As if family offices didn’t have enough to worry about, add having a family’s hard-earned reputation ruined on the internet to the list. As a result, reputation management has emerged as a growing area of concern for wealthy families, according to industry executives speaking at the annual Family Office Forum in Chicago.

As if family offices didn’t have enough to worry about, add having a family’s hard-earned reputation ruined on the internet to the list.

As a result, reputation management has emerged as a growing area of concern for wealthy families, according to industry executives speaking at the annual Family Office Forum in Chicago on Thursday.

Only ten years ago, reputation risk wasn’t a major issue for wealthy families, but the rise of the internet and especially social media has changed that forever, said industry veteran Pat Soldano, president, California, for GenSpring Family Offices.

Family offices need to recognize that their reputation is a “capital asset,” Soldano said, and vigilantly “monitor its performance, protect it from threats and manage it for the long term.” In fact, she continued, a family’s reputation should be subjected to “regular risk analysis procedures” including internet audits of the family’s name and the names of “key family members.”

“What goes on the internet stays on the Internet,” warned Soldano, who owned a prominent multi-family office in southern California before selling to GenSpring three years ago. “Reputations can be one click away from being ruined.”

Even if a family hasn’t faced recent unfavorable publicity, information the family may have assumed is confidential may already be available on such sites as spokeo.com, zabasearch.com, radaris.com and PIPL.com. If a family does get tangled up in bad news or a scandal, professionals from a crisis management team should handle the problem, Soldano said.

Social media sites like Facebook pose particular risks to families, Soldano said. Posting vacation plans, for example, can put primary residences at risk of robberies. Posting a birth year and place of birth offers easy clues for figuring out social security numbers. And using location-based applications allows predators to know where a family member is as well as their schedule and daily routine.

Online security issues have also become a priority for the Alliance Security Council, a new organization and website backed by Tom Livergood, the chief executive of Family Wealth Alliance. “This has become too important for families to ignore,” Livergood said. “It’s critical to know what’s out there and establish best practices.”

Families who think that having no presence on the internet is a logical way to avoid reputation risk would be mistaken, said Catherine Hooper, president of Black Umbrella, a security firm specializing in working with wealthy families.

“Invisibility is not an option,” Hooper said. “It’s actually not good for a family if there is no information about them on the internet. If something happens, and the media begins to do searches, it’s better that they find the information that the family wants there. More new information crowds out bad old information.”