‘Google is now a brand’s homepage in the eyes of most Internet users’ – that was the view of Media 140 keynote speaker, Ciaran Norris, Head of Social Media at Mindshare.

If that is true (and let’s face it, it’s not exactly hard to believe as for most Google is viewed as a web browser), then for brands the recent partnerships announced between Twitter, Google and Bing to offer real-time search results presents a nightmare scenario.

Or at least it does for those that aren’t proactively monitoring and managing their online reputation, or aren’t listening and reacting to what consumers are saying about them through the multitude of social channels online.

With real-time search, listings will now feature actual conversations and threads that are happening live on Twitter. And there is little doubt that these will feature prominently amongst the more standard listings of static websites.

So picture this scenario; a disgruntled customer has had a very poor customer service experience and to make matters worse has been sworn at by a customer service operative. The disgruntled customer (who has 1000 followers) tweets about this experience and references the company with a hash tag. The tweet is then retweeted, becomes a trending topic on Twitter and is also picked up by the national media. Suddenly one isolated conversation has become a significant PR crisis, and to top it all off, anyone searching for that brand will also see the evidence of why.

Whilst the scenario above is fictional, it’s not hard to see how it could happen as evidenced by the recent Twitter storms around Trafigura, Jan Moir and TFL. But with the conversations appearing in search engines, it takes these situations to a whole new level and beyond the Twitterati alone, which in fact are still in the minority online.

The web is still considered by many to be an open platform, so these partnerships are certainly an evolution. They’re also evidence of the fact that Twitter is rapidly establishing itself as a vital communications channel online. For the majority of brands, it should act as a wake-up call that they need to start taking online reputation seriously.

This will require a culture change for some that will no doubt require plenty of internal discussion about whose responsibility it is and who pays for it. But, these issues must not be viewed as a distraction or a reason not to start taking this seriously. It’s now absolutely vital that brands start to not only listen but also begin to identify and develop ways of engaging with customers through these channels.

Engagement and using these channels will mean that some potential PR disasters can be averted, but even more significantly, should a scenario such as the one above come up, then the company will be well equipped to minimise the risk rather than going into it blind- as they currently are.

Ben Carter is founder of digital marketing consultancy, Evolv Digital (www.evolvdigital.com) and formerly Head of Online marketing for Setanta Sports.