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Written by: Chad Van Horn | Van Horn Law Group
How exactly do you go about making sure that all of your assets are properly controlled? With physical assets this isn’t much of a problem but when it comes to digital assets, you certainly have an issue. Why? Because you can’t touch them, can’t file them, and you certainly can’t move them. Well, technically you can move them, but they are not yours to control. Let’s take a Twitter account as an example. Twitter is without a doubt one of the greatest platforms for digital advertising. You can use it to spread the word of your products and services very easily, and you can even text to mobile phones if the user/customer opts in.
What happens, however, when the individual who made the Twitter account leaves the company, taking the login information with them? This is where proper digital asset management comes into play, and with it comes several different responsibilities. The first, is making sure that you are covered before the creation of any social media accounts go forward.
Cover Yourself and Your Accounts
How important is it to cover yourself and your accounts? To answer this, think about the number of followers a social media account can accumulate over a short period of time . How will you use those assets to your advantage? With the vast majority of customers and potential customers online these days, the internet remains your best means to reach them with new products and changes to your company, with social media being the best platform to do so with. So, there are a few things that you should ensure before you launch any sort of social media campaign.
These three items can easily change the way you view and control your social media accounts, and as always it would be a good idea to take any additional concerns up with your legal representative. The most important thing that you can do is make it clear to your employees and even potential employees that any social media accounts used by the company, even if made BY the employee are the property of the company. This might seem like an unnecessary step and even a supplement to common sense, but it is more important than you realize. There are a plethora of cases in the court system at this very moment that address this precise situation. More than a few employees have ‘run off’ with social media accounts, and some of these employees have actually managed to win the rights to keep their accounts.
Such a thing can be a serious blow to any company, and you will want to make sure that yours does not fall victim to it.