Reputation Management for High Profile Individuals

Last Updated on August 7, 2023

Social media consultant Alex Broches has appeared on MTV’s “True Life” and “TMZ”.

In our last post, we had the chance to speak with “Internet Man of Mystery” Alex Broches about using a surge in buzz to boost your positive reputation. Today we take a look at the flip side of the coin: what does an individual or business do once they have built a strong online presence and positive reputation? Should they act differently when interacting with customers on social media?

Alex learned about what it takes to preserve a strong reputation while working as actor Andy Dick’s social media intern.

He explained that managing a celebrity’s social media presence is much different than managing the social media presence of a business:

In this particular case, I not only had to post about Andy as an entertainer, but as Andy as a person. You have to find that perfect blend of personal and business. Everyday we would talk briefly on the phone about what he wanted to do online, and I would come up with suggestions for him. I edited all his pictures and posted certain ones during certain times of the day, post upcoming events, and also personal fans messages for him. It was a great experience and I loved working for him. I had come up with several ideas for posts each day. If Andy liked him, he would say go with it and if he didn’t, he would say to bounce the idea. It was quite easy to work with him, our plan was straightforward with growing his fan base and we did just that. We were able to get over 4,000 new “Likes’ in just a few short weeks.

On whether he found himself second-guessing a post because he was not sure how it would affect Andy’s reputation:

Yes, because not only are you dealing with a famous actor, but you are also about to post to thousands and thousands of fans. One bad post will cause online trouble so I always made sure to double check with him on any ideas/content we would post. From this experience, I learned that social media is a very powerful tool. This made me appreciate social media that much more as far as being careful what to post online to your audience. The internet can make you or break you with one click.

 After managing Andy Dick’s Facebook page, Alex continued to focus on building websites while offering social media consulting. The reputation he built for himself helped him to land clients:

I think the fact that I was a social media intern for an actor and was on national TV a few times (on MTV’s “True Life” in 2011 and on “TMZ” in 2012) and let people know online through blogs that I was good at what I do. Quality works speaks for itself, and my clients are happy so far.

On whether his clients were practicing online reputation management:

In the beginning when I started taking on clients, it really wasn’t something I paid attention to. But as I started to get more and more clients, I noticed that it was an issue with some businesses. I’ve had a few clients bring it up, and one client actually told me that two bad reviews on Yelp lost them their business. It was unfortunate because one of the client’s workers was acting up, caused a bad experience for that 1 customer and made the business fail.  I think sometimes an online reputation is more powerful than an offline reputation.

Alex Broches (right) currently offers social media consulting while on the side developing humor site EGFP and college party blog site CollegeJunkEE.

Thanks to Alex Broches for sharing his thoughts on reputation management. Are you thinking about how what you post on social media will affect your reputation or your company’s reputation and if old social media posts affecting your ability to land a job in 2023?