With this year’s annual meeting season approaching, public companies should refresh their procedures for mitigating potential disruptions. While most annual meetings are held without incident, this year companies may encounter more shareholder unrest as advocates jockey for media attention and attempt to build off of the anti-corporate fervor that groups such as Occupy Wall Street have generated.

Unless handled with care, annual meeting disruptions can result in lasting damage to a company’s brand – particularly today, when an incident can be quickly posted to social media outlets and go viral in short order. Accordingly, one of the goals of the annual meeting planning process should be to anticipate and defuse the risks that disruptions pose not only to the completion of the annual meeting, but also to the company’s reputation and goodwill.