The Power of the Social Media Space

Discussion

From a brand promotion perspective, companies use social media to expand the reach of their message; engage consumers to gain feedback about products and services; drive additional sales; and open up a dialogue that can both strengthen brand loyalty and attract the attention of new customers.

According to a social media study issued by EngagementDB, a database that measures online engagement for top brands, “the number of channels a brand engages with exponentially increases the effectiveness of its singular activities. From a dollars and sense standpoint, this implies that brands that invest more resources in social media get more bang for their buck.”¹ By owning the right usernames, brands can develop another user-friendly platform from which to project their image and interact with their relevant audiences. These reputational benefits and added impressions can translate not only to intangible benefits such as good will and trust amongst the Internet community, but also to increased top and bottom line growth. Social media, after all, may be one of the most cost-effective audience growth mediums in the digital world. Social media platforms that foster trust and create positive experiences for Internet users will encourage interaction with the brand. These platforms can also contribute to increased sales by immediately directing consumers to desired content or contribute to consumer happiness and brand loyalty by offering customer service and instant help.

A company that secures the usernames containing its exact brand names, as well as the most intuitive and common permutations and acronyms, controls the most logical real estate on which to post its messaging and interact with its community. Company ownership of these usernames also prevents adversaries, unauthorized spokesmen, fans or disgruntled employees from owning or having access to intuitive names that they could use to post potentially harmful content. Oftentimes that content is deemed a “fair use” under the terms of use and trademark policies that are still very much unpredictable and in their “infancy” across social networking sites.

“Unlike the UDRP for domain names, there is no unified or independent forum for recovering infringed usernames,” said Steve Levy, Esq. “Brand owners who are rebuffed under the varying trademark policies employed by social media sites are left to seek redress through the very expensive and time-consuming avenue of the court system. It is expected that this area will evolve once social media sites realize the cost of routinely dealing with subpoenas and litigation exposure.”

The extent to which a brand should register usernames and handles on social media sites depends on the brand’s target audience and how much of an impact the brand hopes to have on Internet users.

If a brand’s target audience is likely to look for it or “discuss” it on social networking sites, it would be a mistake for that company to miss out on reaching those individuals by neglecting to register or acquire intuitive, branded usernames and handles on community sites and blogging sites. The fact is, most brands are being talked about on Twitter and other sites everyday – often throughout the day. According to Mark Langsfeld, CEO of the social media monitoring firm ListenLogic, "large consumer brands like Coke, Microsoft and IBM each have tens of thousands of online mentions every day."

In order to see who is registering usernames containing brands on social media sites, FairWinds examined the registered usernames in the data set outlined in the methodology section of this paper. Of the registered usernames in our data set, 90 percent are owned by a third party and being used as a fan site or for the registrant’s individual use. Only 10 percent of registered usernames in our data set were owned by the corresponding brand.

Brands do not want to put their customers in the position of having to hunt for the brand, uncertain of the username that will guide them to official brand content and information. Furthermore, any username or handle that is valuable for a brand is equally valuable to a usersquatter who may be looking to promote his or her agenda or hope to diminish the prestige of the brand. As a result, it is critical to secure available usernames and acquire taken usernames in a prioritized fashion. Many usersquatters secure a username and do nothing with it. Others begin to immediately post content that augments the fair use argument. The clock is ticking once a username is secured and it may be that once content is posted and “followers” begin to line up, it is too late to exercise trademark rights to recover a taken name.

One cannot say what the “right” username generally looks like because each company has unique challenges, opportunities and goals. As such, there is no simple formula for putting together the right username that would hold true across companies or across industries. However, there are key issues that brand owners must consider as they embark on a social media strategy.

Platform Relevance

One of the most important aspects of a strong social media program is to know your customer and select social media sites that will be the best means of both targeting that customer and placing the brand where the discussion about the brand is already occurring. The Nokia brand, for example, has had its corresponding usernames registered extensively. This is most likely because its target audience is comprised of younger, more tech-savvy individuals. General Electric, on the other hand, does not have as active a presence in social media beyond providing a network for its employees; rightfully so, given that its target consumers are unlikely to use social media to seek out the company’s products under the parent company’s name. Those companies that actively foster a close relationship with their customers in other ways are the ones that put the most effort into social media strategies. Coca-Cola is one example of a company that has honed its social media tactics and developed a significant presence. Coca-Cola has more than 5,000,000 fans on Facebook (fans in Facebook are representative of the number of users that follow Coca-Cola).

Registration Availability

Once the appropriate platform has been selected (and there will certainly be multiple chosen), companies must decide which usernames or handles to register. It may seem obvious to register the name of the parent company, but companies should also take the time to consider which brands or product names they should register in addition to the parent’s moniker. Oftentimes, consumers seek out specific products more actively than the company that produces them and therefore may be more inclined to engage with the product via social media than the company as a whole. Also, companies need to devise a strategy for how to proceed if the names they wish to register are no longer available (for example, if they have already been registered by a third party). In that situation, one option is to affix a descriptive term to the brand or company name when registering the handle. For example, if Mars’ Dove chocolate brand found that Unilever’s Dove soap had already registered the name “Dove” on a given platform, perhaps an easy solution would be to register the name “DoveChocolate.”

Registration Restrictions

Certain social media platforms may have restrictions about which types of characters can appear in usernames and also who can register and own usernames. For example, Facebook requires brands that register usernames to list their page as a corporate page—pages set up using branded usernames and registered as “personal” will be flagged and shut down by Facebook as a violation of policy. In some cases, hyphenated brands like Coca-Cola may have to consider registering names that do not include the hyphen. Accent marks or non-alphanumeric characters (ex. Nestlé) could also be problematic, so companies must take care to devise usernames that fit the platform’s regulations without diluting the brand image. Another concern is the length of the names. General Electric, for example, is much more commonly referred to as “GE,” but that name is too short for most platforms (3 character minimums are common). Again, an easy solution may be the addition of a descriptive term.

Company Policy and Internal Communication

Many companies experience trepidation when considering launching social media strategies because of the lack of regulation inherent in most platforms. It is vital for companies to implement a corporate policy on the use of social media usernames. For example, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the independent regulator for all securities firms, has issued a regulatory notice on “compliance and regulatory considerations when using social networking sites to communicate firm business.” Without a strong policy, problems will undoubtedly arise when employees control one or more addresses or names. The policy must evaluate how to accommodate for the registration of multiple social media usernames to avoid potential problems and be clearly communicated to all employees.

If a company discovers that the username or handle it wishes to register has already been taken and it does not want to register an alternate handle, it should familiarize itself with the reclaim process. Reclaim policies vary across platforms, so it is important for companies to be aware of the different rules before attempting to recover a name registered by a third party. For example, Facebook allows users to submit a form requesting a transfer, whereas Twitter has a less formalized reclaim mechanism. In some cases, such as reclaim is not possible at all.

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