In continuing to welcome the newest member of the Avero family, AveroBuzz, here is another important tip for how to best manage your presence across the internet.
With the low cost to set up social media accounts and creating websites, anyone can create custom web content under your business name. Given the lack of regulation, it is easy for cybersquatters to steal your business name and register it as their own. Cybersquatters generally take advantage of this for two reasons. First, they can create accounts and domains hoping to later sell them to you for a high price. Second, competitors can create these accounts and pages under your name to generate more traffic to their own pages or publish false content under your brand.
While legal action in these situations can be very expensive, time consuming, and often not successful, it is important to protect your brand and business name by claiming it early. Before deciding on a final business name, it is important to check out what existing accounts and domains are out there with similar names or variations of the name. You want a unique name. Once you have decided on a business name it is important to claim all social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) and to claim your web domain (businessname.com) as soon as possible.
If you already have an established business name, claim those domains and accounts now. Even if you don’t foresee yourself using Twitter, for example, you may in the future and you don’t want to have to buy it off someone else, or worse, having a competitor take advantage of claiming your name and bad mouthing your business.
Learn more about cybersquatters in this great article.
