If your reputation is under attack on social media, you probably want to know what options you have to protect yourself. As a dedicated defamation law firm, our primary concern is protecting our clients’ reputations from online defamation. In other words, reputation is our business.
What Is Online Reputation Management?
So-called online reputation management firms (or ORMs) are another option. But just how do ORMs differ from defamation attorneys, and which option is best for you or your business?
Over the past fifteen years, search engines, social media, and video sharing platforms have replaced television and the broader pre-2010s internet as the primary form of mass media. So it is no surprise that we are hearing a growing buzz around online reputation management. The ORM industry’s market size is purported to be in the billions. Journalists are fearful of it. New ORMs are popping up everywhere, pitching specialized services to every kind of industry, from law firms to hospices, and setting their sites on big-money clients like hedge funds.
Typically, online reputation management firms combine some form of (1) SEO services, (2) internet-focused public relations consulting, and (3) content removal. Smaller ORMs will likely be weighted more heavily toward SEO and content removal, while the larger and more ambitious ORMs are likely to offer tailored PR consulting and outside brand management.
Do Defamation Attorneys Provide Online Reputation Management?
Of course, a law firm cannot offer SEO services. As for PR consulting, as a defamation law firm we have done consulting for corporate clients on matters like Lanham Act compliance and liability in advertising—but that’s not exactly brand management or PR consulting.
Where defamation attorney services are likely to overlap with ORMs is in the area of content removal. If you are being attacked by defamation online, should you hire an attorney, or an ORM?
ORMs are limited to utilizing the reporting tools available through social media platforms. Because social media platforms are generally immune from being sued for content posted by their users, the reporting tools these platforms offer not always helpful, and defamation complaints made through embedded platform tools rarely get traction. ORMs may get around this by mass reporting, at times utilizing offshore, third-party bot farms and passing the cost on to the client.
Why Hire a Defamation Attorney Rather Than an O.R.M.?
What a defamation attorney can offer, that an ORM can’t, is to take direct action against the person who is posting the defamatory content. Those individuals are not immune from suit the way that social media platforms are, and litigation—or the credible threat of litigation—very often influences behavior.
If your business has a stubborn one-star review on Google that’s driving you crazy, and an ORM can get it taken down pain-free for a few hundred bucks, by utilizing Google’s reporting tools, then by all means—that’s a great solution. But as so often happens in the 21st century, most defamation clients have issues with persistent, repetitive defamation, motivated by personal hostility.
When someone is attacking your reputation online out of personal hostility, you don’t just need one Instagram post or one Google review taken down—you need to influence that person’s behavior, and put them on notice that you will fight them, hold them accountable, and make it costly to keep attacking you. Otherwise, the problem can persist across platforms and cause much greater damage than any one piece of content.
Late Night Law® is a dedicated defamation, privacy and social media law firm. If you are the target of doxxing, defamation or cyberstalking in New Mexico, in Washington, or in Texas, contact us at (505) 225-2623 to schedule a free consultation with a defamation attorney today.
This article is not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship between the reader and Late Night Law. Please consult an attorney for individualized advice if you have a legal matter.
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