Intellectual Property Protection Increasingly Critical for All Business Centers, ABCN Says

With the phenomenal growth of Twitter and other social media platforms in recent times, brand protection and intellectual property protection have become critically important. While these mediums are excellent for marketing, branding, and networking purposes, they make it increasingly important to be aware of and careful about protecting what is yours and your business center company’s.

“With the onset of social media handles and the lack of regulation around who can use those handles, it’s crucial to get and hold your company name and your personal name on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn even if you’re not going to use it,” Viveka von Rosen, The ALLIANCE Academy’s Master of Social Media, said.

“The good thing is that this is relatively easy to do,” she said. “On Twitter, just go the site and claim your name if it’s available. On Facebook, you need to have 100 fans on your page and then you can get your name. LinkedIn requires you to have an email address at the company for which you are trying to claim the group/company name.” Anyone from the company with a company email address would be able to do this, so it is important to check out if your company name is being used on the site or not.

The first thing to do is to check with the mentioned social media sites to see if your name or your company’s name is taken yet. All three sites allow you to report fraud or errors, so if you find that your executive suites company name is being used fraudulently, you will be able to take action.

“Misuse does happen, and it happens in our industry,” said Mike Sullivan, Executive Director of ALLIANCE Impact Marketing. Mike recounted a recent incident in which he notified a company in the industry of an individual who was using the company’s name as their Twitter handle. He came across the misuse by watching for industry keywords in Twitter.

 “It is critical to monitor the social media platforms in this way, to ensure on-brand and on-target messages. Use the tools that the various media platforms have put in place to watch for this type of misuse,” Mike advised.

UK-based ABCN Member Avanta Managed Offices is heavily involved in the social media arena. The company is careful and conscientious about safeguarding their brand online. Anna Haslam, the company’s Marketing Manager, said, “We keep track of what’s being said about us online through buzz tracking and through the search facility on Twitter. We can listen to what people say about Avanta and can contact them where necessary.”

As business transparency becomes more popular, serviced office clients are increasingly vocal about their experiences via online reviews and testimonials. Center operators will want to verify that testimonials about your company aren’t completely above or below the norm.

To ensure accurate representation online, Viveka said, “It would behoove professional companies to check their company profiles on these sites and create a group on LinkedIn. Just go out and get your name.”

Viveka further advised companies to do an online search to understand their online representation. If your company is copyrighted, trademarked or patented and someone else is using your company name, you can take legal action to correct the situation.

Research online and you can come to know and understand the different types of intellectual property. If you do not already have a copyright, trademark, patent, or trade secret for your company, there are steps you can take to protect yourself. You can employ the use of nondisclosure agreements with anyone and everyone with whom you share information to keep information from being shared without your consent. You can work with attorneys to ensure your legal protection. You can also establish good practices by keeping good records of relevant intellectual property information, clearly outlining intellectual property policies in employee handbooks, making protective actions and measures part  of your standard procedures, and making sure different departments and individuals clearly understand what can be disclosed and to whom and when.

“Social media is about authenticity and integrity,” Viveka said. “People in line with social media culture won’t have as much to worry about.“

The ALLIANCE Academy has the knowledge and expertise to lead you through these new and sometimes gray areas. The Academy is providing a repeat offering of their Social Media Series Webinars in response to overwhelming demand for the first round of Webinars. These Webinars will offer in-depth and detailed information on how to optimize your use of Twitter and LinkedIn, and how to effectively protect your company name and brand on these platforms.

The LinkedIn Series continues next Wednesday, November 24th. The Twitter Series takes place in December. For more information and to secure your spot at these critical Webinars, please visit http://theallianceacademy.com/events.html.

Add to: del.icio.us | Digg