Social media is a kind of love-hate relationship since it can like you, share with you, and engage you in conversations, especially when content is created from a user-centric point of view, but also knock you for six, if you are not foresighted and careful.

You have to consider abuse and know how, when, in what format, and on what platform the content is expected to be consumed to get the desired reactions and positive feedback. So, find the right platform to talk to your target group and make your message stick. Best is to develop compelling content that is easily digestible and shareable.  Ideally it is visual and formatted for small screens and please don’t forget making sure you have your social media guidelines in place.

The online world is evolving rapidly and new social media channels and apps are constantly added. You simply can’t handle everything on your own, so let all involved in your social media activities know your management process and goals.

Here is why it makes sense to set up dedicated policies, both internal and external, to protect your content and reputation: Internally, it is mainly about the content, the registration of domains and social media accounts, as well as a code of conduct for social media channels. Externally, the use of the brand by partners, dealers, distributors and other third parties, is the focus. Guidelines must be defined for all brand protection applications.

Social networks can kick-start a wide range of new opportunities for customer engagement. They enable direct communication with the consumer and provide valuable information for targeted marketing, allowing new customer segments and sales channels to be unlocked.

The other side of the coin is, however, that companies must register on all these platforms. Not to mention that regardless of their reach, companies must proactively monitor the various platforms in all relevant languages for brand misuse, negative customer feedback and the like.

Such online monitoring should cover the following aspects: a mood analysis, the search for pages that sell counterfeits of own products or malware, policy violations of employees and partners, links to non-indexed websites in the Deep Web, and fake accounts on behalf of the brand or the employee.

When companies cooperate with other service providers and companies, there can be certainly many benefits, but naturally each party has its own interests. Therefore, it is advisable that companies enforce rules and guidelines for their partners to increase brand protection. Once properly established, the company policies can serve to approach infringements quite clearly and allows to generate at the same time synergies.

Unfortunately, due to the rapid developments in the online sector, it is no longer enough to just observe the most important websites, marketplaces and social media platforms. Companies must actually take into account all the channels that appear in the worldwide web and look for brand abuse, including apps, the Deep Web and Darknet, as well as domain management.

By Daniela La Marca