Consider a situation where you’re looking to hire somebody to fill a vacant position. You will likely receive a number of job applications. You will scour the applications and weed out the unqualified or inexperienced candidates. Finally, you will interview the candidates and evaluate their skills and merits. Eventually, you will hire the candidate who seems the most appropriate or suitable.

But, scouring the applications is a rather generic term. It covers going through the candidates’ references. It includes verifying that all the details the candidate has specified in the application are accurate. Thus, it would cover certifications, skills, previous job details, previous emoluments etc. In the past, seldom would companies investigate the personal lives of their candidates. In those days, a person’s private and professional lives were two distinct things. This boundary no longer exists.

Today, companies hire screening companies to assess the authenticity and the accuracy of a candidate based on the information provided. These companies do not merely run criminal checks and other investigative checks to verify the candidate’s background. In many cases, they also check the candidate’s social media presence as well. Any candidates with dubious pictures or posts in their social media accounts would probably not win the approval of the hiring company. Thus, such companies hire people based on their reputation and persona.

Similarly, people are increasingly searching for businesses on their smartphones. So, if you have an online presence, people interested in your products or services will end up coming across your business when they carry out a search on the web. But, they will not merely see your website. They will come across the reviews, testimonials and feedback left by previous customers on various online forums and review sites as well. The experiences of these customers will influence their ratings and feedback. More importantly, these experiences and ratings will exert some influence on the people searching for your business.

The greater the number of positive feedback and ratings for your business, the better your chances of winning the approval of many prospective customers. This assimilation of positive and negative content on the internet denotes the online reputation of a business. The greater the amount of positive content a business has on the web, the more positive (or good) its reputation will be. Similarly, the greater the amount of negative content a business has on the internet, the lower (or poorer) its online reputation will be.