Social networking has many different uses. It can be a highly beneficial way of staying in cotnact with your existing customers and even improving customer retention rate or it is obviously an ideal way to stay in touch with friends and colleagues, or to catch up with people that you haven’t seen in years. Facebook is the prime example of such sites but it is only one in a long line of them, albeit the largest and the one that has just announced reaching the 500 million registration mark since it was first opened just 6 years ago.

More specific networks like LinkedIn can be used as a powerful tool to help you connect professionally with individuals and organisations. It has been used successfully by job hunting candidates in order to find themselves new work or further their career. It has also been used by prospective employers as a means to find the best candidate for a job, and an increasing number of employers are using sites like both LinkedIn and even Facebook to check on potential candidates. This is why reputation management programs should incorporate some social networking.

Develop a profile with sites like those mentioned above and always ensure that you know exactly what is being posted about you on social networks, other websites, and even blogs. You may not be able to control what other people are writing about you but you can certainly control what you write and publish about yourself so use this to your advantage.

Have you been subject of nasty or defamatory comments online?

Do you actively manage your reputation (your brand, if you like)?