People should couple their social networking strategy with proactive reputation control, according to the private wealth management division of US-listed CIBC, Atlantic Trust.

Individuals and families should endeavor to be hands-on when it comes to managing their reputation online, the US private wealth manager Atlantic Trust has advised in a note.

"Social media is all around us in innumerable forms. Some of us use a lot of it; most of us use some of it," said Linda Beerman, chief fiduciary officer at Atlantic Trust. "However, as valuable as fluency in social media has become, we ignore the potential for privacy at our peril."

When managing one's online footprint, small lifestyle changes can help protect against irreversible reputation damage and, in turn, protect long-term wealth preservation and family legacy plans, according to the wealth manager.

Those concerned with their online footprint can, for example, monitor the content that appears about them by conducting a quick search online for themselves or by setting up regular news alerts for their names, companies, taglines and products, it said, warning that "even transgressions from years past can live online forever."

“The real truth is that negative comments, posts or tweets will happen whether you're engaged or not,” said technology and social media expert, David Papp. “But being part of the conversation allows you to respond directly and react, and being engaged is always better than pretending these things don't happen.”