Two days ago, Fionn Downhill asked the question, “Is it Reputation Management or Reputation Repair?” Downhill’s company has yet to receive a call for pro-active management of corporate reputations. She calls proactive solutions “reputation management” and mid-emergency campaigns “reputation repair.”

It’s rather obvious that most executives are not going to understand the value of proactive reputation management. After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it… right? Managing something you don’t know or believe could actually become a problem is not worth the monthly maintenance fee of several thousand dollars. Or is it? Only the cautious, conservative investor is likely to acknowledge the wisdom in proactively managing and guarding the corporate brand reputation.

Why spend money on something that hasn’t happened yet? Well, as Downhill points out, “Extensive reputation repair can entail building out as many as 10 sites - in other words 10 separate SEO jobs. At the heart of reputation management is an effective organic SEO strategy, and as we know - good organic SEO is not cheap.”

Well said. Building out sites and pages to fill the top 10 results of Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, and Ask will inevitably cost you much more when you’re competing with a solid negative authorities already in the top 10. The earlier you establish your presence, the better your chances of remaining at the top.

Let’s consider the options:

$3k-5k per month for proactive reputation management, OR

$40k+ per month for last minute emergency reputation repair.

Hmmm….. tough decision.