We’ve been taking an increasing number of calls over the past few months on a rather interesting topic: reputation management. To be more precise: online reputation management.

As it turns out, nothing can kill your prospects for fast growth much quicker than a few unkind words posted by an alienated employee, “wronged” customer, devious competitor or malicious prankster. (Speaking of which, isn’t there a special place in Hell for those pranksters who do nothing but destroy?)

Why is that?

Because of the multiplicative effect, ease and anonymity of online communication. What’s more, if the comments are in high traffic interactive communities like the growing army of social media sites, they can spread like wildfire and be very hard to put out once the fire is raging.

Putting the fire out before it gets out of control is usually not what goes on, however. Most companies and executives don’t have any level of online reputation monitoring. They simply don’t know until random events make them aware of the problem – or some Good Samaritan.

So, now companies that were previously doing a full-court press for growth all of sudden have a new, very ugly problem that sucks up their precious time and energy. The funny thing is most of the cases I know about were also unjustified.

Even if everything is humming along in a positive vein there is worthwhile intelligence to mine out of the mentions your company, products/services and key executives get online. Intelligence you can use to strengthen your business.

Yet, one simple thing that a company can do will help you identify the problem and enable you to take corrective measures before it gets out of control: monitor your online reputation. Most businesses are not monitoring their reputation online - and that is a big mistake.

Put in place an online reputation monitoring system. Those systems can range from free Do-It-Yourself systems to sophisticated highly automated monitoring programs offered by a growing army of companies.

Do yourself a favor – go to Google Alerts now, set up an account (it’s free) and put some keyword phrases into their monitoring system. Use keyword phrases like your company name, products/services, and top executives. Set the frequency for delivery of the results and take time to read them.

That’s at least a start to getting your new online reputation protection program underway.

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