Like any responsible trade mark owner, you have secured registered trade mark protection in all the markets you operate in. You have secured the various domain name extensions that incorporate your trade mark. You have even registered misspelled versions of your domain names.
Your Brand on Twitter, Your Brand on Facebook, Your Brand on YouTube…
People may be using Facebook accounts to reconnect with friends, but they are also searching for their favourite brands. Consumers are increasingly expecting their favourite drink, sports shoe, and car to have a Facebook page, to Tweet, and to profile photos on Flickr.
Have you seen the increasing number of advertisements that are asking consumers to find them on Facebook, rather than giving a website address?
Social media today is huge. Modern consumers search social media pages and tweets for trade marks. Hennessy may have started in the 17th century, but there are more than 167,000 people who “like” it today on Facebook. And Starbucks has over one million followers on Twitter.
The “#yourtrademark”, and “Facebook/yourtrademark” usernames are valuable assets, particularly if your company wants to talk to its younger consumers.
Which social websites should you choose?
In an ideal world, trade mark owners should acquire their company name and all their trade marks as usernames on the social network sites that are relevant to their brands. Reserving names and marks now is a good strategy— in the same way that defensive domain registrations are used to prevent cybersquatting.
There are now well over 400 commonly used social networking sites where you can potentially register your trade mark as a username. These include: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Wikis, Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon, Second Life, as well as new social sites popping up daily.
Registering on all social media networks is a daunting prospect. An intermediate option is to choose the sites where your customers are networking. However, even once this is done, you need to monitor the situation, as the popularity of social media websites can change overnight.
Luckily, there is help at hand. There are services that automate the process of registering usernames, including online companies TM.Biz and KnowEm. These sites also offer an insight into the scale of the social media opportunity.
What happens if someone else has got there first?
If you do discover that someone else has already registered your trade mark as a username and is using it to mislead or confuse, there are ways of taking action. Each of the social media websites has its own policy relating to such matters. Legal actions through the courts is also an option.
Due to the background of freedom of speech under which these websites operate, in many cases the remedies provided may be less effective than a trade mark owner would want. In each case, a trade mark owner needs to decide whether it is best to attack, or to seek to “friend” a person who is misusing a trade mark. What could be worse than turning thousands of fans into potential enemies?
If you really want to take action to stop misuse, then this will be easier if you have a registered trade mark. But trade marks are territorial. If someone else has a legitimate right to use the same name in another country (and the site is directed solely at that country), there may be nothing you can do, other than to co-exist on the web.
So what can you do to protect you brands in the social media playground? The best way is to proactively register your trade marks on the popular social networks, to monitor use of these sites, and to take action when necessary.
It is “first in first served” for usernames on many of these sites, so protect your important trade marks before someone else does.
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