We've all dealt with it; somebody grabbed your brand's name (or a variation thereof) and is holding it hostage on Twitter. Even worse, they could be misusing it as a counterfeit site phishing customers and sales. Getting that handle back can be tedious, expensive, and is not always successful. But there may be hope if that username is attached to an inactive Twitter account!
As we discussed in a previous blog post, Twitter may release your brand's username soon. That article explains how Twitter may be taking action to shutdown inactive accounts and release the username. The bad news: if someone associated with your enterprise previously acquired a Twitter account for one of your brands, there is a risk of losing that handle as Twitter implements/enforces their policy to delete inactive accounts. However, there is also a silver lining to Twitter's actions.
If someone has been squatting on a handle that is important to your brand, then there is a good chance the squatter might lose this account in the near future. This can be a great opportunity for you to grab this handle! Unfortunately, it is also an opportunity for yet another squatter to swoop in and grab it as well, creating new headaches for your enterprise.
We're writing about this because it is important for enterprises to know that these possibilities exist. We also want to share that this is a key feature of the Brandle Presence Manager — bringing points-of-presence (POPs) to your attention which are infringing upon your brands and Intellectual Property.
If you are familiar with how Brandle allows you to maintain a "living inventory" of every place your enterprise is represented (or misrepresented) beyond the corporate firewall, then you are familiar with how the inventory is divided into categories. One of those categories is the "Infringing" category (though a company administrator can rename it as they see fit). POPs in the Infringing category have some special capabilities that POPs in other categories do not, like tracking and sharing the infringement details. This can be useful when dealing with IP issues and working with those who are protecting your enterprise's brands.
In addition, the Brandle Presence Manager's nightly monitoring of your POP inventory includes the Infringing category and each morning selected members of your team receive a POP Monitoring Report in his or her inbox. If the system detects a change, like the Twitter account is no longer present, you will be notified in that morning email. This would be the ideal time for you to react and acquire the handle for your enterprise, move it out of the Infringing category, and noting the email address used to create the account (along with other pertinent details).
Brandle, Inc. has been providing brand presence management (AKA governance) tools for over 8 years now and we know how challenging it can be to maintain the global corporate footprint and to protect the brand at the same time. This is truly one case where an ounce of prevention can be worth a pound of cure. With Twitter finally starting to clean house this is truer now more than ever.
Get rid of the spreadsheets and all the manual effort it takes to govern your corporate footprint and let a system designed specifically for this purpose help you manage and protect your complete online presence.
If you'd like to learn more about the Brandle Presence Manager, contact us here, or check out our solutions to see how Brandle can help your company.
