Even a lion in the courtroom can become a kitten upon hearing these two little words: Social media.

Lawyers have a conflicted relationship with social networking and other subsets of the online world, including blogging. On the one hand, many attorneys and firms realize it’s essential to be online producing content, so that they can reach current and prospective clients and demonstrate their expertise. But on the other hand, they worry that people could say bad things about them on their blogs or social media sites, damaging the reputation they’ve worked so hard to build up.

The truth is, there’s no reason for this relationship between lawyers and the digital world to be so fraught. What you say online matters, and you can either protect or destroy your reputation with words.

Here are three ways you can help guard your law firm’s online reputation, by using a keen eye and good legal copywriting.

1. Monitor Anything Written About You

You’ve heard the phrase “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” That’s certainly true online. If you nip a complaint or smear in the bud, it won’t turn into something bigger that threatens to hurt your company’s stellar reputation. In order to do the nipping, you must be monitoring anything that’s posted about you and your firm digitally.

Here are some good ways to start:

• Set up a Google Alert with your firm’s name, which will notify you anytime something new is posted about you. Review the results frequently.
• Regularly look at sites like Review a Lawyer or Lawyer Ratings to see what people are posting about you.
• Check out forums on student and consumer sites, where people who may have dealt with you before are posting.

2. Defend Yourself and Your Firm

Finding the problems obviously isn’t the last step. You’ll also need to address them, and get incorrect information corrected so that no one else sees or believes it.

You have a number of choices when it comes to posts that could hurt your reputation. In extreme cases, you can ask the host site to take it down. You can address the person who made the complaint directly. You can reach out to them via social media.

3. Avoid Problems by Hiring a Legal Content Writer

There are people trained in copywriting for lawyers who can assist you in building up your online reputation. By using social media and blogs, they’ll improve search rankings for information favorable to your company while pushing down the bad stuff.

Getting as much positive material as possible out onto the web is the best way to displace negative content. This is a proactive approach, because it focuses on prevention rather than reaction.