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In recent years, the field of Public Relations has undergone an important transformation. He now emphasizes reputation building (mostly, online) as a primary goal. PR emphasizes reputation because it goes beyond what a brand sells OR like her came to life; IS who is the brand.
Changing nature of reputation
Before the mass media, the reputation was formed mainly by word of mouth and direct experiences. However, as the world became more interconnected and complex, we became interested in companies, brands and people we could not personally interact with or judge for ourselves. This change led to the development of new, more sophisticated ways to assess reputation.
For decades, traditional media played a crucial role in shaping public opinion about brands and individuals. This meant that companies could influence their reputation by cleverly influencing or buying media coverage – a practice that continues today, albeit in different forms.
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The internet revolution and the role of search engines
The advent of the Internet brought about a seismic shift in the way reputations are formed and managed. It created many potential resources for people to use when looking to understand what a brand or individual is really about.
This digital landscape meant so much different actors can influence reputation. It also gave brands and individuals many opportunities to influence what people read and think about them.
Search engines quickly played a key role in this new ecosystem of digital reputation. Early search engines like Yahoo were primarily focused on directing users to specific websites. Over time, especially when Google came on the scene, they were developed to help users find specific pieces of information or answers to questions.
In recent years, search engines have become increasingly sophisticated. They have become better at understanding user intent and providing more relevant results.
Key developments in the evolution of research:
- Traditional search engines (1990): Limited understanding of context based on keywords.
- Dominance of Google (2000): Advanced algorithms, PageRank and more relevant results.
- Semantic Search (2010): Better understanding of user intent and context.
- AI Powered Search (2020): Conversational, context aware, synthesizing information from multiple sources.
Google: The Accidental Reputation Snapshot Machine
In an effort to satisfy searchers with a variety of sources, Google has inadvertently created a powerful digital reputation assessment tool. Understanding an entity's reputation requires bringing together different perspectives—what the entity says about itself, what the media reports, what experts think, what peers say, what consumers experience, and what the general public believes. These are essentially the same inputs that Google uses to populate search results.
As a result, Google search results have become perhaps the most efficient way to get a representative picture of an entity's reputation.
The Wikipedia factor
Alongside search engines, Wikipedia has emerged as an important source of reputational information. Wikipedia aims to include topics of consequence in their live, crowd-sourced encyclopedia, with facts determined and agreed upon by a community of editors following a set of guidelines. Earned media from reliable sources tend to be the most accepted sources for supplementing information on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia's influence extends beyond its platform. Search engines like Google and Bing rely heavily on Wikipedia – having a Wikipedia page shows importance. Wikipedia is often featured prominently in Google and Bing search results, including in knowledge panels for branded searches.
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The AI revolution
The emergence of AI models such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and others has ushered in a new era in reputation management. These AI models can do things that only Google can't:
- Understand more complex or nuanced questions
- Read the content of the web pages and derive the answers directly
- Synthesize information gathered from various sources
- Formulate answers that directly address the questions
- Provide results in specific required formats
In an AI-powered world, we expect people to ask more complex questions to get directly to their desired results. While Google-type search is likely to continue alongside intelligent AI-powered searches, brands and executives will soon find that their reputation lives both on Google and in the “brains” of a small number of AI- very influential.
As AIs gain more influence, their perceptions of a brand or executive can become the most influential voice influencing topic decisions ranging from how good a singer someone is, to who should be president.
Shaping perceptions of AI
To help shape how AIs view you or your brand, your best bet is to make sure they see content that's useful for your brand. To do this, you first need to know what they are currently saying. This includes understanding the facts AI models attendees, the topics they mention about your entity, and the resources they return to support their answers. You'll also want to track any unfavorable content that's being returned.
It will be important to see how this changes over time. Are they the same as before, getting better or worse? It will be instructive to compare with peers – do they receive the same treatment? Maybe the AIs aren't aware of some of your content or facts, or maybe they're outdated or have confused the entity with another one with a similar name.
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Where do we go from here?
As the world of search continues to evolve with the rise of AI, brands and individuals must stay ahead of the curve. By understanding how they are perceived not only on traditional search engines like Google, but also by AI models, customers can take proactive steps to shape their digital reputation and maintain control over their narrative in this new frontier. information, as they did with traditional ones. media and research.