As everyone knows building a company’s good name can take years of hard and constant work and often it can take mere minutes to ruin it. Public relations nightmares for companies happen more and more as people’s whole lives are out there for everyone to see online on social media. The most recent example of this has been the absolute fiasco surrounding Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, and the way he ruined both his business and personal brand with his inflammatory statements. While Ye and his brands we’re somewhat undistinguishable, you may not feel the same way about yourself and your own business. But can your reputation impact your business concretely? Let’s delve into it deeper and get to the bottom of this.

When we talk about public relations often the first thing that comes to mind is the importance of the company’s image online. You of course want your company to have a strong presence on social media so you can engage with consumers to have them spread your name simply by engaging with your posts and giving your visibility through that engagement. The problem arises when you intrinsically tie your business image to your own online. You should always make sure to keep your online persona separate from your business and if you are online a lot, you should try to avoid sharing certain opinions that could reflect poorly on your business. No matter how separate you keep both images though people will associate you with your business since depending on your personal opinions, certain people will choose not to associate with you as a person by not engaging with your business.

Of course, your reputation is not always about the things you say online. More importantly, your reputation can be your standing with financial institutions. This is a very important reputation to keep up since banks are essentially the lifeblood of business at large. If you ever get into financial trouble deep enough that requires the help of the best San Diego bankruptcy lawyers you might have a difficult time dealing with the banks afterward. Since banks take into account your accounts and your history of bankruptcy into account when you check in for a loan or potential financial help, you might see your business loan applications be refused by the banks. This is a difficult place to be in because if you’re having financial trouble it only gets harder to get out of this difficult situation.

In the long term, your business can always recover from any potential damage done to it by your own reputation but you must always realize that what you do as a private citizen is a chance to be perceived as something that links back to your business. We see this a lot with artists where even if people talk about the death of the artist, it still affects their business. JK Rowling for example has seen her reputation tarnish the Harry Potter brand a lot over the years and bring it down from a prestige brand like Star Wars and Lord of the Ring to something that is much more subdued and pushed to the side when people discuss these types of franchises.

So as you can see your reputation can always impact your business, whether it be its reputation or image it will always have financial repercussions in the short to long term for your enterprise. You should always keep this in mind when you expose yourself to criticism online both personally or speaking for your company, hence why hiring social media expert or public relations agents can always benefit your company and save you a lot of trouble when it comes to avoiding or dealing with backlash following issues. The last thing you want is to be the kind of owner who gets in the comments and fights with people voicing their grievances on review sites. This is often the type of behavior people discuss when talking about owners’ reputations tainting their businesses. Always keep a distance between yourself and your business when working to better your company’s image and potentially yours as well in the process. So never forget the possible implications when putting yourself out there on the internet.