Part III. Conclusion
A company’s e-reputation (i.e. the image that web users have of the company) turns out to be both a marketing matter and a legal matter. Throughout its presence on the Internet, it is essential for the company both to build (and maintain) its e-reputation and to defend it if necessary.
We have seen that the building of a company’s e-reputation depends first and foremost on communication, whether unilateral or bilateral, whether stemming from the company itself or from third parties. Channels of communication include websites, blogs and microblogs (such as Twitter and sector-specific blogs), social networks (such as Pinterest, Facebook and LinkedIn), discussion boards and content communities (e.g. YouTube).
To date, there is no Belgian law ‘on e-communication’ or ‘relating to social media’. It is therefore important to examine the general rules on advertising and commercial practices. Often, e-communication will be considered as advertising and will therefore have to comply with requirements of identifiability and transparency and avoid being considered as an unfair, misleading or aggressive commercial practice. Moreover, if the e-communication is meant for minors, refers to competitors or comprises audio-visual elements, the company must be pay close attention to the applicable rules. In addition to this analysis of the content of e-communication, the company must also be mindful of the means of communication it uses, to avoid seeing its messages on social networks be considered as spam (unsolicited advertising by electronic mail). Finally, ‘tell-a-friend’ practices such as ‘Likes’ on Facebook, ‘reTweets’ on Twitter and ‘share’ links on websites raise interesting legal issues, as do rewards offered to web users to increase website traffic.
Though the law can often restrict the brilliant ideas of marketers, an assessment of the legal risks associated with the implementation of these ideas enables a company to properly on the means it will use to build its e-reputation.
Next to this, we have also examined the means of defending a company’s e-reputation. To be able to defend its e-reputation, a company must obviously first monitor what web users say about it on the Internet. As it is highly likely that a company will one day come face to face with the spreading of negative messages in its regard, it is paramount that the company know in advance the various means of action available in response to such a message. This will allow the company to adopt a graduated response strategy.
Whether at the stage of building or defending a company’s e-reputation, it is paramount that the response come promptly. For this reason, it is important for a company to put in place an effective commercial and legal strategy for its e-communication.