You have worked hard to get your company where it is, and you want to try and build a strong brand and a good reputation. However, there can be problems protecting your brand and your reputation from people. It can come from people wanting to use your brand without permission, or those trying to damage your reputation. Here are some of the ways you can try to protect your company and brand.
Social Media
One of the quickest and easiest ways to damage your reputation and your brand is by not using your social media account properly. What you post can be seen by millions of people, so posting something inappropriate can cost you dearly. To try and prevent this, you need to have a clear social media policy that lays out the appropriate behavior and the rules and guidelines. You need to train your employees in the social media etiquette and explain to them the policy regarding posting. An easy way to train your company employees would be to have an outside party doing a workshop. For example; David Mitroff Ph.D. has trained Bay Area law firms on setting-up Social Media Policy through his MCLE workshop. (law-firm-san-mateo.eventbrite.com)
It is also a good idea to enable moderation of comments so that no-one can post an inappropriate comment on your feed.
Intellectual Property Rights
Your brand is important to your company, so why not think about copyright protection? If you see or suspect someone of using your brand or logo without your permission, then you should do your best to enforce your intellectual property rights. Not only will this protect your brand, but it will also deter others from doing the same thing. To get the evidence you need, it might be necessary to involve electronic forensics to find the person responsible. The same applies to any designs or music that you may use as part of your company.
Make Your Brand Prominent
It is important that your brand speaks to your customers about who you are. They need to be able to associate your logo and brand with your company. Make sure you have your brand on all of your documents and especially on your online profiles. The more recognizable it is, the less chance anyone will try to use it without you knowing. By having a good relationship with your customers, you will also have another way of protecting your brand, as they might tell you if it is being used elsewhere.
Monitoring Your Brand and Reputation
Because you have an online presence and you are also using social media, it is important that you monitor your feeds and those of others who are using your brand name. There are ways that you can search for your company name on the social media feeds to see what people are saying about the company. Using Google Alerts might be an option depending of the size of your company. If you see someone saying damaging things about your company, then you might be able to do something about it.
No matter how good your reputation is or how good your customer services, there will always be incidences where people will try to use your logo or tarnish your reputation. Only with diligent monitoring and identifying unofficial use will you be able to tackle the problem.
