Have you thought about the ways large companies maintain a positive image? You may not be on the same scale, but you can still benefit from their example. If you want your business to succeed, you need to learn more about reputation management.

Stay polite and courteous. Posting status updates and tweets doesn’t work without active communication between you and your followers. Answer questions posted to you. If you get asked a question and you don’t know how to answer it, tell them that you’re working on finding the answer.

Look at your presence on the Internet. Negative remarks can move quickly up a search result for your business. Stop them before they get high in the rankings. Do this once or twice a month.

Focus on your offensive strategy as it pertains to handling negative Internet content. If you work on boosting positive feedback, it will make the negative stuff fade away. Make sure your content is always fresh so that older, negative things fade to the bottom of search pages.

If you own a business, always respect employees. Sometimes, this isn’t seen as something that is necessary, but if you don’t respect your employees, then you could be dealing with serious consequences. If disgruntled employees start talking, you may lose customers.

If you are holding a private promotion or sale, don’t make it public. This is important especially if it’s for a complaint. People may take advantage of you otherwise.

Always show up where your customers will be found. Visit any places you know they go to often. By going to where your customers go, you will get to know them better and be able to provide quality service. They’ll be comfortable with you as a result.

Have a good online personality. Status updates and tweets are worthless if you fail to communicate with those who follow you. If you receive a question on a social media site, be sure to respond immediately. If you are stumped by the question you have been asked, let the person know you are actively searching for the answer they need.

If you find untrue information about your company on a website, ask the site’s owner to remove or correct the information. If you show the site owner that what they are presenting is factually untrue and they are liable, most website owners will comply with your request.

Do you believe you are more prepared to handle managing your reputation? With reputation management, you can get ahead of the competition. Treat customers respectfully, and consider your future business.