New Jacked City

Credit Card Theft by d7focus

While teaching a Social Media course at the 2009 Miva Merhcant Conference last week, I was asked by one of the attendees about the phenomenon of Brand Jacking on Twitter. For those of you who are unaware, Brand Jacking (on Twitter in particular) is the act of creating a profile and sending out tweets representing a person or company without their permission

Perhaps the most popular example of Brand Jacking on Twitter is AMC’s Mad Men, a story that ended happily since the Brand Jackers actually did more good than harm. But what about Tina Fey? While she says the person tweeting as her is funny, there are certainly a great number of potential problems that arise when you don’t have control over your brand, whether it’s personal identity or a corporate voice.

One of the things we tell our clients is that a benefit exists to signing yourself up for as many Web 2.0 sites as we do – you have claimed your brand. Whether you’re extremely active or just lurking, you can take comfort knowing that nobody else can claim your identity, and if they try, you have a platform you can use to debunk them. It’s better to have it and not need then to have it stolen and chase after it.

So as you take your journey into Web 2.0, know that you are building a brand with every action you take and every site you register for, and as your brand grows, controlling and protecting it becomes that much more important.

Tags: Branding, Social Media, Twitter