This week’s blog post, as well as next week’s, addresses how to use social media to protect and grow your brands. Social media giants such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have revolutionized the way the world does business. Social media expert Erik Qualman has revealed astounding statistics that speak to the strength and influence of social media. Among these figures: Facebook has surpassed Google in the amount of traffic generated; Facebook would be the third largest country behind China and India in terms of population/users; 50% of mobile Internet traffic generated in the United Kingdom is for Facebook; and Ford Explorer’s launch on Facebook generated more traffic than a Super Bowl ad. The implication behind this data is unmistakable, doing business means doing social media. As Qualman puts it, “We don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it.”

On the Internet, businesses and service providers must generally rely on their reputation, i.e., their name/brand, to persuade consumers to purchase products or utilize services. As such, when your brand becomes the ambassador for your business, you must actively, and sometimes aggressively, protect it.

The first step in managing your brand is registration. Being the first to register that unique brand, keyword, or username ensures that subsequent users are unable to trade off another’s goodwill or masquerade as someone they are not. Preemptively registering takes little time and does not require active participation in that forum. For example, when Facebook first rolled out its use of usernames in conjunction with user profiles, it afforded owners of registered trademarks the opportunity to reserve usernames related to their marks, even if they did not maintain an active account.

The next step is monitoring. You should create an in-depth social media plan that addresses what social networking websites are to be monitored and how such monitoring should take place. This can be done in-house or can be outsourced to professionals that specialize in the field. The task of “monitoring” may include the review of Internet news articles, search results, blogs, auction websites, and popular forums for any bad press, trademark infringement, or sale of counterfeit goods/services. Some websites, such as eBay, make reviewing simple. On eBay, a registered user may save searches, allowing them to receive automatically generated emails from eBay when new results using that term become available. Similarly, Google allows registered users to create “alerts” that will email the user when Google finds the designated term in new search results.

Some websites, however, do not aid in the monitoring of your brand. I will address an example of this stance, as well as other steps to utilize in protecting your brand online in next week’s blog post!

Sources: Erik Qualman, Social Media Video 2013, SOCIALNOMICS, http://www.socialnomics.net/2013/01/01/social-media-video-2013/. Id. Jonathan Handel, Trademark Protection and Facebook User Names, DIGITAL MEDIA LAW (June 10, 2009, 7:17 AM), http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2009/06/trademark-protection-and-facebook-user.html. Saving Your Searches, EBAY, http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/save-searches.html (last visited May 10, 2013). What are Google Alerts? – Alerts Help, GOOGLE (Feb. 8, 2013), https://support.google.com/alerts/answer/175925?hl=en.

For more information, please visit our social media law service page.

Klemchuk LLP is an Intellectual Property (IP), Technology, Internet, and Business law firm located in Dallas, TX.  The firm offers comprehensive legal services including litigation and enforcement of all forms of IP as well as registration and licensing of patents, trademarks, trade dress, and copyrights.  The firm also provides a wide range of technology, Internet, e-commerce, and business services including business planning, formation, and financing, mergers and acquisitions, business litigation, data privacy, and domain name dispute resolution.  Additional information about the IP law firm and its IP law attorneys may be found at www.klemchuk.com.

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