What is the difference between a reputation management firm and a PR agency?

Reputation management firms and PR agencies do related but distinct work, and confusing the two leads to gaps. A reputation firm manages the digital layers that define how a person or company is perceived in search and AI: the branded result set, Wikipedia, the AI engines, Knowledge Panels, and the entity signals underneath them. A PR agency manages earned media – the relationships with journalists, the placements, the press strategy that generates coverage in the first place. The two are complementary, because earned coverage is one of the inputs a reputation program works with, and a reputation firm makes that coverage durable and visible in the layers PR does not control. Many engagements involve both functions, and the work goes better when the boundary is defined explicitly: PR earns the coverage and manages the press relationships, the reputation firm shapes how that coverage and everything else renders across search and the AI engines. We work alongside PR teams constantly and define the handoff clearly at the outset.