India’s foremost Online Reputation Management Company Launches Pehechaan.com

It was an idea waiting to explode. With the ‘elitist’ nature of media a thing of the past – thanks to online media – it was only a matter of time before somebody broke the shackles of ‘branding for the elite’. Pehechaan.com, a brilliant initiative led by two graduates of ISB Hyderabad, is all set to make branding accessible to all the professionals.

“It is a dream come true,” says Bejoy Veer Suri, a serial entrepreneur from ISB, who has spearheaded immensely successful ventures like ESquared Inc. – one of the most prominent digital branding and marketing firms in South Asia – with a clientele spanning USA, Europe and Asia. “As we saw the successes of ESquared unfold before us, we realised that social media and online branding strategies can be structured to benefit a large number of individuals as well. Strangely enough, the idea for Pehechaan.com actually came from a number of inquiries from individuals within the organisations that we were branding and marketing online. We were literally compelled to acknowledge this opportunity because of the sheer volume of people who wanted us to take care of their personal social media properties, as well as help them with their online reputations.”

It wouldn’t be far from the truth to say that we live in two parallel universes—the real world and the online world. The Internet makes the shrinking ‘globalised’ world even smaller, making the World Wide Web of paramount prominence in our lives. Information about individuals is available at the click of a button to anybody on the scout. Dealers, employers, prospective love interest, customers and clients are looking for outlets to reach out to the right business and services. All they need to do is ‘Google’. Pictures from your store launch party? It is child’s play to gain access to them. The growing power and reach of the Internet has made us information junkies, with a plethora of facts to our disposal 24*7. And as one’s professional life becomes increasingly public it is no more an option but to be on top of the image that one project’s online. The virtual reputation of a business is of supreme importance…ignoring which can lead to grave damages.

A sneak preview of the Pehechaan.com offering (a Beta version released on a limited basis) reveals that there’s something for everyone – from freshers to CEOs, and from creative professionals to individual practitioners like doctors, lawyers, architects, etc. Pehechaan.com has as different set of offerings for entrepreneurs, start-ups, corporate houses and educational institutions as well. A careful study of the services offered points out that detailed thought has been given to each category. While a fresher in industry is offered a set of services focused on handling the Linkedin profile and CV, a CXO is offered a much more advanced set of services like Google Search Management, a YouTube Channel and even a Wikipedia page. Interestingly, Pehechaan.com goes to the extent of providing the broad philosophy behind the services provided under each category. You will also come across the crisp logic for the inclusion of each service, as well as some interesting reading material, rich in testimonials and facts.

“When we began working upon Pehechaan.com about a year ago, the challenge was clearly to create the kind of infrastructure that could cater to the volume that is going to come our way,” says Gunjan Aggarwal who, along with Bejoy Veer Suri, has co-founded ESquared Inc. and 9.9 School of Communication, one of the most forward-looking media institutes in Asia. “Unlike any of our earlier ventures, with Pehechaan.com we didn’t have to look around to see whether there was a demand, thanks to ESquared Inc. Most professionals today, despite knowing its critical relevance, either do not have the time or the inclination, or the know-how to be able to brand themselves in the online space. What was a bigger challenge was to bring together a pool of experts from diverse fields – journalists, social media junkies, SEO hotshots – who have helped build brands online. This was a tough ask, and something that we are proud to have achieved. The process of management of one’s digital reputation involves eliminating all erroneous, misleading and obsolete material published in the digital space that may hamper one’s online image. It’s a specialist task to create and manage digital footprints, so as to make one look his/ her best in the online space.”

According to sources, at the first level Pehechaan is geared to take on as many as 5,000 select individuals with online branding needs. With individuals who have been able to build themselves into a brand commanding a premium even during economic downturns, Pehechaan has clearly brought a much-needed digital service into the market. With everybody realising that it’s the strong online brands that survive – the weak ones go out of business – Pehechaan.com seems to be in a position where it can pick and choose its clients.

Individuals today need to understand who the people are that they need to go after and how to put across their message to those concerned on a regular basis; and not just any message, but a highly differentiated one. Pehechaan.com, with its guarantee of presenting a “differentiated YOU”, seems all set to capture a huge existing market, which nobody has tapped so far. It is clearly a big step into the future of personal branding.