So, assuming somebody's out there on various social media channels, lashing out against your beloved brand, your first instinct might be to fire right back -- but that's not necessarily the best approach, advise our experts.

"We haven't found too many circumstances where it's appropriate to respond directly," says Red Door's Carr. He suggests that, by not responding at all, a problem can frequently disappear on its own, citing the example of a homebuilder client who was being trashed by angry customers via hate sites. By doing nothing -- other than ensuring that the builder ranked higher than the hate sites in search engine rankings -- the disgruntled homeowners eventually ran out of resources and gave up, inflicting only minor damage to the builder's reputation.

"You've got to quickly identify whether it's a legitimate, organic groundswell within the community or whether what you're seeing is a deviation and merely someone who has personal problems and is taking them out against the brand," advises Braswell. He adds, half jokingly, "When these things happen, you wonder if this is when we should invest a little bit more of our tax money in the mental health system." 

"If it's just somebody putting up spam, it's probably safe to ignore it," says Barenblat. He cautions against ignoring legitimate complaints, however. "I think ignoring those comments is a risk. And being able to engage users who do have legitimate complaints is a real opportunity to build the brand online."

Zimmerman recommends doing your best to determine intent and, if it looks like a case of a person or persons simply "releasing their inner demons," monitoring the situation before responding. "You might want to do some searches on that person to see if they've posted elsewhere or if they have a history of this sort of thing," she elaborates. "Then, monitor it for escalation to see how aggressively the community responds. In many cases, when you have an individual like that, the community will self police."

Sometimes, though, you simply have to respond -- ideally, according to Rubel, right before things get to the tipping point. He likens determining this point to leaning back in a chair. "There's a moment in time when you're like, shoot, the chair's falling. You want to respond just before that."

That segues right into…