Online, and the growth of social media, has opened up the world for local businesses - but with that opening up has come something which was never a consideration for a business before: your business' perception online; your business' online reputation; and the effect good and bad conversations online can have on your business.

Recent studies have shown that more than 1 in 4 people in the US are more willing to tell their friends and family about a bad customer experience than a good one. Are you willing to be that bad experience?

Conversations about your business are happening...

They're happening online. And happening offline. They're happening in places you know about. And happening in places you might not.

As a first step - search. Search for your business online  - for the name, for your URL, for any mention of youur business at all - and get a gauge for where the conversations are happening, what they are about, and in what way can you potentially get involved.

Make a list of where these discussions are taking place, and think about if they are really affecting your business - if you 're in the hospitality sector, what do the review websites say about you? Are there a number of online discussion forums dedicated to what you provide, to your product/service, and the need it fulfills, or dedicated to the vertical in which your business services?

Know where the conversations happen, and what they are about (and the sentiment expressed about your business) - and check regularly for new sources.

Where do your customers come from?

When you sell a product or service, ask - where did you hear about us? Why did you decide to buy from us? What made you make up your mind, and what would keep you with us as a customer? Try to understand how people came to the decision to choose your business, and track back to where the conversations are happening. Try to find out how the person who bought from you, if happy, will tell others - what channels will they use, what discussions will they start or contribute to?

On your website, track - install website analytics software to track not just what people are doing on your website, but how they got there. What terms or phrases did they type into a search engine to end up on your website? What links from other websites did they follow? Take the time to really understand your traffic website sources (as well as what people are doing on your website) - often, you'll find your website is linked in places you never even knew existed, and with conversations happening around these!

Converse, listen and create brand advocates

Now that you know where the conversations are happening, think about how to engage in those conversations, to listen to what people are saying, and use positive conversations to generate more business and negative conversations to address customer concerns - and generate more business.

Engage with platforms you don't own, and ensure that you have a say in discussions about your business - thanking people for positive comments, addressing customer issues or potential customer issues in public forums to show you're willing to engage, learn and change things if it makes sense to, and generally making sure people see your willingness to get in touch, and converse. Relating back to the hospitality sector, if people staying with you are leaving glowing praise, encourage them (and make it easy for them) to post those glowing reviews to the main travel discussion forums and review websites!

Think about using platforms such as a Facebook Page and Twitter to engage in two-way conversations with your customers and potential customers, and turn them into brand advocates, spreading good stories through their family, their friends, their networks. Encourage people to like or follow your business, and converse - ask what's going well? What could be improved? How can you help to make their experience even more positive?

And manage.

Build the set of sources where discussions are happening, understand what's being said, and involve yourself to ensure discussions are as positive as possible.

Remember - it won't all be good news. Opening yourself up to a two-way conversation involves opening yourself up to possible negative sentiment. Don't shy away from this - at least if you know about it, you can do something about it! Those conversations will happen with or without you there - at least by knowing, by playing a role, you'll be perceived as willing to listen and change based on customer and potential customer feedback.

With another study showing nearly 98% of people in the UK admitting that good customer service will increase their brand loyalty, and the same percentage saying they would leave a brand for bad customer service, can you afford to NOT be in the conversations about your business?