To give you a hand, this helpful guide has been put together to let you in on the five things you need to make your business successful and run smoothly. By taking notes from this piece, you will be able to have a great company and get a fantastic start in the industry.

Vision

Every great business has to have a vision they want to realize. To do this, you need to learn how to write a mission statement that can communicate your values and ambitions to clients in a meaningful way.

Potential customers are more likely to spend their cash with you if you build up a personal connection to them and show a genuine passion for the work you do.

Quality video content

Having an animated explainer video on your website and posted on your social media is a fantastic way to engage new audiences and promote your products and services.

To get people excited about your new business, nothing is more effective than a high-quality whiteboard animated explainer video. Since its inception, video content has been widely recognized as an incredibly powerful marketing tool. Peoples brain are hardwired to respond to video content at a higher rate than regular written posts, making this a great option to find new customers.

Top of the line printing capabilities

When you are running a business, you need to make sure the offices you own are run smoothly and efficiently. This is easily done if you take the time to invest in the proper equipment, such as computer monitors or refurbished Igen4 Diamond Edition printers. Every business will need to print things out for meetings and signing contracts, so making sure you have the right equipment to make this run smoothly is essential.

The right people

Learning how to hire employees is no easy task, but there are a few golden rules you should be aware of:

• Don’t hire your friends and family. The stress of running a business can put a strain on these relationships
• Go for ambition over experience. Just because someone hasn’t got a wealth of experience yet, doesn’t mean they can’t be amazing members of your team
• Offer employees benefits in the job call out. This will help to entice the very best candidates

Make yourself known in the online marketplace

Taking the steps to make an effective online marketing campaign will do your business a world of good.

Online is where the vast majority of transactions are done and getting your name out there to potential clients is the best way to make the most of this wonderful platform. Try investing in paid ads, link building, and other forms of SEO to get like-minded people interested in your company.

The post 5 Must-Haves for Your Business appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

But does buying Instagram followers work or not?

Not Necessarily

It goes without saying that buying Instagram followers is the easy way of growing a community on this social media platform. But when you buy followers, you’re simply paying for a number. In other words, the majority of these accounts are inactive – meaning that they are less likely to engage in any type of activity.

And even if it might seem appealing, since these services enable you to buy approximately 1,000 followers for $10, or somewhere around that sum, those accounts won’t engage with your posts.

Another option that is just as popular is paying services that strategically follow a significant number of accounts on your behalf. They determine this based on your niche, location, gender, type of account, hashtag usage, and other equally important elements. The strategy here is to have those accounts follow you back so that you can grow your community. And while these accounts are real, in the sense that they belong to actual persons, the rate of engagement is still low.

What Is Your Priority?

Now, if your priority is to have a large base of followers, this kind of programs might help you. Nevertheless, don’t overlook the risks that come with this decision. That is to say, these aren’t acknowledged as Instagram tools that bring long-lasting results.

These fake followers aren’t likely to like or comment on your posts. And this could seem fishy, especially if you have a huge follower base. In other words, this strategy could diminish your credibility and prevent you from gaining followers organically.

The question is simple: would you consider following an account if you realized that a large segment of its loyal audience comprises of inactive accounts? This could appear as a deceitful approach, making you believe that that person/brand is incapable of gaining followers by implementing the right strategy and providing engaging content.

Engagement Is a Key Element

So, how is having 10,000 followers that don’t engage with you going to help you in any way? Instagram has a specific algorithm when it comes to the way in which it displays posts to users. Hence, without likes and comments, you might not even appear on your audience’s newsfeed, which would further impair your capability of growing your followers organically.

To conclude, the main method of increasing your number of followers is by creating a real, palpable relationship with them. This could be accomplished by providing genuine, authentic content and by staying real. Buying followers isn’t a long-term solution. It might make you look good for a while, but that’s about it.

The post Does Buying Instagram Followers Work? appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Consumers are regularly crowdsourcing for the scoop on products and services, in particular reading online reviews. According to quarter three data from 2014, Yelp averaged 139 million monthly visitors.

And consumers are increasingly relying upon these reviews. According to Nielsen’s 2012 Global Trust in Advertising survey, featuring responses from more than 28,000 people globally, online consumer reviews are the second most-trusted form of advertising.

But the information contained in online reviews is often not factual or a business’s review page may simply not be representative of actual customer satisfaction – whether overly negative or even inflated positively.

Thus businesses cannot turn a blind eye to online reviews, as these reviews are often quite influential and can impact the success of any business, fair or not.

Generating positive reviews

In today’s world, it would be difficult to find a thriving business that has a negative online reputation. First impressions are frequently based on what is on the internet, not only among consumers but also other parties including job seekers, investors, and other businesses seeking to establish meaningful business-to-business relationships.

Further, no business is immune from negative reviews, and businesses often suffer from a sampling bias: for many, reviews tend to be disproportionately negative, but an increase in reviews leads to a better balance of positive and negative comments.

Accordingly, businesses should consider implementing a content-neutral program to generate additional reviews – that is, without providing any incentives (e.g. cash, gift cards or discounts). Not only do websites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor prohibit businesses from unfairly influencing reviews, but government agencies have gradually started to crackdown on false and deceptive reviews.

The best mechanism for neutrally generating reviews may be to establish a program – perhaps utilizing a third-party review platform – that involves sending a professional email soliciting feedback from customers within 24 hours after they leave. The email should ask customers about their experiences, encouraging them to submit a review and take a brief survey to help the business improve.

Verified customer reviews will provide helpful feedback for businesses while simultaneously contributing to an aggregate profile of the business which would likely appear highly in search engines (and ultimately help generate more business leads). Even, say, a five percent participation rate among customers will substantially increase a business’s reviews.

Alternatively, a business may try to circulate a URL to the desired review website or platform, whether through an in-store card or flyer or by placing it on their website. Similarly, businesses will want to avoid asking for positive reviews.

Monitoring for negative reviews, posts 

Notwithstanding having an effective content-neutral program in place to generate more reviews, it is inevitable that a business will receive negative reviews on websites such as Yelp. Thus, a business cannot stand idly by and hope that these negative reviews go unseen.

Businesses should consider implementing a real-time monitoring system that makes it easy for the appropriate persons to become aware of negative online comments and prepare responses. The sooner negative reviews (or even reputation attacks) are detected and can be addressed, the greater the opportunity a business has of mitigating the harm and potentially getting the reviews removed.

For most businesses, monitoring involves keeping a watchful eye out for anything that could impact them including: bad reviews, reports on complaint websites, and social media posts. The designated person or team should routinely keep an eye out for negative reviews or other threats, the frequency of which will depend on the size of the business.

Responding to negative reviews

Once a business becomes aware of a negative online review, a trained customer representative should contact the author of the review within 72 hours if his or her contact information is known. Otherwise, the representative should send a response asking them to contact the representative offline (through a private message when possible). For example:

Thank you for your review and I’m sorry to hear that you feel the blades are not lasting as long as previously. We have numerous quality checks throughout our manufacturing process, so this is not something we would expect. It may be helpful to know that the item fading is just a guideline and we recommend changing the cartridge when it begins to feel dull… If you would like, give us a call at 1-800-_________.

If a business is able to get the reviewer to contact them offline, the trained representative likely should try to resolve the situation by offering a refund, replacement, or some other concession to make the reviewer happy. If a business is able to resolve a situation with a customer, it should then kindly ask him or her to remove their negative review.

While a negative review is not ideal, if it is honest criticism and not false, the business should not threaten any legal action. On the other hand, if there might be a basis for legal action (e.g. defamation), the business should contact an attorney.

Why focusing on reviews is important

As consumers continue to read and rely upon online reviews, businesses can ill-afford to let their online reputations rest completely in the hands of third parties – including potential disgruntled customers wishing to harm the businesses.

As an aside, last year, Google rolled out an updated search algorithm – dubbed “Google Pigeon” by Search Engine Land – which modified local search results. These changes are largely internal, but various websites reported that the updated algorithm was supposed to impact how local businesses rank in Google.

Considering online reviews generally can have a substantial impact on local businesses, smaller businesses will want to ensure business listings on third-party websites are not filled with negative reviews should these review pages appear higher in Google search results – now or down the road.

Today, first impressions of most businesses are frequently made by what meets the eye when the businesses are searched online. Thus, businesses must be proactive and work to achieve positive ratings to the extent that they can legally and ethically.

The post Strategies for Legally Generating and Monitoring Online Reviews appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

In 2010, Elonis – operating his Facebook account under the pseudonym “Tone Dougie” – posted threatening rants on his own page about killing his estranged wife, slitting the throat of an FBI agent and even shooting up a kindergarten. For example, he posted the following remarks about his wife, Tara, shortly after she obtained a restraining order against him:

“There’s one way to love ya, but a thousand ways to kill ya / And I’m not going to rest until your body is a mess / Soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts.”

He later argued that these were “rap lyrics.”

Elonis was arrested in Dec. 2010 and ultimately sentenced to 44 months in prison. Elonis – who claims the lyrics were “for entertainment purposes” and simply therapeutic “venting” – lost an appeal in the United States Court of Appeals that has jurisdiction over Pennsylvania, and then successfully sought review in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has addressed the limits of Constitutional protection for threatening language before, but not in this kind of social media context.

The question is whether there is enough of a “true threat” for a criminal conviction if a reasonable person would feel threatened, or only if Elonis’s actual intent is shown.  In previous cases, lower courts have split on whether the prosecution needs to prove the accused person’s actual intent, or whether it is enough to prove that a “reasonable person” would feel threatened.

In friend-of-the-court briefs, First Amendment “free speech” advocates have lined up supporting Elonis’s side of the argument, against groups that oppose domestic violence and ethnic intimidation. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), for example, joined a number of anti-abortion groups and others to ask the Court to rule in favor of Elonis. They argued that the ability to convict someone just for making threats that would inspire fear in “reasonable person” might chill their protest activities.

A ruling in the case should come out sometime next year.

Elonis v. United States: What the case means for social media users

One immediate effect of all the news media attention to this social media/criminal case is higher awareness. Anyone who assumed that there were no legal consequences for saying anything on the Internet should now know that was a mistake.

Whichever standard the Supreme Court chooses, it is clear that you can go to prison for violent threats on social media, whether the prosecutor has to convince the jury that you really meant it, or merely that it was reasonable for your victim to be afraid. Not many juries are likely to sympathize with a defendant who posts about shooting kindergarten children on Facebook, Twitter, or any other platform.

If the Court rules against Elonis, the standards will become even stricter in those states and federal circuits that previously required proof of the accused criminal’s real intentions. A ruling against Elonis may “chill” offensive speech and limit how others express themselves through social media. It is worth noting that, at trial, Elonis argued that some of his lyrics were quotes from or inspired by rapper Eminem and a skit from sketch comedy troupe “The Whitest Kids U’ Know.”

Even if the Court rules for Elonis, convictions will still be available as long as a jury finds that an accused criminal had real intent to threaten someone.

Finally, anyone who is considering Internet statements that threaten personal violence should remember that standards are different for criminal convictions and civil liability. Remember O.J. Simpson? He was acquitted of murder in his criminal trial, but the family of one of his alleged victims won a huge judgment against him in a civil lawsuit.

Similarly, anyone who is reckless in Internet statements that could intimidate, harass or emotionally distress another person should beware of the possibility that reckless statements could lead to civil liability and other bad consequences, even if not to the jailhouse door.

The post Can Haters Post Death Threats on Facebook? appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

According to a 2011 post from Outspoken Media, a Twitter party is “an online event sponsored by your brand that you can use to meet your customers, announce a service, launch a product, or simply get people talking. You pick the time, the hashtag, and people [to] bring into the conversation. Brands love them because they’re cheap, easy to put together and they have the potential to generate hundreds (if not thousands) of tweets about your brand in just a couple of hours.”

Essentially, Twitter parties involve engaging consumers and building brand awareness by organizing a time period in which Twitter users partake in a group chat or dialogue of sorts with the host by submitting tweets using a predetermined hashtag.  Norelco, Campbell’s Chunky Soup, Boar’s Head and the American Heart Association are among the prominent brands that have hosted Twitter Parties.

Twitter parties are not exactly new – apparently dating back to 2008, though becoming more popular within the last few years, particularly among moms and “mom bloggers.”  Yet, most people are not familiar with Twitter parties, and are probably more familiar with the related “Tweetup,” which often involves an in-person gathering of Twitter followers (such as at a baseball game, or a store opening such as the one that got Nordstrom Rack in hot water with the FTC).

Due to the nature of Twitter parties, which usually feature the dissemination of tweets about brands and products, there is the potential for brands to directly or indirectly violate the FTC rules.  Twitter parties often involve contests or giveaways, meaning there is the likelihood the attendees will tweet positive things about the host and free products received, without the mandated disclosures of material connections.

The FTC has long required advertisers and endorsers to disclose these material connections (financial relationships, essentially) and, in 2009, the FTC extended its published regulations to encompass online activity.  Twitter party hosts tend to be highly followed/highly influential Twitter users, meaning any endorsements have the potential to reach large numbers of people.

In short, the rule of thumb for brands giving away free products or otherwise getting free publicity is: disclose, disclose, disclose.  If you provide someone with money or free products as compensation for hosting a Twitter party, it is essential that he or she discloses that fact.

For example, September 16, 2014 was apparently “National Play-Doh Day.”  At 3:00 p.m., Hasbro sponsored a Twitter party, featuring a chat about toys and prize giveaways. Just minutes into the Twitter Party, host @MomSpark wisely tweeted the following: “DISCLOSURE: I received compensation for hosting this Twitter party.  #PlayDohDay”

That tweet could not disclose @MomSpark’s compensation any more clearly, and should satisfy the FTC’s standards.  By now, most brands sponsoring Twitter Parties should be familiar with the FTC’s rules and presumably would require a host to make a similar statement.

The more likely scenario, however, is that an attendee of a Twitter party wins a contest or receives free stuff, he or she tweets glowing endorsements about the product and/or brand, but does not make mention that they were essentially compensated for that endorsement.

While it is debatable how far the FTC would go to punish a brand for a consumer’s nondisclosure of what could be seen as a paid endorsement (if anything, a reprimand by letter is most likely), a brand does not want to take that risk for bad PR or a fine.

Related, since many Twitter Parties sponsored by well-known brands do involve prizes and giveaways, the sponsoring entity should be sure to post the associated rules (which typically should involve hiring an attorney who specializes in this area).  Examples of this include Twitter Party rules for the Acura #RDXContest, Albertsons #PerfectPicnic sweepstakes and the Procter & Gamble “#YaProbasteEsto Twitter Party.”

Although Twitter, Twitter parties, and social media contests are still relatively new (translation: they are not highly regulated/many regulations are not widely enforced), anyone sponsoring Twitter parties should be aware of the legal risks and act accordingly.

The post Hosts and sponsors of ‘Twitter parties’ must be aware of legal risks appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

These types of attacks can originate from a variety of sources, but most commonly the “attackers” are competitors, disgruntled employees, unhappy customers, dissatisfied investors, extortionists or other people and businesses who become upset with a company and want to cause that company serious damage.

Further, these attacks come in many forms, including:

• Making a slew of defamatory postings on gripe websites such as Ripoff Report and Pissed Consumer;
• Posting false information on social media websites or apps, including Facebook and Twitter;
• Anonymously sending defamatory emails to clients or customers;
• Posting false reviews on Yelp or similar websites; altering Wikipedia entries about a company or particular executives in an embarrassing or otherwise harmful way; or
• Creating websites or blogs and posting disparaging information on these platforms.

This type of conduct is often misperceived as being protected. It is not.

Considering the ease with which these types of attacks can be initiated, and because of how quickly content can spread on the Internet, online reputation has become a top concern for businesses and executives. In fact, according to “Exploring Strategic Risk,” Deloitte’s 2013 survey of 300 executives, reputation was cited as the as the top strategic risk for large businesses.

Not only was it the overall “highest impact risk area,” but reputation was also the top concern in most individual sectors. A primary cause for such concern is how easily and quickly information can spread on the Internet and social media, and the resulting potential of widespread damage.

Should you respond?

So, if your brand or business is being harmed on the Internet, what is the proper response, if any? Well, that is somewhat of a complex question because solutions for these online attacks are very fact dependent, and you must consider various factors.

First, it is necessary to evaluate the attacker’s characteristics and find out as much information as possible about the attacker and whether they pose a significant threat.

More specifically, it will be important to determine the following:

• Whether this is likely a one-time attack by a disgruntled party or the beginning of a full-fledged campaign attack;
• How sophisticated the attacker is;
• Whether the attacker has a large social media and online presence or following; and
• How likely the attacker might be to spread the information around the Internet in highly visible places.

The potential for the information to spread and be seen by large audiences – even if not highly visible today – is particularly important for several reasons. This includes statute of limitations considerations, as that begins to run the day material is first posted online. Even if the harmful content does not initially rank highly on search engines, it eventually could appear on the first page of search engine results (even after the statute of limitations has expired).

At any moment, a person could hyperlink to the defamatory post somewhere that will reach a significantly higher number of people searching for your business. Thus, in evaluating the potential harm, your company should consider the probability that the information could spread at some point in the future and, if not dealt with, it could leave the harmed party without legal recourse.

See the full “In-House Counsel Guidebook” for more information on handling these attacks

When your brand has been attacked online, considering the factors outlined above is just a fraction of the analysis. What if your attacker is anonymous or used a pseudonym? How do you identify an unknown attacker? When or once the identity of an attacker is known, what are your options and which techniques are best? Can you recover damages?

These questions and more are detailed in our newly released resource for in-house attorneys, the In-House Counsel Guidebook: How to Handle Internet Defamation and Online Reputation Attacks. If you have any further questions, call 855.542.9192 or email wcgibson@vorys.com.

The post How to Respond to Online Brand and Reputation Attacks appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

The FTC has long required advertisers and endorsers to disclose their material connections. Thus, when a celebrity has been paid to endorse a product or service and they fail to disclose that fact, both the advertiser and endorser can be liable.

The issue of celebrity endorsements on social media was first addressed by the FTC in its 2009 update to the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (“Guides”). Now, five years later, seemingly every celebrity has, at minimum, a Twitter account. So the need to hold them and advertisers accountable for potentially misleading endorsements on social media is even more significant today.

In March 2013, in light of the rapid rise of individuals and businesses’ use of social media, the FTC updated its “Dot Com Disclosures” guidelines. In this update, the FTC emphasized that consumer protection laws apply to both traditional media and social media. Specifically, advertisers using “space-constrained” advertisements (translation: Twitter) must make the same disclosures required of them in traditional print or broadcast media.

As with other media, under the Code of Federal Regulations, the FTC requires that celebrities communicate only their “honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experience(s)”; a celebrity can continue his or her endorsement so long as the advertiser “has good reason to believe that the endorser continues to subscribe to the views presented”; the endorser “must have been a bona fide user of [a product] at the time the endorsement was given”; and “the advertiser can run the campaign only to the extent it reasonably believes he or she “remains a bona fide user of the product.”

Thus, in the event these rules are violated, both a celebrity and the advertiser can be held liable for the misrepresentations or misleading statements. The FTC is most likely to issue a warning, but fines could follow.

Illustrating Deceptive Advertising on Twitter

In the Guides, the FTC uses examples to illustrate the principles of fair advertisements. In one example, the FTC creates a hypothetical scenario of a famous female tennis player appearing on a TV talk show. Let’s call her “Maria.”

It is often no secret when a celebrity goes on a talk show and talks about a product or service that he or she is being paid to do so. In the example, Maria attributes her recent success to laser eye surgery, raving about the particular clinic, staff and procedure. If viewers would not realize she had been paid by the clinic, without any disclosure regarding the contractual relationship, the endorsement will most likely be considered deceptive.

When it comes to social media, however, things are murkier. For example, if Maria promotes her recent surgery on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram – where her followers might not expect or realize she was being paid – this contractual relationship should be disclosed.

For example, after the FTC released its updated “Dot Com Disclosures,” a particular tweet from Kim Kardashian garnered widespread media attention. On April 16, 2013, she tweeted a photo with the accompanying text: “Can’t live without my @EOS lip balm!”

It was immediately unclear whether she had been paid to tweet that to her nearly 18 million followers, or if she just really liked the product. The following month, the Huffington Post reported Kardashian was believed to be accepting $20,000 per endorsed tweet.

Clearly, it is often difficult to know what is legitimate and what is an endorsement online, especially with a character limit of 140 on Twitter and often no photograph. Thus, to avoid misleading practices, the FTC requires that both the advertisers and celebrities should be disclosing their relationships.

Properly tweeting endorsements

The FTC advises including “Ad:” to begin a promotional tweet. In the “Dot Com Disclosures,” the FTC illustrated this by creating a fictional celebrity, @JuliStarz, and tweeting about losing 30 pounds in six weeks for a beach movie scene, praising a product and also including a link. The FTC did not consider this acceptable.

Instead, the FTC recommend @JuliStarz tweet “Ad: Shooting movie beach scene. Had to lose 30lbs in 6 wks. Thanks Fat-Away Pills for making it easy. Typical loss: 1lb/wk.”

Until a celebrity actually gets fined for misleading tweets, however, it is unlikely a celebrity will use FTC’s ideal format. Nevertheless, celebrity endorsers and paying companies should ensure the spokesperson is disclosing sponsorship, so as to avoid any potential liability.

Furthermore, if a celebrity posts a series of tweets as part of a single endorsement, he or she should signify in every tweet that it is an ad, since followers may not see the first tweet.

Most celebrities who do obey the FTC rules – despite not completely living up to the FTC’s high expectations for endorsement tweets – typically use #ad or #spon (sponsor) at the end of a tweet.

For example, on June 16, Modern Family actor Eric Stonestreet tweeted:

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