Eleanor M. Lackman @ INTA: Managing Your Brand in Social Media

n Monday, May 7, from 1:30pm to 3:30pm, at the annual INTA conference in Washington, D.C., Eleanor M. Lackman (@EMLackman) will be moderating the table topic, “Best Practices in Social Media: Managing Your Brand While Keeping Your Loyal Fans”. (Note that this session is sold out but Ms. Lackman and CDAS attorney Joshua S. Wolkoff look forward to seeing their friends and meeting new colleagues at INTA this year).

With the advent of social media – from Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube, to blogs, apps and social gaming- comes great opportunity to market your brand to consumers in many new ways, but it also carries risk of losing the ability to control how and where your brand is used. The interactive nature of social media requires careful thinking about strategy in branding and enforcement: a step that the public doesn’t like could “go viral” and lead to damaging public backlash.

This discussion will focus on discovering some of the tricks and best practices for helping to ensure a brand’s presence in social media enhances its reputation both on-and-off line. Related issues will be covered, including privacy, COPPA regulations regarding children; endorsements, affiliation disclosures per FTC; contests and sweepstakes; safe harbors under DMCA, CDA; TM territorial rights vs. non-territorial realities of social media, third-party terms of service, and how to enforce your rights without being branded a “trademark bully”.

(Ms. Lackman focuses on litigation, arbitration and counseling in copyright, trademark, digital media, and commercial matters. She speaks widely and is often quoted on intellectual property issues including in a recent interview with her in Forbes).