Understanding Reputation

Reputation has been human’s ally for millions of years. We use it to make a judgement on something based on a combination of our own and others experiences with that object or individual. The Wikipedia definition of reputation hints to this: “Reputation is the opinion (more technically, a social evaluation) of the public toward a person, a group of people, or an organisation. It is an important factor in many fields, such as education, business, online communities or social status.”

From a pure sociological perspective it has been theorised that the risk and reward associated with reputation gains or losses has a huge impact on our decisions made (a theory which is fast becoming a business philosophy – as I discussed in my post of the King 3 Report). Take for example the ByStander effect. Given a situation where somebody else requires emergency assistance, the ByStander effect has shown that an individual is more likely to get involved if there are fewer bystanders. The cognitive theory behind this well-documented happening, takes place on two levels; firstly, Social Proof is unconsciously applied in that participants rely on the input of others to validate their action. As such, everybody doing nothing becomes the correct thing to do. Secondly, Diffusion of Responsibility takes place where nobody feels accountable to their actions (as is the case in mob violence etc) and as a consequence nobody takes the initiative.

Reputation can also be explained as a consequence of evolution and as an output mechanism of prejudice. The theory states that prejudice, on an individual level, is necessary in order to make decisions about a group or individuals based on past experience (their reputation) – irrespective of the accuracy of the claims. This applies to all things – ranging from your choice of clothes through to your social circles.

But how does this apply to online and how does one measure it?

With the advent and astronomical growth of the Internet increasingly more information is becoming publically available. As such, a fully representative view of a brand is becoming more accessible through tools such as BrandsEye. We are finding that the Internet is empowering us consumers to research a brand and build it’s reputation from a number of interactions which others (the brand in question included) provide us with. This has resulted in a divergence between what the brand wants you to believe and the now verifiable reality – and with that widespread distrust (Edelman Trust Barometer found that trust of companies dropped by 10% to 17% in 2008).

This does however provide a great opportunity for companies and individuals to step forward and manage their reputations, with potential to reap great rewards. At BrandsEye, we believe that reputation is the widespread view of the brand itself. This is then determined by how all relevant stakeholders feel about the brand – which is itself determined by how others view the brand (see Social Proof).

We then break up stakeholders based on two factors, namely their social influence and view towards the brand in question (and competitor brands when relevant) – their sentiment towards the brand. We then take it one step further and break down their individual conversations into the volume of overall conversation, the rate at which they are passed on (momentum) and finally the origin (which determines trust).

All is driven by conversations online and along with a range of other factors, provide us with a way of recording reputation.

• Page title
• Author
• Date published
• Date picked up
• PageRank
• Alexa Rank
• Media Origin (Press/Enterprise/Consumer/Directory)
• Language
• Credibility (0 to 9; unknown to authoritative)
• Sentiment for each brand (-5 to 5, emergency to celebration, no zero)
• Number of phrase matches
• Is the mention linked to your website: Y/N

* There are a number of other variables which we record for additional clarity.