Your reputation is an important part of your business success. Companies and individuals want the public to notice and remember them for the positive aspects of their operations.

In an offline businesses setting you have a little bit of control over the opinion that is being expressed about you. A simple strategy such as leaving comment cards for your customers will help you to gauge what their impression of your products and services are.  It is also easier to monitor customer satisfaction in a face to face meeting, where you can simply ask them if they were pleased with your product or service.

When you conduct business online, it becomes a little harder to monitor what customers are saying about your business. Given the shear vastness of the internet it becomes an overwhelming task to monitor customer response.

The internet also offers a veil of protection to many people, some people would never say in public the types of comments they express on their blog or web page. The internet can also be a place where individual members of your company may be scrutinized. It is hard to know if an individual with whom a customer has come into contact with will be subject to backlash on the web.

This too can paint your company in an unflattering light. With the increase in social media sites and the large number of people who can now easily create a website in mere minutes, comments or poor reviews could be located in any number of formats.

How then do you protect your business from these types of online activities? With reputation management and by working with a company who has a firm grip on how to protect you from the people on the net who want to paint your business in a negative light.

Careful monitoring through specialized systems will help to alert you of when these instances occur. It is also important to create positive information about your company through the same mediums that your customers frequent.

This is best achieved through a strategic, optimized plan to use social media, blogs, forums and community sites to publish company information that enhances your reputation. Being proactive is a very important part of this complex puzzle; by doing this alone your chances of being negatively impacted are far less.