No, it’s not a typo. I am referring to death caused by social media and not whether social media died already or not. We all know that social media is alive and well, in fact it is on another tab on my browser. People from all walks of life spanning different continents are socially active for various reasons.

Business owners, PR managers and marketing gurus have wisely used social media as a platform to increase visibility, readership, their fan base and even sales. Interacting with like-minded people are just a click and several keyboard strokes away. However this interaction, if taken the wrong way, may lead to ruin and it might even cause the demise of your business.

If you aren’t that familiar with the many shapes and forms of social media, chances are you haven’t been in the business long enough. That or you follow the old school marketing practice of brick and mortar businesses (read: flyers, brochures, a large neon sign outside your door and that’s just about it).

For those in the know however, there’s a mad scramble to check what the latest trends are and what social networking site has recently popped up. There might also be some confusion as to which passwords and username you use because let’s face it; there are too many sites that we may be a member of.

Death by social media can be instigated when you and your business’ reputation are damaged because of some bad moves. You can see it clearly in the case of celebrities and businesses that are not exempt from it. The internet is readily accessible for everyone anytime and if you make a mistake, you can bet that it would spread like wildfire and before you know it, even your off site reputation can be ruined as well.

Take the case of the recent GoDaddy scandal. Their business is sound enough and they have built a strong reputation but because of the release of the video which shows their CEO killing elephants over in Zimbabwe, over 20,000 GoDaddy customers have decided to migrate to a different domain company.

Any business, whether on or off site, needs to establish credibility. This takes time to build but it can take seconds to destroy and that’s the hard truth. You have to take the necessary precautions to avoid a bad rep but since mistakes can be easily made with just a tweet, a share, a like, even a damaging post or comment, you have to tread with caution.

In some cases, companies even opt to change their names just to hide from bad reputations. Why? Simply because there is no good that can come from bad publicity. A ruined reputation is plain and simply a ruined reputation. It could end up costing you business deals which may mean the difference between life and death of a small business.

Social media means that bad and good news travel with lightning speed and your efforts at branding can either suffer or improve. One bad judgment could mean the downfall of your business and your carefully managed reputation could go down in flames faster than you can imagine.