Facebook. Twitter. MySpace. Tumblr. Hundreds and hundreds more. For individuals trying to find out where they have signed up for among social media networks is probably like trying to find a specific scroll in the Library of Alexandria. The sheer size of where you have to look – much less update – is intimidating.
It’s the same for businesses. Do you know where your brand, product, trademark, or even company name is being used in all these popular and emerging social media websites? You might be surprised to find that it’s being used unofficially – a classic case of brand identity theft. You lose control. Your online reputation isn’t secure.
Thanks to something called KnowEm, representation across all social media has become a lot easier.
KnowEm is a service that lets you discover where your name, brand, trademark, or product is available on social media networks. It also lets you know where it has been stolen. Developed in April 2009 in New Jersey by a company of the same name, KnowEm has helped secure over 100,000 profiles and reported over 20,000 cases of squatting and misrepresentation of a brand or username.
The actual checking out of social media profiles is free. All you have to do is enter your name or brand in a search box and voila! You find out instantly whether that name or brand is available or not. KnowEm browses over 350 popular and emerging social media websites, and if the name or brand you entered is available, you can create a profile for each one of these websites – also for free. Because KnowEm updates their database of these social networking sites daily, you can determine which ones are gaining popularity in the whole social media landscape.
KnowEm offers a subscription service (Brand Protection Program) to ensure that you and your brand will not have to worry about identity theft and embarrassing misrepresentations. Through the program, you can automatically reserve your name on a certain number of sites – as soon as they are launched. KnowEm can take on the task of the actual profile creation for you, so there’s not much manual labor involved. The service is for users of all kinds: individuals, businesses, and enterprises.
So grab them before others get them. After all, you can’t manage a brand online if someone has stolen it from you.