The Social Media Revolution: Transforming Brand Building and Intellectual Property Management for Businesses

By Daizy Chawla and Neelam Dahiya

The rise of social media and its worldwide adoption has achieved a substantial recognition for businesses with respect to building their brand, along with safeguarding their intellectual property rights. As a result, new opportunities and challenges have emerged for businesses in different sectors, which has reformed the conventional notions of brand creation and IP management.

Due to the advent of digitization, the strategy of brand building has significantly transformed from the conventional methods such as print media (newspapers, magazines, brochures, billboards, etc.), broadcasting, and event marketing etc., to social media.

Branding on social media has incredibly soared high over the past few years with the evolution of mobile and internet technology. The number of people using mobile internet has increased up to 768.99 million by the end of 2020 according to data published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India[1]. The Businesses whether it’s a large company or small individual entrepreneur, have used this opportunity for branding their products by launching mobile-friendly websites and mobile apps.

No-doubt the use of social media has notably grown since Covid-19. Many businesses joined social media to advertise their brands in order to enhance visibility to the general public and create demand for their products.

In today’s world, social media is fundamental for building brands as it allows businesses to engage with target audience in a number of ways through available social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. Strong presence on social media allows a brand to cater to the growing demands of a product, reduce marketing costs, develop partnerships, etc. Branding on social media has also allowed businesses to reach far across audiences, launch new products, offer discounts, and promote their brands.

Social media provides for various platforms and serves as an ideal tool for start-ups and small businesses in order for them to showcase their products and services. For instance, brand appearing on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, etc. helps in automatically connecting the business houses to the customers directly with the help of AI.

Brand building over social media platforms aid the small businesses to compete with large entities by adopting right branding strategies. Subsequently they are able to gain a competitive edge over larger and already established businesses. Further, social media proves to be a cost effective way of building brands as businesses can easily engage with their target audiences over social media without incurring additional costs, unlike the traditional methods.

However, social media marketing does not come without its challenges. Therefore, businesses must be mindful of the risks that are associated with building their brands over social media platforms, for instance: Damage to the brand value, Misuse of confidential data and false information.

Few challenges that can arise while building brand through social media platforms for promoting businesses are as follows:

1. Trademark Infringement: Branding of a business is a crucial aspect to attract and expand consumer base. Brand Names/logos are regularly used on social media for advertising products and services, both artistically and verbally, however, any unauthorized use of the established trademark will be detrimental to the identity of any brand.
2. Copyright Infringement: Any image, video, blog, music and software that is used without any authorization of the original owner/creator on social media will amount to copyright violation and may attract legal consequences.
3. Negative publicity: False information, and viral controversies can escalate swiftly on social media; which in turn can deeply affect the brand value. The brand’s sales can be disrupted as negative publicity might discourage potential buyers to buy/invest in the brand.

Therefore, branding should be done with a careful perusal as any negative campaign will directly deteriorate the brand image.

Social Media and Intellectual Property Management

In the realm of social media, Intellectual Property rights play a crucial role. Social media platforms like: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. take appropriate steps to protect Intellectual Property rights. Take YouTube for instance, whenever videos are posted on YouTube, the ‘Content ID’ system scans it in their database to identify similar work/content already available on the platform to avoid any violation of IP rights. Yet it is imperative for users to make sure that the information relating to their brand is verified or authenticated and thereafter posted on social media.

Since social media posts are visible to anyone and everyone across the world, it becomes easier to commit fraud and copy the content without duly acknowledging the original creator of the content. Original creators/owners of the content often find it difficult to track any infringements or violations because of the prevalent nature of sharing across social media platforms. Intellectual Property laws is one way by which infringement of IP rights on social media can be prevented in the following ways:

1. Trademarks: A Trademark plays a vital role in building a brand’s identity. Trademark law safeguards brand owners from the unauthorized use of their brand by a third party. For the detection and management of counterfeiting of brands and trademark infringements on social media platforms, one should adopt stringent monitoring strategies. Online presence of brands should be regularly monitored from potential threats. If the brand is found to be infringed in any manner, appropriate legal remedy be taken against such infringer.
2. Copyright: Rights of owners can be granted copyright protection for their works such as: blogs, videos, literary work, artwork etc. Using tools like watermarks or disclaimers can help in preventing copyright infringement. Even though copyright registration is not mandatory, however, if any work is not registered, then it may pose hardships for the brand owners to prove their ownership. Therefore, it is advisable that the brand/content is copyrighted and registered so that they can exercise exclusive right over their work.
3. Patent: Applications/Apps, technologies, or tools used on social media may be subject to patent protection, which grants the owner of those rights the ability to prevent others from doing so. A wide range of social media technologies and applications have been granted patents. A patent owned by Twitter on a group identification and management method is one such example. There are estimates that more than thirty thousand patents have been issued in the United States of America for Social Networking Technologies and Methods.
4. Designs: Designs Act provides for protection to the businesses to protect innovative designs of their products. Design law also comes in handy when any new product/service/brand is being launched on social media platforms and advertising them is essential. The provisions of Design Law helps in preventing others from imitating the designs of their respective products/services/brands.

Conclusion

The advancement of social media provides for a medium to build brand online, which leads to the development of brand value in consumers’ minds. Social media platforms offer a direct and interactive method of sharing information, building brand, engaging audiences and increasing their consumer base. At the same time, management of their intellectual property is of utmost importance. Thereby, it is essential to have a well-thought plan for safeguarding the intellectual property rights of brand owners. It is integral that businesses exercise caution while using social media marketing methods in order to safeguard the intangible intellectual property rights of both consumers and business owners across all social media channels.

(The authors are Ms Daizy Chawla, Senior Partner and Ms. Neelam Dahiya, Trademark Agent at S&A Law Offices, and the views expressed in this article are their own)