How to Deal with Brand Identity Theft
Feb 2, 2010 by Stephanie Weingart | Facebook, Reputation Management, Social Media MarketingHow much do you trust your fans? Do you trust them enough to manage your Facebook fan page? Do you trust them to converse with other fans that might have customer service-related questions or complaints? A job like this should not be left in the hand of a customer.
Facebook Fan Pages are now thought of as the Brand Community or the Brand Hub. Facebook users are accustomed to asking customer service questions and reaching out to the brand on these platforms. If there is another fan behind the driver’s seat, how can the brand be sure they are being represented well? Because these fans are not trained brand employees, the brand may not not be represented properly. Why do some brands still allow this fraud to happen when there is a vast amount of knowledge about Facebook all over the internet?
There are many potential Brand Identity Disasters that can occur from misrepresentation on Facebook. For example, 7Eleven is a very popular franchise, with their 24-7 Slurpees and delicious coffee drinks. The Official 7Eleven Facebook page is really well done — it has over 185K fans that actively engage with the brand. However, the brand name is commonly misspelled. What about when the average consumer searches for “711″ on Facebook?
Here is what they will find:
Problems:
- Over 35 thousand fans have joined a fan page that never updates content and displays a poor image of the brand
- The fan page insults competitor brands with harsh language
- People who misspell the brand name have no option to find the official page
Sometimes the brands who are not participating within social media are subject to letting their fans take over completely. For example; CVS is currently not participating in Facebook. The CVS fan page is completely taken over by fans in a negative way.
Problems:
- Over 6 thousand people became fans of an imposter brand page
- The fan page has no brand information
- The fan page lacks any fan engagement on the Wall
- The photos that are uploaded by fans hurt the brand tremendously
Fan photos include an image of a letter from a CVS employee who is upset with the store and how it operates, images of a man who scams people outside of a CVS parking lot, and a faulty flu shot done at a CVS pharmacy. These images have the potential to turn many customers away from CVS. When choosing not to participate in social media, brands like CVS should look at competitors like Walgreens, who are extremely active and powerful on Facebook.
Facebook fan pages have the ability to serve as a Community hub where consumers can come and show their appreciation to other fans. But fans can also actively show their complaints and aggravations with the brand. Facebook users have become familiar with this practice.
When your customer comes to your Facebook fan page, asking questions about products, complaining, and looking for more information, who do you want behind the driver’s seat? There are many resources out there to learn about implementing great Facebook fan pages.
Here are some tips on how to better control your brand on Facebook:
1. Search: Look for your brand terms and misspellings of your brand name on Facebook. Make a list of how many impostor fan pages are out there and tally up the total number of fans that are engaging on these pages. This is your audience!
2. Prepare: Are you ready to take over these fan pages? Do you have the right content? You will need photos, oodles of brand information, witty status updates, and a strategy to implement in order to engage and stimulate the fan base.
3. Create: You will need to create an official Facebook fan page and build it as if it is your website. You should build tools and “Tabs” that are brand specific. For example, if you are a movie theater, you’d want a unique way to show movie times.
4. Control: Taking control of the impostor pan pages is easy. People at digital agencies have frequently dealt with this issue and work hand in hand with Facebook to take control. It is extremely important to make sure that fans of the brand are getting the correct information.
Bookmark this post:
15 Responses to “How to Deal with Brand Identity Theft”
Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!
I have a client who is a plastic surgeon in NY who had her "identity" hijacked on facebook. It's been a mess to recapture it.
[...] How to Deal with Brand Identity Theft – …and how it operates, images of a man who scams people outside of a CVS parking lot, and a faulty flu shot done at a CVS pharmacy. These… (No Ratings Yet) Loading … [...]
Thanks Stephanie!
With the powerful platform of facebook on the rise I could see this issue of brand poaching becoming an even bigger deal in the future. It is good for these companies to take care of this earlier rather than later.
Thanks for your insight.
~Eric
Super post !
Joseph – That is unfortunate! Hopefully it wasn't hijacked for revenge of a bad plastic surgery job JK… I think your best bet here would be to contact facebook. Being Hijacked once a page is already live and functioning sounds more like password theft. Hopefully this works out for you.
Agreed Eric. Making sure that you OWN your space as a brand in the very beginning is just as important as owning your domain nowadays.
When my company I work for said they would never use social networking 2 years ago, I ignored them and went and got them registered with Facebook, Myspace and Twitter right away just because I knew this would be a problem one day…I actually thought not that this would happen, but rather that kids would get a hold of a bunch of business names and try to charge an arm and a leg to sell it back to us.
I can see that you are putting a lot of time and effort into your blog and detailed articles! I am deeply in love with every single piece of information you post here. Will be back often to read more updates!
Thank you for this beautiful service from your blog every day and I always read in and help me get the important things I am. microsoft and google search does not return in technology anymore now that new doors were opened the most important factor of course quality webmasters. as well as useful internet useless on the internet is not internet be useful from the useless key value can not be understood given the opportunity to thank you for writing. porno izle http://www.fullpornoizle.net
When it comes to domain names you need to purchase all extensions (.com, .net and .org) and perhaps a few more to be safe from identity theft.Personally, I don´t have a Facebook profile but I can imagine there are many fan groups made for famous people.
People are naive if they think they can get a free cool service without paying for it somehow. I don?t blame Facebook, and I know a ton of people who still use it. It?s seemingly free, but isn?t.
The best way to fight identity thefts is to use a pseudonym everytime you are online. You are sure that there is a least chance of you to be in that situation. Also change your passwords every other time.
Brand is necessary only as marketing method, it means practically nothing to consumer except image.
Identity theft is a big problem these days and it will get bigger in future. But changing passwords cant be solution. We will have to something much stronger about it.
The natural thermal properties UGG Classic Mini of sheepskin make possible that Ugg Boots will warm you in the winter Nightfall uggs Chocolate on Sale but in the summer your feet will not be wet.It is true Ugg Classic Short that Ugg is shorter from ugly,but if you know even little Special Sale Black Australia Ugg Short 5825 bit about fashion you will know that Ugg boots are not ugly.