What is reputation, anyway? And how do you measure it?

What is reputation, anyway? And how do you measure it?

Author: Jörg Forthmann

For 99 percent of communications managers, reputation is very important or important. So for almost everyone. That’s according to a survey conducted by AG CommTech in October 2022. Wow! With such a clear vote, one would expect that reputation is measured and controlled in many companies – in other words, that reputation management exists.

Far from it! Only 19 percent of respondents have a reputation measurement system in place. And what’s worse, only one in four of this group receives the current reputation values on a daily or weekly basis and is therefore actually in a position to align their own work with them.‍

What is the reason for this striking dissonance between desire and reality? Decision makers in the communications industry have grown up with clipping services and social media monitoring services. At their core, these analyses provide data on the volume of publications and how they are distributed across the different channels. So quantitative data. With luck, the tonality will also be evaluated, but that is no longer a matter of course. On the other hand, the vast majority of communications departments do not have qualitative evaluations – which is what is being talked about. Because in the past they were very, very expensive. Either the publications had to be coded by hand, or market research was commissioned to determine reputation and image values. In short, communicators lacked the tools to measure reputation regularly and in a timely manner.

That is different today. At the same time, 60 percent of the communications professionals surveyed said they don’t have reputation measurement – but would like to have it. So the will to change is there. In the CommTech WG, we will therefore create a working document for all interested colleagues to answer the basic questions about reputation management: What is reputation? What are the reputation models? How do you measure reputation? How do I get regular and timely reputation measurements so that I can use this data in my day-to-day business?

We want to work on these questions together with you. You want to get involved? Great! Please send a short message to Joerg.Forthmann@IMWF.de He is coordinating this initiative.