Social Media Account Name - Branding

[justsoulin]

I'm unsure as to whether my question will be fully understood by most members. Social media sites such as Facebook require that an account uses a 'real' persons name, but when you are using social media sites as a method for business, for selling etc and you may have multiple unconnected products or services where each 'different brand' name is the focus and not a persons name, is there any way around this to make multiple accounts on each social media site per brand using the brand name as the sign up name? For example, Facebook require proof of identity which is not the objective of the account. The objective of the account is to promote the brand. If sites like Facebook require a persons identity to open an account, are you then allowed to make the account 'username' (making the persons identity hidden) the brand name, so that the brand name is the "only" name everyone sees,  uses and associates with each social media account?

Let me try and explain in more detail:

I appreciate that most social media users that use them for promoting something have need of only one identity. So if you're a band, you only need one account per site to promote your band, events, songs and if that entails your personal name as the account name then that is not an issue. If you're a forum such as Songstuff, then John hasn't an issue using his name.

But if for example you are a promoter, an agent, a producer, a songwriter, a musician, a recording studio (and more), and for each of these products and services you have individual brand names that you need to have an account per different 'brand name' so as not to cause confusion with 'followers' (which you would if in one single account you promote multiple unrelated products and services that in turn demote your business and sales because followers/customers cannot understand how you can possibly wear such a variety of hats), how can you get around this?

I'm using "a promoter, an agent, a producer, a songwriter, a musician, a recording studio (and more)" as an example to hopefully make it easier to understand my question, but I'm looking to use this methodology to cover a variety of potential products and services that can include aspects of music but also politics, mundane cr*p, video games, fashion, cars, financial, art ........... totally unrelated stuff.

So as to be as clear as I possibly can, my question is how to create multiple accounts per social media website for business promotional purposes of multiple branded products and services, that allows a single brand name per account that meets each social media website's criteria on name usage (ref filtered/blocked/profane words etc) and so the brand name never has to be changed or modified to fit everywhere's differing criteria, where the account 'sign up' or "at the very least" the final user account relates visibly to all users to a brand name and not an individuals name nor shows in any way an individuals name?

I hope someone understands and can say how this is possible (or not), or you can via the following social media sites only etc. I am NOT looking to soundcloud, reverbnation or similar sites. I am looking at Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, Tumblr, Instagram, WhatsApp, vk.com and the like.

Thanks

[john]

Hey Justin

According to their TOS no. If you ignore it, you can have all your accounts removed, which if you have put a lot of effort into growing, would be deeply upsetting.

What you can do is to create Facebook pages. Pages are for companies, bands, public personalities etc. From one base FB account you can have many pages. Once you post there your own name is visible.

what might be less of a risk of exposure is paramount, is to create pages with your core account, and where necessity dictates it, use other accounts to post to that page. You can make other accounts page admins or page editors or posters etc, possibly something that could be experimented with.

if something really is that toxic, to be associated with you, it may not be the best of directions

cheers

John

[justsoulin]

Hi John, thanks for the reply. Sorry if I've led you up a garden path. Nothing is toxic, I just want to create individualism for a set of unrelated brands rather than people connect the brands because of a single 'personal' users name - causing confusion, mistrust and other negative feelings. It's like if you were an internet marketer (ahem - you wish lol) - which I'm only using as an example - and you were driving traffic to one product under one brand name, but you also had 10 other products in various fields unrelated that you created a brand name for each and driving traffic to them also, but then your customers 'somehow' discovered that all the spiel you wrote about belief in your 'one' product is just spiel because you say the same in all your adverts that they've now come across. Complete loss of trust and no sales. This is my concern with the likes of FB and a single personal user account (and I appreciate others may not understand my concern, but for me and the plans I have in mind, it is crucial).

So there's nothing toxic, I just want to know 110% that I can manage separate brands through say FB that online viewers & customers won't be able to discover that all the brands relate to me ........... until I am in a position where it will be useful to do so, if that time ever comes down the road.

I am reading that specifically with FB, through opening a personal account, my 'vague' understanding of how it currently works is that you can then create 'individual' 'business' pages that come under the name you want it to, such as a brand. The one thing I am unclear about is would my 'personal account name' also appear anywhere, such as on posts or blogs (as the author perhaps) or anywhere else on such a page related only to business?

Creating an FB or Twitter etc account is purely for online promotion of 'a' brand, regardless of whether the product and/or service takes them to my website made purely for 'that' brand or a 3rd party reseller's website to make a purchase. Saying that, I am learning the necessity of such 'business' accounts requiring considerable work to get them to perform etc and what this entails.

So my post is totally focusing on how do I manage to market and promote through online media sites multiple, unrelated, branded products and services 'individually' (so they are seen as a single entity through the brand name and not an FB personal users name), if they only allow a single 'personal' and not business orientated type of account?

[justsoulin]

ROFL Mr HS. That is definite progress for you :) I'm looking at that link and also googling like mad too. But most folks have a single brand with either one product or multiple products under it. I want it the other (seemingly unusual) way. Multiple brands, one product.

That link is excellent sir - mwahhh.

Quote (from Facebook Help Team): "The blue bar at the top of your browser is simply Facebook's toolbar. It isn't public facing, so people won't be able to see your personal name on your actual Facebook business Page." end Quote

[justsoulin]

3 minutes ago, tunesmithth said:

You may find this a useful supplement - http://forums.songstuff.com/blogs/entry/1330-little-known-facebook-facts/

I'm afraid that dual ID is unavoidable with Facebook. Twitter and some of the others are NOT set up that way, but Facebook IS. Believe me when I tell you Facebook does NOT want your personal profile behaving-as, or promoting like a businesses page. I have first-hand experience in that area (*long story & perhaps a blog article someday).

Tom

I never want to use my 'personal' page on FB EVER Tom lol. Since all social media sites outside of 'here' are blocked other than by using a veepeennnn, I feel incredibly lucky to never have gotten caught up in the FB/Twitter etc revolution - phew. I've better things to do with my time

I read that post of yours, very relevant and interesting, if I understand it correctly that is.

Seems 'likely' that FB would 'like' to stop business's from giving some 'unlikely' lowly paid assistant the 'likeliest' job of 'liking' everybody they can on FB. I 'dislike' their deceptiveness though! LOL

Thanks Tom, always good info b)

[justsoulin]

I'm seeing both sides here guys and there must be a legal standing somewhere that since "I" am not an FB user, "I" have not given any rights to FB to follow 'its' contract, so it cannot carte blanche do what it wants with my property, supposedly, surely not? Since I have not given my permission for FB to do so, since I have not entered into any form of contract directly with FB.

But then Tom's suggestion that someone coming to my soundcloud acct, seeing my song and thinking that's good, let me help share the love and tweet and like and anything else I can do, "my" stuff accesses these other sites through "my" SC account even without "my" permission, because it's part of SC's service to connect to social media for you to promote yourself etc. So does that now mean FB and 'the likes (no pun intended)' now do have carte blanche, and is there anything within the TOC that states any video, photo etc etc that is placed on FB's servers from 3rd parties by it's users is not the responsibility of FB? They'll surely have a very strong legal standing here so as to avoid people like "me" suing the hell out of them for copyright - don't you think?

Makes things very unclear and difficult to maintain property rights etc.

 

You guys have a Happy Thanksgiving 'over there'. And David, good off topic veering

[john]

"For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy andapplication settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it. "

Most sites have clauses like this, because otherwise they couldn't distribute your songs, photos or text. The FB rights as I understand them ( I have a plain English explanation of rights I can refer to):

non-exclusive - speaks for itself, your contract with them means that they don't have sole rights to your content. Without this their site would be unusable because no one would want FB to have sole rights, at least unless they paid you!

transferrable - more of an issue, in that they can give partners permissions to use your content. This is generally intended to give them a free hand with promotion.

sub-licensable - definitely more of an issue, they can grant licenses for the same permissions to others (but only for the permissions that you grant them). Yet again this relates to free promotion of content, but is less of a restriction. I suspect that this relates to what they do with data you create and the demographics and more that is derived from your activities.

royalty free - they owe you no money

worldwide - they can distribute it all over the world (kinda necessary for a website that can be accessed all over the world).

Indeed Songstuff has to have similar permissions (though we have no sublicense component and our permissions are different. Plus we restrict our permissions) I am a firm believer in only getting the permissions you need. Big websites like FB tend to go for a carte blanche so that they get permissions for everything, just in case. That said, it does leave it open to abuse should the site be so inclined. They put these rights  together, knowing that the majority of people click through without reading and without understanding. Of course courts understand that, and as a result often courts overturn or reduce the impact of clauses... but lets face it, few will go to such lengths and corporations know it.

Interestingly, I have more of an issue with "license to use any IP content". "Use" does not specify any specific usage, which is as flexible as it gets (which could leave the way for a legal challenge, but then FB lawyers are lawyers, and no doubt at the top of their game. I'm a legal dufus). "Any" of course is as flexible as it gets. They are two small words, right next to each other, but each word and both together have hugs implications.

I had 10 mins free. Gone now, just thought I'd pitch that into the middle and watch the ripples lol

[john]

I'd be interested in how SoundCloud, YouTube and tune-smith permissions differ. Certainly YouTube permissions used to be very broad.

In truth they should only need permissions relating to distribution and limited uses of derivative works (to allow them to perform edits for promo, or indeed to adapt using compression etc) for themselves and partner sites (for example, by posting the SoundCloud player we are effectively a partner site. Same goes for YouTube videos.)

[justsoulin]

Limiting it as you say for what they need to do makes a lot of sense John. TOS's or TOU's always have "that" clause that they can alter terms at any time without notice etc allows them to change things should 'use' change in the future. So a much reduced contract should suffice to say you grant them the right to use any of the content you post or publish for the use (not any use) of being able to show it throughout their network (with a paragraph stating what is included in their network inc. 3rd parties) to other users within their network and for the purpose of promotion. Job done - should be.

[justsoulin]

I've been digging around the net and I find that upto about a year ago, a lot of FB users were up in arms with FB over their personal account showing up through business pages and business pages showing up via their personal account in their friends updates etc.

Now whether nothing needed doing because all the settings were already there to separate personal & business - just the instructions were unintelligible to most people - or FB have 'quietly' changed things since then because despite my seeing just a small corner of the unhappy 'likers', there seemed little indication of any FB service/help feedback to help these people fix things, just left them stewing with what they considered was an impossible situation, which bodes as a good indicator of FB's commitment to its users and not the advertisement sales (I'm being facetious & sarcastic there  ).

But there is for me a happy ending , because I've discovered what looks like the way to setup an account (personal) and then add what FB call 'pages' that you elect to use for business purposes, whether one page or as many pages as you want (which for me = multiple brand names = plural), and ensure that they are separated. I'm not saying it's a simple straight forward process, as many people before me seem to have discovered & messed up their personal account in the process. But there does seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

However, despite trying to look at FB's 'bigger picture' business model of rounding up & driving the buffalo into the dead end valley and then allowing the online marketeers to get their 12 bores out and pick 'em off (I'm gunless at the moment ahem) in order for FB to now make a s**t load of money from it (which I can't believe was ever the intention of FB - dammit, facetiousness and sarcasm pouring out again), people's day to day lives don't seem to coalesce very well with the way they've set up the business side access that seems to cause people all kinds of issues.

Example A is where a secretary, a friend, a member of a band etc is asked to setup a 'page' on behalf of your company, charity, church group, band etc, which they must do through their own personal account, and that page for admin purposes is then locked and linked to them FULL STOP. Yes that person can grant various levels of access to other people (who themselves must have a personal account and then like your page before you can grant them access) to help work on and with the page. But if they (the page creator) leave, you've lost it basically (I can't find anything to say the opposite as in yes you can transfer it everything over to another persons personal account, all the blogs etc you've built up through 'that page', likes, followers - it's all gone, allllllllll gone).

Example B is where your business name = your personal name. Seems to cause issues when people are trying to find you, your business etc. Perhaps you think to make your personal page into your business page. Big mistake.

I came across a number of other 'similar' examples that make life difficult for folks, but unfortunately I've run out of typing time.

At the end of the day, do your homework and find out how to set things up correctly. And if all fails, there are folks out there you can pay to set it up, manage it and blog away for you - through your personal account and not theirs I hasten to add!

[justsoulin]

Hiya Tom, I know what you're saying, but for what I intend to do, I need to do some digging and this is only a part of the whole, but a big part that if I don't get it, the rest can fail. Too important for me to blunder through m8. I'm not doing this to socialise. I have zero social media accounts for good reason, and I now have to have them all and make them work in synergy, based on both a short term and long term plan. Perhaps that's where you're seeing things as unnecessary by not seeing firsthand the plan I need to follow, or we simply differ in our approaches.

But anyway, I do appreciate you kicking me up the arse and telling me to just get on with it FFS

The last post I made was one for other anti-social bastards like me who find they need a social media account on FB suddenly I'll keep adding to as I find other inconsistencies etc.

[justsoulin]

 

BTW - the guitar stuff is slowly coming along, fingers getting less painful bit by bit lol.

[justsoulin]

Just saw that - Tom your advice is always 1st rate and always based on your personal experience - thanks.

*BTW I've run my employers entire online presence for about 3 1/2 years now. That includes primary corporate website, Facebook page & profile, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Craigslist, Ebay, Indeed, etc. Point is....I do have a little hands-on experience with these platforms, so I'm not giving ou advice I read somewhere. These suggestions are based on personal experience.

[BlackHoleGravity]

Yes, FB wants you to create pages for various business ventures that stray from your personal profile...getting people to visit is obviously the hard part, so FB pushes paid advertising or page/post ads. These days it seems that if you don't have a ton of followers/views etc...it doesn't really matter how good the music is. Not sure which is harder, creating a large social media following, or creating good music...it seems both are a full time job!!