieve their objectives through strategic communications, organizational effectiveness and reputation risk management

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