What should you expect in the first 90 days of a reputation management engagement?

The first 90 days of a reputation engagement are about building a solid foundation, not delivering finished results. Structural shifts take longer to materialize; what the first quarter produces is a clear diagnostic picture, a prioritized plan of action, early execution against the highest-impact gaps, and baseline data against which all future progress is measured.

Phase 1, Diagnostic

1. SERP mapping: Audit which results appear for priority branded queries, news, review sites, owned properties, Wikipedia, the Knowledge Panel, and identify what each currently says about the entity.
2. AI narrative audit: Survey how major AI engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok, Claude, AI Overview, Google AI Mode) characterize the brand, surfacing inaccuracies and narrative gaps.
3. Wikipedia and Knowledge Panel review: Assess the Wikipedia article’s existence, accuracy, and quality; evaluate the Knowledge Panel for correctness and completeness.
4. Entity signal review: Map the connected web of references: Wikidata, schema markup, structured data, third-party citations, that identify the organization to search and AI platforms.

Phase 2, Prioritization

• Rank gaps by impact: which gaps are doing the most damage to reputation or discoverability, and which are quick wins that can be closed early.
• Separate structural issues (require sustained effort) from addressable items (can move within the quarter).

Phase 3, Launch

• Content production: Begin creating or improving authoritative owned and third-party content targeting the priority gaps.
• Entity-signal work: Strengthen Wikidata, schema markup, and cross-web citations so platforms can accurately identify and describe the entity.
• Wikipedia and AI strategy: Develop the approach for Wikipedia (where applicable) and for shaping the sources AI engines draw on, recognizing that AI outputs cannot be edited directly; influence comes from improving the underlying sources.

Phase 4, Baseline reporting and early indicators

• Establish baseline measurements with IMPACT™ and AIQ™ so that all future progress can be tracked against a clear starting point.
• By end of quarter: initial movement on priority queries and early trend data on AI narratives are typically visible, even as larger structural shifts continue to build.

Realistic framing: The first 90 days deliver foundation and leading indicators, not the finished result. Authoritative content and entity signals take time to be indexed, cited, and weighted by search and AI platforms. The quarter ends with a program that is executing, instrumented, and showing early signal.