What Six Years in PR Taught Me About Online Reputation
When I first started working in public relations, I viewed press coverage very differently from how I view it today.
At the beginning, the objective seemed simple: get the client featured.
Secure the article. Get the publication name. Create the screenshot. Share it on social media.
Over time, I realised that the placement itself is only one part of the value.
What matters far more is what that coverage does for the person or business after it has been published.
Does it appear when someone searches their name?
Does it support the way they are positioned?
Does it strengthen an existing reputation?
Does it help a potential client understand why they should take them seriously?
Does it still have value six months later?
Those questions have shaped the way I think about PR today.
After roughly six years working around media, publicity and digital reputation through Distribute PR, one lesson stands above everything else:
A reputation is not created by a single article. It is built by the way multiple signals reinforce one another over time.
Press Coverage Is a Tool, Not the Finished Product
There is a tendency in PR to treat publication logos as the end result.
A client gets featured somewhere recognisable, the logo gets added to the website, and the campaign is considered complete.
That can still have value.
But I think it is a limited way of looking at media.
A strong article should become part of something larger.
It can support a founder biography.
It can strengthen branded search results.
It can provide third-party context when somebody researches the company.
It can be referenced in future media outreach.
It can support social proof.
It can create backlinks.
It can help clarify what a person is known for.
It can remain discoverable years after the initial campaign has ended.
That is where PR becomes more interesting to me.
The article stops being a temporary piece of exposure and becomes part of the infrastructure surrounding the reputation.
Not All Coverage Has the Same Value
One of the clearest lessons I have learned is that more coverage does not necessarily mean a stronger reputation.
Ten articles are not automatically better than three.
A placement only has value in relation to what you are trying to achieve.
For one client, an industry publication read by exactly the right audience may be more useful than a much larger general-interest website.
For another, a highly recognisable publication may create the trust signal they need when prospective customers research them.
For somebody building a personal brand, a profile that clearly explains who they are may be more useful than a passing mention in a larger story.
Context matters.
Relevance matters.
Positioning matters.
The question should not simply be:
“Can we get press?”
It should be:
“What kind of press would actually strengthen this reputation?”
That is a much better starting point.
Your Reputation Already Exists Before PR Begins
PR does not operate in isolation.
Before someone sees a press article, they may already have encountered the person or business elsewhere.
They may have visited the website.
They may have checked LinkedIn.
They may have searched Google.
They may have seen reviews.
They may have looked at social media.
They may have asked somebody else about the company.
That means PR is entering an existing environment.
If the rest of that environment is weak, inconsistent or confusing, a good article can only do so much.
This is why my work gradually moved beyond thinking purely about media placements.
I became increasingly interested in digital reputation as a whole.
The website.
Search presence.
Profiles.
Media.
Brand positioning.
Social proof.
All of those elements affect how coverage is interpreted.
The strongest result happens when they support one another.
Positioning Comes Before Publicity
One of the easiest mistakes to make is seeking publicity before deciding what you actually want to be known for.
If the positioning is unclear, the coverage often becomes unclear too.
A founder might be described one way on their website, another way on LinkedIn and a completely different way in interviews.
Over time, this creates a fragmented identity.
The person may have plenty of exposure but very little recognition for anything specific.
PR works better when the central position is already understood.
What industry are you in?
What problem do you solve?
What makes your perspective relevant?
What do you want people to associate with your name?
What evidence supports that position?
Once those answers are clear, media becomes a way of reinforcing the position rather than inventing it from scratch.
That distinction matters.
Reputation Is Built Before You Need It
A lot of people start thinking seriously about reputation at the exact moment they urgently need credibility.
They are raising investment.
Launching a company.
Approaching larger clients.
Applying for something significant.
Preparing for a major announcement.
Responding to negative information.
At that point, they suddenly become concerned with what appears when somebody searches their name.
The problem is that strong reputations take time.
Search results take time to develop.
Articles take time to be indexed.
Websites accumulate authority gradually.
Relationships with journalists are not created overnight.
A body of work has to exist before it can be documented.
This has made me much more interested in reputation durability.
Ideally, the infrastructure should already be there before the high-stakes opportunity arrives.
Then the reputation supports the opportunity instead of being hurriedly assembled because of it.
Google Changed the Way I Think About PR
One of the biggest shifts in my thinking came from looking at media through search rather than only through immediate reach.
An article might receive its largest amount of traffic during the first few days after publication.
But that does not necessarily mean its value ends there.
If it ranks for a person's name, company or relevant subject, it can continue being discovered for years.
That changes the economics of the placement.
A potential client might encounter it long after the original campaign.
A journalist might find it while researching the individual.
A business partner might read it before a meeting.
An investor might use it as another reference point.
The original social-media impressions may be forgotten.
The search result remains.
That is why I now think about discoverability alongside publication prestige.
Where will the article live?
Is it indexable?
What does the headline say?
Does the person's name appear clearly?
Does the article explain what they actually do?
Does the publication have enough authority to appear in search?
How does it fit alongside the person's other results?
These questions are not traditionally what people think of when they hear “PR”.
They should be.
Your Old Coverage Becomes Part of Your History
My own media presence taught me this directly.
Some of the articles that still appear around my name were published when I was 18 or 19.
At that stage, much of my work centred on social media and digital marketing.
Today, my positioning is different.
That does not make the older articles useless.
They show where I started.
They provide a timeline.
They demonstrate that the work did not begin yesterday.
The challenge is making sure they exist alongside enough current information that someone can understand the progression.
That is one reason I rebuilt AnishParmar.net.
Rather than attempting to distance myself from older coverage, I wanted to create the context around it.
An archive can strengthen a reputation when the current identity is clear.
Reputation Is What Other People Can Verify
A brand can say almost anything about itself.
“Leading.”
“Trusted.”
“Expert.”
“Award-winning.”
“Industry-leading.”
These phrases are everywhere.
The problem is that self-description has a ceiling.
Eventually, people look for evidence.
That is where third-party validation becomes useful.
Media coverage is one form.
Client relationships are another.
Reviews.
Case studies.
Professional profiles.
Interviews.
Public work.
Search results.
A strong reputation tends to contain multiple forms of verification.
That makes the person or business easier to assess.
The purpose is not to create the illusion that everybody approves of you.
It is to make legitimate work easier to verify.
Attention Can Help, but It Can Also Distract
My background began in social media, so I have always understood the value of attention.
Attention creates reach.
Reach creates opportunities.
It can accelerate a campaign dramatically.
But attention and reputation need to be handled differently.
Something designed purely to maximise attention can sometimes undermine the positioning you are trying to build.
The wrong campaign can attract an audience that has no relationship with the business.
The wrong publication can make a brand look indiscriminate.
The wrong message can generate visibility while creating confusion about what the company actually stands for.
This does not mean brands should avoid bold campaigns.
It means attention should serve the reputation rather than replace it.
The best campaigns can create both.
Strong Reputation Management Is Often Quiet
Some of the most effective reputation work is not particularly glamorous.
Updating biographies.
Correcting inconsistent company information.
Improving website architecture.
Building proper author pages.
Connecting related entities.
Refreshing old photographs.
Updating social profiles.
Publishing useful articles.
Creating clearer internal links.
Making sure the correct business appears alongside the correct person.
None of those things produce an exciting “we went viral” screenshot.
But collectively, they can make an enormous difference to how somebody is perceived when researched.
That is why reputation work often feels more like building infrastructure than running a campaign.
The effects compound.
You Cannot Completely Control Reputation
This is another lesson that becomes more obvious with experience.
You cannot control exactly what everybody says about you.
You cannot dictate every Google result.
You cannot guarantee that every article will rank.
You cannot remove every criticism.
You cannot manufacture universal approval.
Trying to control everything usually creates more problems than it solves.
A better objective is to influence what you legitimately can.
Publish accurate information.
Build strong owned assets.
Earn relevant coverage.
Respond appropriately when necessary.
Keep your professional information current.
Make positive work easy to discover.
Give search engines and people enough high-quality information to form an accurate picture.
Reputation management should not be about creating a fictional identity.
It should be about making the real one clearer.
A Strong Reputation Is Consistent, Not Perfect
The internet has made people unusually sensitive to imperfection.
One negative review.
One old photograph.
One outdated article.
One criticism.
Suddenly, there is a temptation to sanitise everything.
I do not think that creates the strongest reputation.
Credibility comes from coherence, not perfection.
A genuine career contains different phases.
Businesses change direction.
Opinions evolve.
Old material exists.
What matters is whether the overall body of information makes sense.
If somebody can understand the progression, the history often strengthens the story.
Owned Assets Give Reputation Stability
The longer I have worked in PR, the more important I have found owned assets.
Your personal domain.
Your company website.
Your content.
Your mailing list.
Your brand name.
Your profiles.
The digital properties you can actually control.
Earned media is extremely valuable, but it exists on somebody else's platform.
The strongest strategy combines both.
Use third-party media to create external validation.
Use owned infrastructure to organise, preserve and extend that credibility.
This is also why I have become increasingly interested in digital real estate.
Reputation becomes stronger when the important assets surrounding an identity are not entirely dependent on third parties.
Good PR Should Leave Something Behind
This is probably the biggest change in how I evaluate campaigns.
I ask:
What remains once the campaign is over?
If the answer is nothing, the campaign may still have generated useful exposure.
But the strongest work leaves behind assets.
A recognised article.
A better search result.
A new relationship.
A useful backlink.
Stronger branded search.
A piece of content.
A credible association.
A clearer position.
A stronger website.
Something that continues contributing after the immediate burst of attention has disappeared.
That is where PR starts compounding.
Six Years Changed My Definition of PR
When I started, I thought PR was largely about getting people published.
Today, I see it more broadly.
PR sits inside a much larger system involving reputation, positioning, search, media, branding and digital identity.
A press placement can still be incredibly valuable.
But the publication logo is not the strategy.
The strategy is understanding what the coverage is supposed to accomplish and how it fits into everything surrounding the person or business.
That is the approach I continue developing through Distribute PR.
Not publicity for the sake of publicity.
Not volume for the sake of creating a longer media page.
And not trying to manufacture authority from nothing.
The objective is to take legitimate people, companies, expertise and achievements and make them easier to discover, understand and trust.
After six years in PR, that is what online reputation means to me.
