For celebrities more than most other people, your name is your brand. It takes a lot of good work to build up a positive brand, but only hours to destroy one, thanks to the far-reaching possibilities of the internet. That’s why online reputation management for celebrities is so critical.

Once you’ve got a solid brand image associated with your name, follow these tips to keep it positive.

Monitor what others are saying about you.

You can’t respond to a brand crisis or negative press if you don’t know what people are saying about you. If you monitor regularly and respond appropriately, you can often take care of a problem before it snowballs into something much bigger and much worse.

The most basic online monitoring tool is Google Alerts. Set up an alert for your name and other terms relevant to your career or fame, and decide how often to receive the emailed alert.

Other good monitoring tools include Monitter.com and SocialMention.com. Both of these specifically look for mentions of your name and keywords on Twitter and other social media.

Get good press.

One of the best ways to maintain a positive brand image is to keep doing the things that helped you build it in the first place. This could include but is not limited to:

• charity
• volunteer work
• avoiding compromising situations
• excelling at what you do
• winning awards or competitions

Own your name online.

Celebrity online reputation management is much easier when you own your domain name (i.e. celebrityname.com). When someone searches your name online, your domain name is very likely to show up on the first page of results, pushing any negative results down and offering the best information to searchers.

Think of your website as the online hub of information about you. Regularly publishing up-to-date and relevant announcements, photos, news and updates will make your site more likely to show up on the first page of search results and will help searchers find what they’re looking for.

You can use this same strategy with related domains, such as celebritynameblog.com or celebritynamestore.com (if you sell a branded product line).

Other places you can own your name online include the major social networks, appropriate directories (such as IMDB), and possibly a Wikipedia page.

Create online “business cards.”

In addition to owning your domain name and creating an online hub about yourself, you can own your name on single pages of personal portal sites that act like business cards online.

The biggest personal portals are About.me and Flavors.me. They generally include a photo or two of yourself, as much pertinent information as you want to include, and links to more information about you, such as your website and social profiles.

Control photos of yourself online.

Depending on the source of your fame, this may be easier said than done. But being the biggest publisher of photos of yourself can be a powerful, if somewhat counter-intuitive, celebrity online reputation management tactic.

Why? Because if you do it right, most photos will take searchers back to your website and social profiles, which you also control.

Start by including your name in the name of each photo, such as name-ABC-awards.jpg. Then publish them on your website or blog and share them on your social profiles. Just make sure to use appropriate photos, like you doing volunteer work, speaking at a conference, or accepting awards.

Always be professional.

The most important thing you can do to maintain a positive celebrity brand image is always be professional--in the way you work, respond to negative statements about you, and treat others.