Social networking technology is increasingly becoming part of New Zealanders’ lives and as a consequence, it has opened up new opportunities for companies to trade and market their brand. Many businesses are seeking to capitalise on the benefits offered such as increased business visibility and more efficient and direct consumer targeting. However, while popular social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are now seen as viable marketing platforms, caution is also needed due to the lack of control surrounding such sites and the new forums they have created for the potential misuse or misappropriation of intellectual property rights.
In particular, Facebook is progressively being used by businesses either for advertising or through establishing company pages, and in some cases it has become an integral part of their marketing strategy. Through creating a company branded Facebook page, this can be a cost efficient way to engage in dialogue with users as they can become “fans” of the page, receive updates and regularly participate by leaving comments on the Facebook page. This not only helps to build closer relationships with existing customers, but it also allows such individuals to spread the message for free on the company’s behalf by sharing the page with friends, thus also leading to increased brand awareness amongst potential customers.
Similarly, Twitter is gradually being used more by businesses to leverage their brand. Although the platform has not been around for very long, it works in real time and the message (limited to 140 characters) allows for direct and current information to be communicated.
One downside in relation to the speed and reach of such social networking tools is the potential for information that is unfavourable to your business or campaign to spread like wildfire. Although companies can create and moderate their official Facebook pages, they do not have control on groups or community pages and equally with Twitter, one cannot control someone who makes disparaging or ill motivated comments about your brand. For example, if your product has failed or a service has been poor, others may pick up on these negative comments as soon as they have been posted. This can lead to a lot of damage to your brand and business reputation if such comments are left undefended in a relatively short period of time. Likewise if a user were to post a potentially defamatory comment then issues could arise. Even if your business does not have an online or social networking presence, brand owners are encouraged to regularly monitor the social networking scene to mitigate any adverse customer reactions.
In addition, social networking also creates new realms for the exploitation of Intellectual Property rights. Brand owners need to be aware of the potential for their trade marks or copyright works to be misused or misappropriated on social networking sites either by individuals or competitors.
However, the good news is that user-friendly and cost-effective mechanisms to protect your rights via these platforms are generally available. For example, Facebook has implemented a “take down” system by filing a “Notice of Intellectual Property Infringement”
online. All that is required is for rights holders to provide some basic information about the owner of the rights at issue, which normally results in the removal of infringing content and in extreme cases termination of the infringing user’s account.
Twitter and
YouTube also have similar processes for complaints against trade mark and/or copyright infringement.
While these types of self help assessments are generally speedy and cost efficient, the flipside is that such take down procedures remove or disable access on the basis of allegedly infringing content with no need for a legitimate proof of right. Therefore, this could also potentially work against you in terms of people creating baseless claims, although in the majority of cases they do provide for a chance to respond to any alleged claims against you.
Further, even if you do not have an online presence in the online or social networking arena, ignoring this media space completely may not be wise. For example a “Twitter Handle” is the name chosen to represent an individual or entity on Twitter. If you haven’t already registered a Twitter account in the name of your business or trade mark then this could be taken up by someone else and used for unfavourable purposes. As it can be hard to find out exactly who is behind a Twitter Handle, it is a good idea to reserve this in the first place and even if you don’t intend to use it, you can display a “holding” message.
Overall, marketing and branding in the social media space has opened up new opportunities but these have come hand in hand with new risks. If your company doesn’t already have a social network strategy, perhaps it is time to start thinking about whether your business would be advantaged by one. It is also generally recommended that a brand owner puts a system in place to regularly monitor social networking activity to ensure that any misuse is discovered early and the appropriate action can be taken.
Published in FMCG magazine, May 2011.